Clay outdoor bread oven??

[jackson41]

Did you ever finish your oven? Just curious!

 

[Marty1876]

I want an update on the oven

and

how the sourdough is working out!

What a very interesting thread! Hope for an update!!!

 

[werepoodle]

Just found this thread, and I also want to know how the oven went.

 

[Marty1876]

DIY bread/pizza oven, and great pics! I've loved looking at the process too!

 

[erinszoo]

Been off for a couple of weeks with the flu bug. Great to see so many new people interested in this thread!! I'll get an update of things posted this weekend. Sourdough is going great and we'll be baking some hopefully Saturday or Sunday. Pizza and roasting meat in this oven has been amazing. I don't know why it tastes so much better cooked this way but it does. Love the crispy crust on the pizzas! Pics coming.

 

[Marty1876]

Waiting for oven pics!

 

[erinszoo]

So, here's some pics from cooking in the oven ... as requested.


Starting the fire


Stuffing the oven ... this is kind of tricky to keep the fire going, stack the wood, and not burn the snot out of your hands!


Burning hot about 90 mins after lighting


Can of onion soup to support chicken for roasting


Chicken ready to go in oven. This is one of our home grown meat birds. Normally we wouldn't skin it if we were roasting it but we planned to freeze this one so we added some bacon to help cover it. Skin and a little foil covering is a better choice.


This is about 5 minutes after putting the chicken in the oven. It was about 650 degrees inside using the hand held second test. We don't have a thermometer to measure, that's on the wish list.


35 minutes later ... MMMMMMMMM good!!!!

And then ...

A loaf of bread ... this one in a bread pan.


And in the oven. This took about 30 minutes as well.

That's all I did for that day but there was still plenty of heat left. We started cooking about 2 1/2 hours after we started the fire which was actually a little too soon. If we'd had a pizza to cook first, that would have been perfect. Planning out using the oven in a sequence is kind of tricky for us. We've never done more than three things in a day although some people do lots more than that. Our oven is pretty small but for us it works fine.

Oh, and here's a pic of what we use for a door. It's actually a "disko" that we use for cooking over a camp fire when we go camping. My husband's dad made it for us.

 

[Marty1876]

I love it!!! I so want one. Please tell me you'll continue to check in to guide us this spring as we get to work on our own oven projects! How much clay would you estimate you used for this? I want a "parts" list and quantity guesses, and size approximations please.

 

[erinszoo]

I love it!!! I so want one. Please tell me you'll continue to check in to guide us this spring as we get to work on our own oven projects! How much clay would you estimate you used for this? I want a "parts" list and quantity guesses, and size approximations please.

Thanks! Yes, I'll still be posting and checking in from time to time. I want to see other people's ovens too. When I started out to build this I couldn't find anyone to guide me so I decided to just start a thread to see if I could get a conversation about them going. I'm glad I did.

I know we've used at least 20 gallons of clay (four 5 gallon buckets), about 75 pounds of sand, and 1/4 of a rectangular straw bale. We didn't use straw in the first layer or the base, but we did use straw in the outer layer. We may have used closer to 30 gallons of clay, however, by the last layer we put on the oven we were building a rocket stove too and using clay cob for that too so I didn't keep a close account of how much went where. Our oven is between 20 and 22 inches internal diameter and 26 inches high inside. The door cut is about 14". That's the trickiest part of the process because the door height has to be around 63% of the total height to draw air properly. If I got to start over, I'd make it bigger because I really can't cook more than one loaf of bread or roast a chicken or cook one pizza at a time. It is big enough for us right now but if I wanted to cook a week's worth of bread or cook enough to give away or sell, I'd have to cook more than one day a week in it.

I'm excited that you all are going to be building one. Please post pics and ask as many questions as you want. I'll try to answer them or maybe someone else who's built one will know if I don't.

 

[wyoDreamer]

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.