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Excellent review! I’ve been using mine for a couple months and love nearly everything about it. Fortunately my oven is wide enough to move the second loaf to the side (onto the bottom of my challenger) so I’ve immediately cut my overall baking time in half which is great given I usually do 6-8 loaves at once. Like you I do a 50 minute bake for a nice dark color. My back also appreciates not needing to lift a heavy dutch oven or the challenger lid. The one design flaw is the handle on the hatch isn’t deep enough and so I struggle to get a solid grip on it when opening with my heatproof gloves and I’ve come close to dropping it on my oven door a time or two.

I purchase their wood peel and it’s so much easier to load and unload the bread. I also found the door cumbersome. I was so scared it would fall off and break the glass on my oven door. It hasn’t happened….but it doesn’t feel real secure. Loved your review.

Improvise, adapt, overcome! Truly the baker’s creed.

Thank you for the video. Very well done as always. Personally I achieve the same or nearly the same result with a turkey roaster placed upside down on a pizza stone. Total cost about $50 which leaves me plenty of cash to spend on flour! In addition to all other benefits, for example alternative use of the equipment, it is very light. I don’t understand why I would want to load the oven shelf with 10Kg plus the weight of the dough every time that I want to bake a loaf.

Thanks for the great video, used your link to purchase my Fourneau Grande, I bake every weekend, so I think it's worth it. CHEERS

Thanks for all the great content. I would love to see you bake some baguettes in this.

Great review. Thanks. A bit expensive for me. I use both a Lodge Combo and a Lodge Dutch oven and love them both. I feel a bit safer dealing with the Dutch oven.

I'll stick to my dutch oven. It's even more versatile than the two other products mentioned at the end. This bread oven just seems like a gimmick. It's main selling points are aesthetics and boastability (i.e., can tell others you own one), but it doesn't produce noticeably nicer looking or better tasting bread.

Excellent review Sune .. I would like to offer a couple of observations not covered .. I bake on a baking stone and find I get the best performance by situating as close as possible to the bottom heat source .. convection is poor at providing that initial thermal boost necessary for a good oven spring .. The other benefit of placing the Fourneau lower down means there is space to place par baked loaves to bake while the Fourneau is used for the next loaf in the batch .. Secondly, provided a baking stone is heated to the correct temperature it's a better surface on which to bake bread .. Cast iron dutch ovens with their lids are great for mimicking a sealed bread oven environment but they can fall foul of getting too hot and burning the underside of loaves .. I have a combo cooker, I use it occasionally just to change things up, but for me cast iron is really just for intermediate level bakers .. it's not something an advanced bakers needs, provided they know how to set up their oven correctly, and take the time to understand a little about thermodynamics .. On the subject of water .. that was very confusing and strange .. the point of the cast iron cloche is to trap steam that is being baked out of the dough .. you didn't show the underside of the loaves baked but I am not too confident they fare well in such close proximity to steam and water .. better to use a spray bottle to mist the interior of the cloche after loading, or mimic the Rofco approach with a small metal container of hot water .. assuming there is room .. One other benefit not mentioned .. with the Forneau, the baking stone can be used free-form for other baking applications .. I am not in the market for a Forneau, but if they could at least price match the Challenger, that would be my recommendation for beginners looking to easily up their bread game to intermediate ..

Good experiment! I have one and don't care for it for a few different reasons then you mentioned. I feel stones do not get hot enough and are poor conductors of heat compared to steels. My open bakes on a steel with steam are noticeably better. The silicone mat also melted onto the bottom of several loaves. It was obvious due to the shiny sheen on them. I agree the handle is wonky and when transferring a 1kg loaf feels unstable.

I do love mine! (I still keep a round ceramic cloche for round large loaves.) For no knead and wetter doughs, or grains that have less gluten structure, I made an aluminum ring, bottomless and topless, in the oval shape of the bread using rivets to create the oval, 2.25" high, 10" long, and 6" wide constraint ring, rather like a bottomless pan. I proof these wet doughs right on the tray with parchment paper inside the homemade ring. I coat the ring with my standard squeeze bottle 50/50 mix of high temp oil and liquid lecithin so the bread doesn't stick to the ring. (Nothing sticks to that liquid lecithin surface... nothing in baking or cooking!) I get a nice, high loaf from those wet doughs/sticky grains; the dough doesn't spread out and make a flat loaf, the one downside about those doughs. I let them cool longer to get rid of more moisture. And, because I'm proofing right on the tray, you retain that shape of thsoe delicate doughs without having to transfer the proof to the tray that results in loss of volume. With the Forneau I get wonderful, mouthwatering high, toastable sandwich sized slices with great outer crust from those kinds of doughs. Would be great to have Forneau produce such rings with a high heat, non-stick surface. For now I'm happy with the homemade ring and the lecithin coating. And the Forneau oven!

