NOTE: This post was originally published on September 8, 2023, and has been updated to include additional information, clarifications, and, where applicable, corrections.1
I’m not a professional baker. But I did recently bake my home oven to death, so I find myself in the market for an at-home brick oven. As far as I’m concerned, there are three options to consider in this category right now: the Rofco B40, the Rackmaster RM2020, and the Simply Bread Oven.
Since I couldn't find a comprehensive comparison of the three, I figured I'd do one myself. Was I able to test them all and do scientific head-to-head-to-head experiments? Of course not. But what I lack for true testing, I make up for with my ability to Read The Internet™️.
Rofco is the reigning world champ and undisputed market king. Though known for its quirks, Rofco has dominated this market for years. In the last couple years though, the RM2020 and Simply Bread Oven came onto the scene and complicated things for everyone.
Now remember, we’re talking about differences in matters of degrees here. Each one of these ovens is capable of producing multiple attractive loaves at once and will liberate you from shuffling Dutch ovens or combo cookers in your home oven. Of course, a new oven alone won’t automatically turn you into a successful artisan baker. The quality of your ingredients, fermentation, dough handling, and shaping technique all still come to bear on your bread, regardless of which oven is doing the baking. With that out of the way, let’s get into it.
Rofco B40
For years, the Rofco B40 has been the gold standard for cottage bakeries and other not-ready-for-a-deck-oven bakers. Is that because it deserves it, or because it was the only thing on the market? Probably both.
The Belgian oven has three stone shelves that measure 18.9 x 18.9 inches, which they advertise allows you to bake up to 36 lbs of dough at once. It retails for $3,795 in the US and is perpetually on backorder from Pleasant Hill Grain. (I should note that PHG just had a Labor Day sale on Rofcos and RM2020s, so it's worth keeping an eye out for deals.)
The B40 has three levels but only two control knobs, meaning you can choose between heating the top element or all three. To avoid hotspots and uneven baking, you’ll regularly see Rofco bakers shuffling among decks, rotating loaves, and adding wire grids or stacking loaves to prevent scorching the bottoms. You might see bakers add washers or nuts under the bottom stone to raise it off the heating element and add their own exterior door latch to maintain a tight seal for steam retention. (Coincidentally, many accessories are produced by Rackmaster from the pre-RM2020 days.) Each oven seems to come with unique issues and steep learning curve, made all the harder by single submarine porthole on the top shelf to monitor the bake.
For that reason, there are countless guides for how to set up, use, troubleshoot, and repair a Rofco, including one from the sourdough champ himself. Beware, no guide is the same—each baker taking a different approach for how they preheat the oven, add loaves, steam, reduce temperature, release steam, increase temperature, and do the Rofco Shuffle™️ to get their preferred crust and color. Rofco has no direct customer support to speak of, so Pleasant Hill Grain will likely be fielding any questions or warranty issues and #teamrofco will be your support group. Though they have a reputation for their quirks, owning (and complaining about) a Rofco seems to be a rite of passage for cottage bakers.
In a promo blurb for the Simply Bread Oven, Annie Clapper of The Family Crumb said, “I’ve long compared baking with previous stone bread oven [read: Rofco] to playing music on an out of tune piano. A well trained musician can still make good music but DAMN it’s hard work.”
Even so, some of my favorite Instagram bakers use (or have used) Rofcos to produce what I view as the platonic ideal of a sourdough country loaf. Josh Fairbanks' Fairbanks Bread, Noel Deeb’s El Bread, and Benjamin Watson's Kinship Bread (in no particular order) all produce beautiful, inspirational bread in their Rofcos. [I cut this list criminally short and it is by no means a definitive who's-who of exemplary Rofco users.] Whatever the Rofco’s shortcomings, you can’t argue with those results.
I keep thinking of the Rofco as a 90s Honda Civic. Not very sexy, no special features, no bells and whistles, no automatic windows, and the A/C is probably broken. But you got a good deal on it, the CD player works and, damn it, you have to admit it has style. It can take a beating and gets the job done. Plus, if it doesn't start in the morning, odds are you can quickly and cheaply fix it yourself. No wonder they were the starter cars for my generation.
Rackmaster RM2020
By all accounts, the RM2020 is a perfect, no-frills brick oven. It has scored high praise from, among many others, bread heavyweights Chad Robertson of Tartine and Maurizio Leo of The Perfect Loaf. Enough said?
Designed and built by beloved baker-fabricator-icon Campbell Macfarlane in Great Britain, the RM2020 has larger shelves (18 x 24 inches) than the Rofco and is advertised as baking 46 lbs of dough at a time. Unlike the Rofco, the oven has a fully-welded oven chamber, individual knob controls for each shelf, a nifty handle to securely fasten the door, and a full viewing window that allows you to see each shelf without opening the door and losing heat and steam in the process. In addition to support by Pleasant Hill Grain in the US, purchase of a RM2020 gives you access to an elite, region-specific WhatsApp support group (which, I’m told, includes active contributions from certain high-profile bakers) and direct access to Campbell himself to answer your burning questions.
