Clay outdoor bread oven??

[werepoodle]

welding gloves is a good idea.

 

[Marty1876]

So is the size infinitely variable, so long as you stay in a certain ratio of height to diameter? So maybe 33" accross and 39-40" high (inside for both) might still be a working over, but 33% larger..... How thick did your walls end up being? So, you make the brock bottem, than a clay base 6" deep, then you make a sand mountain with wet nespaper (and damp sand so its easy to work with??) then you cover it with a 1" layer of the right clay mix, then another 2-3 inches of the straw/clay mix?

 

[wyoDreamer]

There is a magical ratio of height to diameter, but I cannot remember what it is right now. I have seen pictures of ancient community wood ovens that are over 4 feet in diameter. So I don't think there is a real limit in size, just what is practical for you to heat up for your use.

Another important factor is the door height to the height of the dome. If the door is too small for the chamber, the fire will just smolder and not heat up the oven. If the door is too large, then too much of the heat will escape with the smoke; it will take longer to heat up the dome and it won't stay hot as long.

 

[erinszoo]

So is the size infinitely variable, so long as you stay in a certain ratio of height to diameter? So maybe 33" accross and 39-40" high (inside for both) might still be a working over, but 33% larger..... How thick did your walls end up being? So, you make the brock bottem, than a clay base 6" deep, then you make a sand mountain with wet nespaper (and damp sand so its easy to work with??) then you cover it with a 1" layer of the right clay mix, then another 2-3 inches of the straw/clay mix?

Sizes can be whatever you want and can manage. Your dimensions sound great. The base can be many things too. Some people build them on a solid mound of earth and rocks leveled out with at least 6 inches of clay for a base and then add fire bricks to that for a smooth floor. We did concrete blocks to raise it to a height we could get in and out of easily, then made a solid layer of wood and covered it with a steel plate. Then we put a layer of clay over that. Yes, the sand should be damp and the newspapers too ... and even then it's still kind of a mess. Our base layer is more around two inches thick and we ended up with about four inches total thickness. This spring I'll be adding more to it as a finished decorated layer so all in all it will be from six to eight inches thick. The thicker you make the layers, the harder it is to dry evenly. It will crack on you no matter what you do but that's easy to fix with more wet clay. Once you use it some it will quit cracking so much but we find when we heat it up the cracks expand and once it cools they contract again. Given we've had no mentoring in this and are figuring it all out by trial and error, I have no idea if that's normal or not but it doesn't seem to hurt the functioning of it.

 

[erinszoo]

Just a hint for stoking the oven or working with the fire - buy a pair of welders gloves.
They are leather, insulated and made longer so they cover your wrists. They are also affordable and available at Lowes, Home Depot, Sears, even Walmart, I just looked and they are about $12. I have seen specialty gloves at the woodstove stores - but they are over twice the price and not as heavy duty. We have two pair, one for each woodstove in the house, plus DH has a pair for actually welding with.

So that makes 3 pair, I guess.

Thanks for the idea! I'll have to look for some.

 

[erinszoo]

Anyone started on their new ovens yet? Now that's it's warming up I'll be looking for a dry week when I can go out and do the finish coats and decorating ... Exciting!!

 

[Marty1876]

I HAVE NOT started yet, here is February it's usually cold or raining, and that'll continue for another month or maybe two, but between June and September, we hardly can squeeze a drop from the sky, so I'll be working on the oven project.

Now, your is up on a table, right? It looks that way in the pics.

Do you have any good links to other informative oven building sites?

 

[DennisK]

Oh, the food looks yummy, erinszoo - congratulations on your success! I haven’t started on ours yet as I am waiting for when I can start working on our retaining walls. I’ll be working with the same type of materials then – hopefully this spring. Your oven looks like it doesn’t take much fuel to get it up and working.
I took your advice and bought my yeast in bulk – it is so much cheaper – and it seems to work better too.

 

[erinszoo]

I HAVE NOT started yet, here is February it's usually cold or raining, and that'll continue for another month or maybe two, but between June and September, we hardly can squeeze a drop from the sky, so I'll be working on the oven project.

Now, your is up on a table, right? It looks that way in the pics.

Do you have any good links to other informative oven building sites?

Not a table really. We built a platform of concrete blocks. The top of it is 2x lumber joined together and covered in plate steel for fire protection and strength. Then a thick layer of cob and fire brick for a base. We use the space under for storing firewood for the oven and our fire pit grill that is next to the oven. We wanted it raised high enough that we could tend it easily and pull food in and out of it without leaning over or squatting.

I have looked up endless sites on building these ovens on the web. There are so many that are all basically the same, just different sizes, different shapes, etc ... The best basic one I think that I really liked was one that was built at one of the historic sites, I think Jamestown, maybe. I'll have to look it up again and get back to you. A couple of other people have posted some links on this thread too that might be helpful. The first place I actually read about these ovens was in a book called Self-Sufficiency in the Twenty-first century. It's by Dick and James Strawbridge and has a LOT of great info on this kind of thing and many others.

 

[erinszoo]

Oh, the food looks yummy, erinszoo - congratulations on your success! I haven’t started on ours yet as I am waiting for when I can start working on our retaining walls. I’ll be working with the same type of materials then – hopefully this spring. Your oven looks like it doesn’t take much fuel to get it up and working.
I took your advice and bought my yeast in bulk – it is so much cheaper – and it seems to work better too.

Thanks! So far everything has come out yummy except for the few really burned things we made early on. It's a learning curve for sure, Lol! It doesn't take too much fuel at all to get it good and hot. The trick is to use some good seasoned hard wood for burning because it really does need to burn for at least 2- 3 hours to get some good heat on it, and of course the thicker the walls and floors of the oven, the longer the heat will be retained. We don't use logs, mainly split stuff that catches well and smaller branches because we can come by them easily from our yearly pruning of pecan trees.

Glad you found some bulk yeast. Our sourdough starter is working great still. I add a short 1/2 tsp of new yeast when making a loaf of bread to my starter, which makes that bulk yeast go even further.