OK, maybe selling out my first week wasn’t a fluke. This week at the West Lafayette Farmers Market I came prepared with 45 loaves of four different sourdough breads, plus five bags of rolls (1 lb. per 6 rolls) and a couple dozen “pocketbreads,” which are sourdough rolls with goodies inside. That compares with 32 loaves and no rolls last week. In other words, I boosted my production more than 50 percent. Still, all the bread and all but a few pocket rolls were gone within two hours of the 3:30 p.m. opening. Whew!

I didn’t expect a super high turnout because it was hotter than hades Wednesday afternoon (in the low 90s in the shade, if you could find any!). And with 15 additional loaves, I thought surely I’d have a few to sell after 5:30 p.m. But the rush began even before the 3:30 p.m. opening. One of the early customers included someone associated with the market who saw what happened the previous week and wanted to make sure to get hers before they were all gone!

Luckily I received able assistance from my good friend and artist LaDonna Vohar. She helped set up the booth and sell bread during the great rush. By the time my wife, Kathleen, arrived from work the bread was gone and we just stood there in our new Smittybread T-shirts watching the dwindling number of marketgoers and wondering when to pack up and leave.

Not that I’m complaining, but it makes for a long afternoon when no one stops to buy bread or talk about bread for the final hour and a half. Half the fun is explaining the differences between the various breads, answering any questions customers might have about the product, and talking shop with customers who are into baking or who are familiar with sourdough.

Several friends have asked how difficult it will be to increase production. I tell them that if I had a bread oven, cranking up production would be no problem. Even a small hearth oven (with or without steam injection) could handle a minimum of 16 loaves per bake. But cranking them out five or six loaves per hour using a kitchen range oven and a small commercial convection oven is time consuming, difficult work.

The baking is definitely the bottleneck, but on the plus side I am getting very familiar with the slight differences in volume, shape, and texture that occur when loaves are baked too soon, too late or just at the right time. I am also learning how to schedule production so that when the ovens are warming up to 475 F I’m being productive; when the loaves are baking, I’m measuring and mixing or shaping, etc. In fact, my goal in selling at the farmers market is working toward the bigger goal of learning what customers want and how to produce it consistently so that someday I can open my own bakery.

This past week I was able to increase production with slight adjustments in timing and oven usage. I also received some good advice from Jeffrey Hamelman at King Arthur Flour regarding alternative approaches to retarding levain so I can build it once and use it at different times of the day. It’s no big secret — refrigeration — but I was trying to keep my levain fresh by feeding it, which requires more guesswork (not to mention more flour!)

This week I plan on adding an external temperature-controlled relay to a two-door refrigerator so that it consistently stays at 50 degrees, which is an optimum temperature for overnight retardation of sourdoughs. Assuming that task succeeds, I’ll be able to boost production without increasing my lead time before sale. I think another 12 or 15 loaves should do the trick. We’ll see next week!