Interactive lesson

Sač and bread oven, step by step

Interactive lesson: the hearth and safety, firewood and embers, bread under a sač, firing a bread oven, measuring the heat and the order of one firing.

Free sample Chapters 1 and 2 (8 steps) are free. The full lesson comes with the Baking under a sač and in a bread oven module. Already bought? Unlock

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The whole lesson as text

1. Hearth and safety

A sač needs a flat, fireproof hearth and a place where the fire can't escape.

Sač and crepulja — A sač is a bell of cast iron, steel or clay, ∅ 40–60 cm. A crepulja is a shallow clay dish, ∅ 30–45 cm, in which bread bakes under the sač. No sač? A lidded cast-iron Dutch oven works on the same principle.
A flat hearth — Stone slabs, brick or firebrick tiles, roughly 1 × 1 m, slightly raised off the ground.
A place outdoors — Away from hay, the woodshed, sheds and wooden walls, sheltered from strong wind. Keep children and animals away from the hearth.
Ready to put it out — A bucket of water or sand, an extinguisher and a shovel. For yourself: leather gauntlets to the elbow, a long hook and cotton clothing.

Why: Don't bake on bare earth or grass: damp cools the bread and grass burns. Embers produce carbon monoxide even when there is no flame, so a sač indoors without a chimney is never an option.

Indoors only on a hearth with a sound chimney inspected by a sweep, with a CO alarm by the hearth.
Headache, nausea and drowsiness near the fire mean: get outside at once and call 999 or 112 (UK, IE) or 911 (US, CA).

2. Firewood and embers

A sač needs lots of embers, not flame.

Hardwood — Beech, hornbeam, oak and ash (in North America also hickory and maple) burn long and give lots of embers. Fruit wood and vine prunings give a good smell and good embers.
Resinous and varnished — Pine, spruce and fir only for kindling. Varnished, painted and treated wood, chipboard and plywood give toxic smoke: never, not even for kindling.
Dry wood — Below 20 % moisture, seasoned under cover for at least a year. In the UK, “Ready to Burn” labelled wood meets this.
Thin for the oven — For a bread oven, splits 3–8 cm thick and 33–50 cm long: they flare quickly and heat the dome.

Why: Wet wood smokes, cools the oven and sticks soot to the dome. Dry hardwood burns down to embers that are enough both for under the sač and for covering it.

One sač bake uses roughly 8–15 kg of wood, depending on the wind and the size of the sač.
Poplar, willow and lime burn fast: they are good only for heating a bread oven quickly at the start.