Fixing Those Annoying Cold Spots in Your Deck Oven
If you’ve spent any real time with a large deck oven, you know the struggle. You pull out a tray and the center loaves look perfect, but the ones on the edges? They’re pale, underbaked, and just… off. It happens because heat loves to leak out of the sides. It’s a pain, and it makes consistency a nightmare. We found a way to stop that by adding shortwave infrared (SWIR) lamps right where the heat escapes: the edges. Why this actually works Most ovens rely on the stone or the air to do the heavy lifting. The problem is, that’s just too slow. By the time the air moves, the heat has already vanished into the oven walls. The infrared lamps are different. They don’t wait around. They send radiation straight into the dough the second they turn on. Think of it like a “thermal curtain” that hugs the perimeter. It keeps the edges hot without turning the middle of your oven into a furnace. The nitty-gritty We use quartz glass tubes with a halogen core. Why? Because they’re fast. Really fast. Traditional elements take forever to warm up. These tubes hit full power in a few seconds. It’s a night-and-day difference when you’re trying to keep a steady rhythm in the kitchen. Getting them installed is pretty straightforward. They plug into your existing boards using standard R7s or SK15 connectors, so it’s more of a “swap” than a total rebuild. We have a few different wattage options depending on how big your oven is. Just a heads-up: if you go for the high-wattage tubes for extra punch, double-check your wiring gauge. You don’t want your wires overheating while your bread is baking. A few things to keep in mind Now, this isn’t a “set it and forget it” magic trick. Since infrared is directional, where you put the lamp matters. If you mount them too close to the bread, you’ll scorch the crust before the inside is even done. You’ll need to play around with the distance and tweak your PID controller settings to find that sweet spot. Once you get the balance right between the base heat and the lamps, you get that beautiful, consistent browning across the entire deck. No more “guessing” which loaves are done.