Build an oven?

[bigred93]

Hi all,

I've been baking bread, pizza and the like on a stone in my home oven for some time. The results have been good, but there's potential that's out of reach due to equipment - insufficient heat for pizza, and insufficient steam retention for bread. (I spray and spray but the durn thing is too well vented.)

Therefore I've been looking around at wood-burning oven designs, with the idea of building one in my backyard. I've seen some resources and web pages that talk about Quebec oven designs, and I've seen Alan Scott's site. I'd like to know if anyone has pursued this route themselves, and if so if you'd care to share any lessons learned - things you would or wouldn't do again, how much work it was, how difficult it was and so on.

I'm all in favor of a good harebrained scheme, which this seems to be (buddy of mine and I just built a smoker out of a 55 gal drum and a castoff woodstove) but with all the masonry involved here (building a dome!) I'm wondering if I'm actually as crazy as my wife thinks I am.

Thanks -

Red.

[chefdg]

Yes you are as crazy as your wife thinks you are. But she will love the pizza's and breads you will get out of you very own, hand built, oven. The Bread Builders by Wing and Scott is a good resource. I haven't gotten around to building mine yet but I will. Good luck.

[jackal10]

Its a great project. I did it, so can you.

I used a pre-formed shell from http://www.fourgrandmere.com/

Base, with a poured slab of insulating concrete (concrete with vermiculite)

Pre-formed shell on base

Rest of the brick outer skin and springing the roof. The void is filled with a foot of insulation (more vermiculite)

First fire, and my brother loading the dough

First loaves - temperature control needs practice

[McDuff]

I also spent many many hours trying to make sense out of the pictures and descriptions in the Bread Builders, and finally built one. It's a major investment in time, most of my free time for a summer and a fall, and money, about $1000, and it will permanently claim a space in your yard you will never get back.

The hardest part was figuring out the chimney, as the book is none too clear, and I couldn't afford the plans, which are pretty cheap anyway, but oh well, the damn book was expensive enough. There's about 5 tons of material there, and I still need to add some trim, which is all cut and sitting in the cellar, and throw some shingles on it. I hardly ever use it. I think about using it all the time, but it's a lot of time to fire it up, tend it all day, and then bake 3 pizzas, a pan of roast vegetables and some sausage.

I've baked more pizza than anything in it. Last time I made bread, it was ugly bread. You could smell the burnt bitterness all over the neighborhood. I didn't need a permit and the fire chief asked me to call before I light it, as this is a fairly cramped neighborhood. The only time I didn't call, it was warm and muggy, the smoke hung low and the fire dept showed up at the front door. They took one look at the contained fire, shrugged, and left. I bring them pizza when I use it.

I disremember who started this thread, but he makes the point that his oven is too well vented to use one of these dumbass steam injection methods people are always coming up with. I find that when I do the hot water into the cast iron skillet trick that all the steam comes out the stovetop. Waste of time. Join the brick oven group on Yahoo if you need/want advice. The masonry wasn't that difficult, just damn boring. I could never lay block for a living, but apparently you don't need to mortar them together. I found an angle grinder with a diamond blade an essential tool. I have some pictures posted on the yahoo brick oven group site of how neatly I was able to cut the bricks that form the forward slanting part of the arch.

I followed the Bread Builder's pretty carefully, insulation and all, and a full 80 hours after the fire is raked out, the oven is still at 110 degrees. I used sakrete concrete for the hearth and cladding and made my own fireclay mortar mix as Scott recommends. The dome is boxed with steel studs and wonderboard and has 9 big bags of vermiculite and perlite poured into the box. Also used all firebrick rather than red brick as he says you can and I'm glad I did, as the red brick gets very brittle quickly.

The hearth is only 24 by 39 due to size considerations of my yard and next time I make pizza I think I'll try the fire along one side instead of across the back to see if I can do two at once. Pizza from this kind of oven is unbelievable. Done in three minutes, tops. I made 21 of them one night.

If you're at all handy, this is a fairly easy project. It's a lot of weight to move around is all. I had to move everything from the front of the house to the back by hand, 2 tons of rock, 60 blocks, 55 bags of concrete, 200 firebrick, 150 red brick, assorted wood and shingles and plywood. I think the last time I used it I was lighting off Ground Bloom Flowers in it.

Edited July 13, 2004 by McDuff (log)

[bigred93]

Boy, what a resource! Thanks so much for all the information and perspective - and pictures too.

I will definitely check out the Yahoo brick oven group as a further resource.

Jackal, McDuff, can you give me a sense of how long it takes to fire the oven? Given that you would be baking bread at a lower temp, do you proceed differently for prepping for pizza versus bread? Would seem to me that the thing to do would be to fire it up real hot, make some pizza, let it cool, then bake off your bread. Is that a 4 hour cycle or a 9 hour cycle?

Thanks again!

Red.

[jackal10]

Jackal, McDuff, can you give me a sense of how long it takes to fire the oven? Given that you would be baking bread at a lower temp, do you proceed differently for prepping for pizza versus bread? Would seem to me that the thing to do would be to fire it up real hot, make some pizza, let it cool, then bake off your bread. Is that a 4 hour cycle or a 9 hour cycle?

Ovens vary. Mine has a floor of 1 metre (3 foot diameter), which means it can bake about 12 loaves at once. Its also very well insulated. Nothings happens quickly. On is own, with the door shut it drops about 10C/20F per hour, so it stays at working temperature for several hours. For a pizza you leave a small fire in, as the cooking is partly from radiated heat.

It takes about

4 hours to heat up

30 mins to stabilises asfter taking the fire out and swabbing down

4 hours bread baking (3 or 4 batches)

Two days to cool.

Traditionally you cook various things as the oven cools

Pizza with the fire still in

Tarts (very hot)

Bread (500F)

Roast meat, veg etc(400F)

Cakes (300F)

Casseroles and stews (overnight)

Meringues

Dried herbs, fruit etc

Drying wood

All this on one firing - obout half a barrowload of wood, so the efficiency is high.

There are good books on the subject "Bread Builders" already referred to, and Ton Jaine "Building a wood fired oven".

I built it instead of a barbeque. Tend to only fire it on party days and holidays - you need lots of people for all that food.