RedBeard Historic Bakery

Background

The RedBeard Bakery uses the Scotch oven from Trentham’s original bakery. Scotch ovens were once the most common commercial ovens in Australia. Scottish engineers built them throughout the British Empire for over 200 years. Only a few Scotch ovens remain because by the 1950s most had been bought and destroyed by the large flour millers to eliminate competition for their new supermarket breads. RedBeard’s working oven is a rare and remarkable remnant of baking history.

Scotch ovens are traditional woodfired commercial bakers’ ovens. A Scotch oven has an arched ceiling, a fire box on one side of the main chamber and a flue on the opposite side. The oven’s shell comprises massive layers of brick and sand. The layers are tied together with steel rods so they can contract and expand without pulling apart. A Scotch oven stores heat wonderfully well in its massive masonry structure. The fire is extinguished before baking commences and the bread is bathed in deep and even heat that is gradually released by the bricks and sand.

History

Brothers John Reid (1) and Alan Reid built on a long bakery tradition in Trentham when they established the RedBeard Bakery in 2005. The name RedBeard was chosen for the business because the surname Reid comes from a Scottish clan known for their red hair and beards.

The RedBeard Bakery uses the Scotch oven from Trentham’s original bakery. The oven was used continuously from 1891 to 1987. The first Trentham baker, John Wolff, mixed and shaped all his doughs by hand and fired the oven with local timber. Little changed in the next 100 years, as John was followed by bakers Charlie Rook, his son Jack Rook, and finally Jack Groves, who died from a heart attack on the job in 1986. His family tried to keep the bakery going, but could not compete with the factory-made bread found in today's supermarkets.

The bakery lay dormant for nearly two decades until Adrian Kosky from Daylesford undertook an extensive renovation that created space for a café. This breathed new life into the property. The oven was in surprisingly good condition. Only the floor needed replacing and the original cast-iron doors had to be found and refitted. John and Alan Reid discovered the renovated bakery in 2005 and instantly saw its potential for producing large volumes of high quality sourdough bread and other delights.

Works Produced

The RedBeard Bakery produces sourdough bread which is leavened (fermented) with a natural, wild culture of yeasts and healthy bacteria. Bakers’ yeast, preservatives or other additives are not used. The loaves are certified organic, shaped by hand and baked in a woodfired oven.

Around 6000 years ago, the Egyptians discovered how to make bread rise using natural fermentation. Ever since, bakers have kept a brew of fermenting flour and water called a leaven, or baker’s ‘wort’. RedBeard’s wort was created around two decades ago from wild yeast and lactose bacteria harvested from potato skins – a traditional Scottish technique. The yeast and bacteria produce bubbles of carbon dioxide, which make dough rise when trapped in its stretchy gluten structure.

Doughs made from wheat, spelt and rye flours contain gluten - an elastic protein molecule. The stretchy gluten traps bubbles of carbon dioxide during fermentation of the dough. This gives bread a lovely texture, but gluten can be difficult for some people to digest. Authentic sourdoughs like RedBeard’s are leavened (fermented) with a culture of natural wild yeasts and lactose bacteria. This process takes many hours, during which time, up to 90% of the gluten is broken down.

The People

John Wolff

Charlie Rook

Jack Rook

Jack Groves

Adrian Kosky

John Reid

Alan Reid

See also

Trentham

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