Baking up a business: Meet Grafton’s Bread Guy
Like a lot of people cooped up by COVID-19 during the shutdown, Chuck Brown decided to dabble in sourdough.
He went the difficult route, mixing together a slurry of flour and water and setting it out with the hopes of catching the invisible wild yeast in his kitchen. Over the next few days, the mixture bubbled and responded when he fed it more flour — he had himself an active starter in a mason jar.
Naturally, he made bread with it. Classic and multigrain. Cinnamon rolls. Focaccia and dinner rolls, pull-aparts, a seedless rye.
“I watched YouTube videos, learned as I went, and as I was making it, I would make more than my family could eat,” Brown said. “I gave it to friends at first and they said ‘you could make money for this.’”
Thus was the origin of The Bread Guy, the unexpected career turn for Brown after 33 years in public schools, 15 years as a principal. It has him rising at 3 a.m. to make 20 dozen cinnamon rolls and multiple loaves of bread, with a break for delivery and then an afternoon of more starter, flour, mixing and experimenting.
“I’m having some fun. Do what you love, right?” Brown said in a phone interview from what he described as a kitchen filled with the smell of baking bread. “Covid was a big part of it. My last year as a principal was just so stressful — everyone has their own needs, I was asking teachers to put themselves at risk and, well, I had 33 years.”
Before selling in single crumb, however, Brown realized he needed to do a bit of homework. He organized his kitchen to separate his tools, supplies, and work space from family space and got certified by the Board of Health. He filled out business paperwork, got permission from the building inspector.
Customers can’t visit his home bakery and choose from a filled case, nor can they decide on the spur of the moment to request a loaf for dinner. He posts a weekly order form on his website, https://breadguybreads.com/, posts photos on his Facebook page, and lately, his customers are his best advertisement.
“I opened up my order form for the week and I was sold out in 30 minutes,” Brown marveled. “Christmas week sold out.”
The next form goes live on December 28 to allow Brown a bit of a holiday break with his family.
“I’m a little overwhelmed with it,” he admitted. “It’s just me. there’s no staff. There’s just my little kitchen and I do as much as I can.”
His family isn’t allowed to help make the product, but his 13-year-old daughter does help with the four day a week deliveries, running from car to doorstep to leave orders.
And his sourdough is more than doing its part. It now lives in an 8-liter bucket, bubbling, growing, and providing that special signature tang that marks a good bake.
“It’s very different than when I started with my mason jar,” Brown said.
Visit Bread Guy Breads for the full list of available products. The next form goes live December 28.