I have been using the Fourneau for close to a year now. It was a bit of a learning curve at first as I have used dutch ovens for years. I LOVE my Fourneau! My loaves are much crisper and more professional looking. I attribute it to the cast iron and high temp. And I can bake twice as many loaves. I agree about the handle…I am on a quest to find a better set of baking mitts that aren’t as thick so I can feel the handle better when I am lifting it off and putting it back on. Fourneau….your next product??? It takes practice but once you use it a few times you will never regret the investment. Btw I learned to bake bread when I was a young girl from my Great Aunt Jenny who came to the US from France. I started making sourdough for the first time when my children were just babies. My oldest is now 43. I love your videos!

I bought a Forneau oven on Kickstarter. At first I was not happy as I had been using two dutch ovens so I could bake two breads at one time. I also found the baking trays and handles fidgety. I did not like the way the bottom of my loaf turned out with the tray. I eventually procured a metal peel that is the same size as the tray and switched to using the peel with my bread on parchment. Much better. The loaf is in direct contact with the baking stone. I have a 30" wide oven so I can put a Misen steel next to the Forneau, letting me finish the bake on the steel. Now I am much happier with the Forneau and it is my usual baking method. Much less maintenance than the dutch ovens and easier to manipulate. The breads brown better on the steel than they do in the dutch oven with the lid off.

Really enjoy your reviews and tests. Keep up the good work

USD 325 is the price in the US. For Europeans, we would have to add shipping + VAT + customs fees. Might be cheaper to buy a new oven with steam injection?

Not bread related, but I made a really great whole spelt puff pastry and I used half of it to make pizza cups and cinnamon caramel cups with a muffin tin

Given the shape of the oven it would be interesting to crank up the temperature to 300°C if your oven goes that high and make a Neapolitan pizza. It should get proper radiating heat all over.

Personally, I'll stick with my countertop Anova combi oven, though it costs twice as much. It has convection and broiler heating, plus a steam boiler used to inject steam to control humidity. As a bonus it can hold temperature within 1.5 (F) degrees for sous vide style cooking without the bag/water immersion, and has enough room to cook a 15 lb / 6.8 k bird. Most people seem to be using a cooking stone or steel with it for bread, I use the lid of a cast iron Dutch pot, which has a fry pan style handle and works like a stone I can preheat then slide out of the oven to move the loaf in or out.

Nice. If I didn't own a challenger pan I'd consider it for sure. I'd say it's superior to the challenger pan in that it can be used by people with disabilities. Good review.

Thanks Sune! Just purchased one, can't wait to use it. Love the assembly line process, will definitely make bake day more efficient. And thanks for the discount code!

Cheapo Alternative: IKEA Buren Glass dish, ideal for a batarde and costs 30$. Also great for potato gratin. :)

A fanning metal japanese drop lid placed upside down on a low sitting round trivet will enable water space for steam in a dutch oven. Best with a baking paper insert to lift the bread when cooked.

@10:18 you only held up 4 fingers when saying 5. I'm really paying attention. 🤣

How does it compare to the Challenger in terms of practical internal baking size? I have the Challenger, which is really well made, but recent back surgery has made lifting the Challenger more of a “challenge.” I like the idea of separate components but also worry about depending on a breakable stone. Thanks for your video!

I have a Dutch oven and the challenger. The good side of this is you can make longer baguettes

I bake two loaves at a time using two side by side Dutch ovens (one ceramic, one cast iron), so I have no need for this oven. What I would love to see are options for pro or semi pro baking ovens for the home that would allow more than two loaves to be baked at once.

Hello, great video as usual! I’m surprised about the silicon mate though, since it isolates it from the baking stone and hence limits the heat transfer. Could you try without the silicon mate and/or the extra tray? And also just opening the lid without taking it out for the second part?