By all accounts, it's solidly built, bakes evenly without requiring the rotating/shuffling of a Rofco, and could double as a bomb shelter in a pinch. It seems as if you could turn it on and bake without stopping for the next 20 years with nary an issue. But, for me, the RM2020's $7,499 price tag is unjustifiable. If I were an established cottage baker, it would be a no-brainer. But I'm not.
Stretching the car analogy, I guess that makes the RM2020 a… Subaru Outback? Toyota Tacoma? It may not have the latest tech, but it’s a rock-solid workhorse and built to run forever with minimal TLC.
Simply Bread Oven
The Simply Bread Oven is venture capital’s answer to the Rofco. The SBO is WiFi-enabled, has built-in steam mechanism, and comes with an app designed to "connect with customers, take payments, schedule pick-ups or deliveries and order hard-to-get ingredients."2 All for a cool $8,490 (or $7,490 without the steam). (SBO also just had a Labor Day sale, so keep that eye out for discounts.)
The Simply Bread Oven is made and supported in the USA and has a team of bakers available to assist users. Like the RM2020, the SBO has a full viewing window, heavier-duty construction, and larger shelves than a Rofco (20 x 20 inches) that boast of baking 12 to 15 loaves at once. The oven has attractive wood detailing, a digital screen for more precise temperature control (which, importantly for some, can display temperature in Fahrenheit), and the internet connection allows online diagnostics and may one day permit features like tracking electrical power consumption. These features and the app are designed to make a baker’s life easier, and I believe they do.
But let me confess my bias here. My home oven and dishwasher both recently broke in the same week—we baked the oven’s igniter to death and a rogue valve in the dishwasher decided to call it quits and leak through the floor. On top of that, to me, the proprietary technology feels like something that is going to glitch, disconnect, reconfigure, break, or become a victim of planned obsolescence. The data the app collects may be useful, but it also might become intrusive. When you add all of tech on top of an oven with built-in plumbing that is going to spend a lot of time at high heat, I'm hesitant.
Now, I’m sure it’s wonderful and, from everything I've seen, seems to do fantastic things. If I got one as a gift, I’d be ecstatic. Annie Clapper of The Family Crumb has great things to say about it, which is a recommendation I'd trust. (Though, as I recall, her oven wouldn't turn on one morning and required a phone call to the company's owner in order to get fixed.)3 But I just can't get comfortable with the idea of spending that sort of money on something I’m not convinced has the longevity of the RM2020.
The SBO's defining features are promising tech and built-in steam capabilities. Instead of being assets, these feel like vulnerabilities. In my book, that makes SBO a Tesla or any one of the newer EV startups. Is it innovative and sexy? Certainly. Does it get the job done? Yes. Is it the wave of the future? Maybe. Will it run for 10 years with no major problems? I hope so—but that has not been my experience with techy appliances thus far. Something tells me the oven is ripe for issues that require a well-trained and well-paid technician.
And this week's star baker is...?
With that, I'd crown the RM2020 as the best at-home brick oven on the market right now. Will I be buying one? Like I said, if I were an established baker or money were no object, it would be a no-brainer. But I'm not, and it is. So...
What am I going to buy?
Nothing, yet. We need to replace the range and dishwasher first (fun!). When that time comes though, it’ll be a Rofco. While it is objectively worse than both the RM2020 and Simply Bread Oven, it is also half the price. I’d love to own a RM2020, but I haven’t earned it and can’t justify it right now. Plus, if Josh, Noel, and Benjamin can do what they’re doing on Rofcos, then certainly it’s more than enough for me—they’re street-racing while I just got my learner’s permit.
Addendum I: Nero 400
After publishing the original post, I got asked about the omission of the Nero 400 distributed by Brook Bake, which is certainly in this category. To be honest, I usually come across the Nero in the context of a baker selling it after moving to an RM2020 or Simply Bread Oven. At $3,895 (plus shipping), it is comparable to a Rofco B40, though the baking stones are a hair smaller at 18.6 x 18.6 inches (the Brook Bake website says you can do 27 lbs per bake, which is hard to square against the Rofco’s advertised 36 lbs per bake). The oven has other features the Rofco doesn’t, like a control knob for each heating element, a viewing window for each deck, and a locking door handle. It does not seem to have the cultural cachet or community knowledge-base of the Rofco, but the Nero is perfectly capable of producing attractive bread—just look at what Manzanita Bakehouse is doing. And, while we’re talking about Brook Bake, you may also want to consider a Chandley Compacta Pico, which is a modular single-deck oven priced under $3,000.
Addendum II: Quick Reference
Here’s a quick reference for the basics of the four ovens discussed above.
Special thanks to Campbell Macfarlane from Rackmaster and Stijn Vanorbeek of Simply Bread, both of whom reached out after the original post was published. Your insights (and corrections) were much appreciated. To hear Campbell talk about his oven, check out his appearance on The Sourdough Postcast. To hear Stijn, check out this conversation with Annie Clapper of The Family Crumb.
The prior version of this post incorrectly said the oven could be started remotely. The temperature can be monitored and adjusted remotely via the app, but I’m told a remote start is prohibited for (understandable) safety and regulatory compliance reasons.
In fact, Stijn Vanorbeek, the founder of Simply Bread, reached out after the prior version of this post was published and said that a blown fuse was the culprit in Annie’s case.