The road to zero-emission bagels starts with a Big Pan

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April 29, 2022

You can be reassured that this week’s bagel menu is 10% less carbon-intensive than last week’s. Why? New bagel gear.

My stuff arrived from the company that tried to sell me a hot dog machine. The most important new toy is the Big Pan. It fills almost the entire oven, and I can now bake FIFTEEN bagels at a time instead of eight. Oven time is suddenly much more efficient. That translates to less electricity used, which means less diesel burned and hydro consumed. I’m gonna try to figure this out.

The baking process has three main components that use power: hot water and the dishwasher, boiling on the stove, and oven time. I’d guess the power is split 20/40/40, where oven time is 40% of the total energy cost and GHG emissions per bagel.

Now let’s focus on baking. With the Big Pan, it takes about 11 minutes to bake 15 bagels (0.73 bagel oven-minutes) versus eight minutes for eight bagels (1 bagel oven-minute). So about 25% less energy.

25% less oven time means 10% less energy in total, and 10% less stinky gases spewing out of an exhaust vent I’ll never see.

Of course, bagels cause GHGs in other ways, like through transportation of ingredients. But this kind of “but how much emissions” thinking runs in the background of all my domestic choices these days, whether I want it to or not. Sometimes it’s productive.

What about zero-emission bagels? If we could either implement Zero Diesel on Haida Gwaii or power the house with solar, we’d be getting close.

See you at Queen Charlotte Farmers’ Market c/o Gather, 11-2 Saturday.