I was dead set on getting a challenger but this has me questioning it. Will this replace your challenger in most of your videos going forward?

thanks

I found this recently but it was too costly. I just got a Brisbane sourdough pan max as I want to do longer loaves than my Lodge can accommodate but was on a budget. I’ve changed my workflow a little but the loaves are good.

Would have been interesting to have a tracing of your oven temperatures throughout this process. Seems like a LOT of opening of the oven door meaning the temperature likely wasn't staying stable at all.

How is this compared to the challenger ?

Well done video! I like the look and functionality of the Fourneau bread oven, but agree that it's a big expense. So question, you must have received two baking sheets with your Fourneau? Why remove the steamed-baked bread from its baking sheet before putting it underneath the Fourneau for browning? Would be so easy to just shuffle the sheets, and less time with the oven door opened. I'd be interested to see if it's necessary to remove the bread from the sheet to get it to brown as you'd like: Experiment Time? What about the cover for the Fourneau? I was concerned that it looked a bit unstable, like it might fall off if you didn't get it seated well. And lastly, when Four=Five at 10:18 . :-)

I wonder how dough conditioners affect the handleability and final texture of a dough

You started with a cold oven and didn’t affect the results? I hate expending gas for a half hour of heating up.

I have two Challenger Bakeware pots. They both fit into my electric oven together as well as my wood fired oven. This allows me to bake two loaves at once. With nearly a $600 investment, I'm very happy with the Challenge Bakeware pots.

QUESTION: I like the concept of putting water inside the baking vessel as the bread is baking. Is it possible (or have you tried it) to put a small metal cup of water inside the Bread Challenger as it is baking?

Have you ever heard of a ROFCO bread oven? I was thinking about one of those for a business venture.

I noticed you use a banneton with the cloth under it, whereas you use it on the straw with a plastic bag in other videos. What is the difference?

oh how much does this Fourneau weights? It seems the grid is a little bit bent ^^

Curious to see how well it would do a pizza

Where did you get that shirt?

This must require a passion for bread because it seems incredibly cumbersome

Esta muy bien el vídeo pero algún día podría poner subtítulos en español un gran saludo

Won't the pizza stone break if you pour water on it when its hot?

Great video, but far too many commercials.

Can the mat withstand 500F?

Dear Mister, Where in da hell did u get that shirt?!? I want it :)

That handle looks risky. It would be unfortunate to drop .

hahahhahahahahah no baking in space 😂😂😂

Where in heck would you store this cumbersome one trick pony?

The handle looks awful & for cast iron it’s ridiculously overpriced.

$325. i make bread to save money.

Meh... Too much fiddling with bulky, single purpose equipment, I'll stick with my Dutch oven which I also use for cooking other dishes, deep frying, and even storing my bread. Big and "Dumb" equipments that take up space and only do one thing, and not even better than other "multifunctional" equipments are a waste of money.

You ought to check out the Petromax K8 (or the smaller K4). I wanted to bake batards and not just boules. I saw the Fourneau but a bit too large for my oven and far beyond my budget. Same too for the Challenger. The Cuisiland was more affordable but too large for my oven. Bayou Classic was too large and out of stock. I was thinking about buying the Lodge double Dutch oven, but only good for boules. The problem is either go with ceramic for the batard or just keep baking boules. I surmised there had to be a cast-iron solution that can accommodate both, but I wasn't finding it anywhere in searches in English, German, and French. The same things kept on being recommended in journalists' best-of reviews and in search results on google and Amazon (US, UK, Germany, and France sites) - Fourneau, Lodge, Le Crueset, Staub, Emile Henry, etc. I jumped over to Amazon Japan. Eureka! I was recommended the Petromax K8, a rectangular cast-iron covered loaf pan that's 34cm x 24cm x 13.5 cm. Large enough for a dough formed in a 25 cm (10") oval banneton (15.25 cm wide) and a 23 cm (9") round one. Petromex is a German maker of cast iron camping kit. Whether for camp or kitchen, cast iron will work. Because it's German it's sold in both Europe and the US, so you don't need to order from Japan and pay to post a 9.2kg parcel halfway around the globe. €94.99 in Germany and $110 in the US. Yes, it's about twice the price of the Lodge but it gives me flexibility at one-third the price of the Fourneau, and it's also a grill skillet and 5.5 litre Dutch oven. I even use it for Detroit-style pizza.