Clearance: Rofco B20 Brick Bread Oven

Made in Belgium, Rofco electric brick ovens offer the home baking enthusiast a line of genuine brick ovens with space-friendly footprints, cleanly and conveniently powered by electricity. Available in models with one, two or three baking shelves made of 1-3/8" thick Chamotte firebrick stone, the Rofco oven's vertical design takes up very little space, so there's room for a Rofco electric brick oven in virtually any kitchen.

Rofco ovens bring the major baking advantages of masonry baking to the modern age. Also known as retained-heat ovens or stone bread ovens, masonry ovens store a great amount of heat energy in their brick or stone construction before food is introduced. Energy is then released to the food by conductive, radiant, and convective transfer. A conventional kitchen oven uses only convection (air circulation), which is far less effective than the conductive (direct contact) and radiant (like the sun's rays) heat-transfer modes that a brick oven uses to produce such superior baking results. Of all the techniques, tools and gadgets available to bakers, none is as effective as a brick bread oven at delivering professional-level results in your kitchen.

A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE

World renowned restaurants prefer masonry ovens for the superior texture and incredible depth of flavor they create in foods. Bread and pizza results are simply spectacular.

Once bread dough is slipped onto the baking surface of a brick oven, baking time is about half that of a conventional oven. Steam is sealed in by the Rofco’s silicone-gasketed door, maintaining humidity that promotes a rapid dough-rising burst called oven spring, as heat transfers rapidly by direct contact (conduction) with the thick Chamotte stone the dough rests on.

Available steam trays can be used in each baking chamber. Water is poured into these trays. Filled with sections of stainless steel rod, they instantly release large volumes of steam exactly as the steam injection system does in a commercial deck oven. When dough rising is complete, vents in the Rofco’s door can be opened to allowing steam to escape for the last phase of baking. Penetrating radiant heat combines with the Rofco oven’s ideal humidity to form a caramelized crust that’s delightfully crunchy with satisfying chew and deep, complex flavor. Meanwhile an open, tender crumb structure is developed throughout the interior of the loaf by the perfectly even heating that only a brick oven provides. Optional steam trays can be purchased here.

OH THE PIZZA, THE PIZZZZZA!

Do you like pizza at all? We love pizza. Deep dish, or with a thin, crispy crust, we love it all. What we didn't love was the chasm that used to exist between what came from the super-hot brick ovens of our favorite pizzerias, and the sad and soggy results from our conventional home ovens. Those disappointments are behind us now, because the Rofco is full-fledged pizzeria-class. Perfectly crisp thin crusts. Perfectly bubbly cheese. Perfectly roasted meats and veggies. Perfectly. Awesome. Pizza.

ROFCO = BEST OF OLD + NEW

For thousands of years, building up the all-surrounding heat needed to perform such culinary magic meant starting a wood fire inside your masonry oven, letting the fire eventually die out, then scraping out the smoking ash and mopping the oven’s floor so you could put your dough in. Also, retaining enough heat to last through one or more baking cycles required a structure that could weigh a thousand pounds or more. Those aren't characteristics that incorporate well into a contemporary home kitchen. The modern conventional oven solved the fire-building and massive bulk problems, but traded away food-heating qualities that mankind had enjoyed for millennia.

Rofco ovens combine modern technology with all the best qualities of the traditional retained-heat brick oven, for sublime baking results without the wood, fire, smoke, ash, soot, and massive surrounding structure. Your dough doesn't know (or care) how the wonderful heat that it receives from your brick oven was created, and the Rofco creates its heat with the cleanliness and convenience of electricity. Two thermostatically-controlled heating circuits allow you produce all the heat you want, with all the convenience you need.

You've heard the expression that you can't have your cake and eat it too. No doubt you've also heard that there's an exception to every rule, and Rofco brick ovens are that exception. You actually can have a brick oven right in your home kitchen, that isn't huge, doesn't require chopped trees or make ash, doesn't smoke or require a vent through your roof, and makes the best bread and other baked goods on the planet.

