Cooking costs

Langkawilady

I apologise if you think this a silly question but to make a sourdough you have to reheat the oven for an hour on 230 fan oven. Can anyone tell me roughly how much it would cost. My partner says it would cost a fortune. Is he right please. Or how can I find out. Many thanks. 

tim_p

If it was a 3kW oven and was on for an hour and assuming your electricity costs 15p / kWh then you’d be looking at 45p ...BUT the oven won’t be on for the full hour, probably nothing like as once it gets up to temp (ours would take around 10 minutes to get to 230) the stat will turn it off and it’ll come back on once the temp drops below 230. Watch the red light and you’ll see how often it is actually on. I’d guess it would cost less than 15p based on the above figures.  Obviously depends on the efficiency of your oven though. Why not bake a loaf and sit and time how long the red light stays on. Also check the actual rating of your oven as ours is supposedly 2.2kW so costing even less. 

JGB1955

According to How much electricity am I using? | Centre for Sustainable Energy (cse.org.uk) the cost for an hour would be around 30p.  It should take around 15 minutes to get up to temperature - so less than 10p for the preheat.

Langkawilady

Many thanks for your replies.  I can now make a sourdough loaf in a Dutch Oven 

JGB1955

Langkawilady said:

Many thanks for your replies.  I can now make a sourdough loaf in a Dutch Oven 

I've had to google Dutch Oven and now realise I have a couple of them already - but never thought about making bread in them.

tastyhog

You don't have to preheat, I make all kinds of bread, sourdough and yeasted and mostly put them in a cold Dutch oven and in to a cold oven and they always come out fine, I tend to so 210 for 45 minutes, take the lid off and brown at -180 for 10-15 minutes

You're pretty much giving it a final prove when starting off cold and the crust takes longer to form so you get a better rise.