Ghetto Backyard Brick Oven

[morgaina]

Email friend Kelly Savino made this oven http://www.primalmommy.com/earthoven.html several years ago. I have been in great admiration of it. But since I don't have the kids at home any more and would like to move at some point it wasn't at all a reasonable thing to make. But then Dame Zenobia posted this http://people.umass.edu/dac/projects/BrickOven/Instant_BrickOven.htm web page on FaceBook last Wednesday eve. I have been somewhere between overwhelmed and obsessed about it since then. It was temporary, it was quick, I could tear it down again and use the materials to make a ziggurat or a tornado shelter if either became necessary.

I was able to scrounge all the materials for it from off my place, which was one of my rules. I am trying to purge, not accumulate. Or in this case at least put to use some of the crap around here. It took longer than the hour promised, but only because I had to find the materials, tote them to the back yard, and scrub them off. If the bricks & blocks were already sitting in the back yard it would have taken less than an hour.


From the ground up there are: 1) two layers of cement blocks 2) a warped kiln shelf 3) a layer of fire brick 4) Walls consisting of 3 layers of firebrick, 5) a good & new kiln shelf wrong size for any of my kilns 6) a layer of firebrick.
There are three firebrick sitting on the top layer that I will use for the door.
The 1 hr. brick oven web page used a red clay flue liner. If need be I'll make a clay chamber, but that will take time and I want it now!


I started some lump charcoal in a brazier, then when it was burning nicely I transferred it, via tongs, to the oven and used little branches & twigs. Again I blessed a_pink_monkey for her gift to me of bellows. The fire burned very well in the oven, this was helped because of a combination of a windy day and the oven is not air tight :-/ as it would be in a real cob oven.
dancing_guru was coming over to have lunch with me, she was quite late, so I just kept feeding the little fire. It turned out this was the right thing to do. It takes quite awhile to heat up firebrick.

I started some bread dough, but was so impatient to bake it, I sped up the rising by using the old timey method of putting the crock holding the rising dough on the lid of the oven.
Then used a hoe (hur) to scrape the ashes out of the chamber. Then moved the dough into the oven. I put the bread directly on the bricks without anything to release it which, as it turned out, wasn't needed. I used the three bricks temporarily sitting on the top for the door to close it off.


It baked for about 40 minutes. This was a 4" thick loaf. Done all the way through, very nicely too. I make soft loaves, I'm going to try a chewy loaf next. It was darker on the base and that may have been the tastiest part.


This was a fun project!!

Comments

[loup_noir]

We made an oven for a 15th century reenactment we held here years ago. The poor oven finally caved in when the cheesy plywood and 2x4 support rotted in our wet climate. This is inspirational.

[copper-oxide.livejournal.com]

Be sure to check out the links I have in my post too. There are so many beautiful possibilities.