Structurally, the Rofco oven gets its form and strength from a robust stainless steel cabinet, and a half-ton of extra stone mass is now replaced by the marvel of rock wool insulation. Made by spinning fibers from molten minerals, rock wool resists temperatures of over 2000° F. (hotter than your Rofco will get!). This industrial-grade rock wool also has excellent insulating efficiency. Thick, high density rock wool insulation board fills the walls and door of the Rofco oven, keeping heat contained in the thick stone baking surfaces of the oven where it works its wonders on your bread and other baked goods. And while those wonders are taking place, you can watch the show through your Rofco’s viewing window, illuminated by an interior lamp.

BAKES EVERYTHING BETTER

The magic of a Rofco electric brick oven is by no means limited to bread and pizza! Roasted meats, steak, vegetables, casseroles, pies. You name it, the omni-directional, multimode heating of the Rofco brick oven bakes everything much, much better.

Think about how the baking results from a microwave oven compare to those from a conventional oven. Atrocious, right? The whole reason for the dramatic difference is the unevenness of the microwave’s heating action. Now consider the fact that draftiness—which is a fair description of convection-only heating—is how conventional ovens are actually designed to work. Drafty is the opposite of even heating. A retained-heat electric brick oven, on the other hand, which bakes principally with direct-contact and penetrating radiant heat, provides the ultimate in evenness. So just imagine an oven that’s as much better than a conventional oven, as the the conventional oven is better than a microwave. That's what it's like to bake with a Rofco brick oven. In short, it's baking nirvana.

BRICK OR STONE, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MASS

The high-mass masonry of a retained heat oven works equally well whether the construction is stone or fire brick. So just to clarify any confusion, if you've heard about the baking characteristics of a brick or stone bread oven, the results are identical with either. Rofco ovens are retained-heat masonry ovens that provide the same superior culinary results as wood-fired masonry ovens, but with the convenience of clean electric heat generation.

ELECTRICAL AND SITING

Rofco brick ovens use common 230V single phase power, and come with a 6-20P cord-end plug. 230V power is the same as conventional electric ovens and cooktops use, so all kitchens are wired for 230V power. Depending on how your kitchen is wired now, and where you want to site your Rofco brick oven, you may need to have an additional 230V 6-20R receptacle installed. You're also free to locate your clean-running Rofco oven anywhere else in your home, even including your garage if that works best for you. Rofco ovens do not need to be kept or operated in a heated space. The only siting requirement is that 1.2" of space needs to be maintained between the oven and other surfaces. Rofco ovens require no venting.

ACCESSORIES

Steam trays are the ideal way to introduce steam in your baking process. Not merely empty vessels, Rofco steam trays are filled with heavy stainless rods that store a large amount of heat energy for rapid and complete steam release; order one for each shelf where you want to use supplemental steam. Depending on the kind of bread you're making, using steam at the right stage of baking can deliver the perfect crust qualities you want.

You can put any kind of dough directly onto the stones in the Rofco oven, but if you'd prefer to keep oils and sugars off your stones, blued-steel baking trays and woven glass mats (the same kind used in commercial bakeries) come standard.

ROFCO BRICK OVENS FOR MICRO-BAKERIES

Rofco brick ovens are often used in micro-bakeries, and Rofco recognizes that starting on a shoestring to avoid the higher cost of a commercial deck oven can be a smart startup move. Rofco ovens carry a domestic-use warranty, so please be aware that any breakdowns that occur under the heavier stresses of commercial use will be out-of-warranty. PHG carries repair parts as well as consumable items like light bulbs, and we're here to help with the needs of all Rofco users whether your oven is under warranty or not, and whether you're using it for commercial or personal use. Rofco ovens are well built and durable. Pleasant Hill Grain is the exclusive U.S. Rofco distributor, and we can attest that service issues are few and far-between.

ROFCO IS A QUANTUM BAKING LEAP

Of all the techniques, tools and gadgets available to bakers, none is as effective as a brick bread oven at delivering professional-level results in your kitchen. Our Rofco customers never tell us they regret purchasing a Rofco oven, only that they wish they'd done it sooner!

Questions? Please call 866-467-6123. We'd be happy to talk with you about a Rofco oven or any of your baking needs.

Do you need a commercial deck oven? We also offer German-made Häussler commercial electric stone bread ovens: Häussler INO 2004 oven and Häussler's INO 2006-series ovens, as well as the new British-made RackMaster RM2020 oven.