Woodburning Ovens

> From: "Angie Klidzejs" <a-klid@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
> Date: Thu, 22 Feb 96 13:22:25 CDT
> Subject: Homestyle brick ovens -- information requested
>
> Hello fellow bakers:
>
> As I've learned more and more about bread, I've found that I'm
> becoming more and more interested in reducing the baking process to its
> most rudimentary forms. Four years ago I was thoroughly incapable of
> baking bread from scratch -- I ended up with grain-based equivalents of
> concrete blocks. Then I got a bread machine, which served as "training
> wheels" (as baker and cookbook author Dan Leader would describe it). I've
> graduated to using a KitchenAid mixer for making dough, and using a
> grain mill to grind my own flour, and am presently quite content with
> them. However, I'm interested in more than my electric oven can do for my
> breads.
>
> Does anyone on this list have experience with, or knowledge of, baking
> bread in brick ovens? I don't mean the commerical variety. I'm seeking
> information on building and using homestyle and homesize brick or stone
> ovens. Is this something a person can build and keep out in the yard?
> How is it constructed? How is it used? Where can I find technical plans
> and information? I destroy baking stones pretty easily and don't want to
> invest in more of them. I think that clay flower-pot saucers may be okay,
> but their use is limited. (My house isn't air-conditioned, and baking
> indoors during the summer is out of the question.) I would appreciate any
> and all information that people can suggest. Thank you.
>
>
> Angie Klidzejs Internet: a-klid@maroon.tc.umn.edu
> Accountant
> Department of Horticultural Science
> University of Minnesota
> 305 Alderman Hall
> 1970 Folwell Avenue Telephone: (612) 624-3795
> Saint Paul, MN 55108 U.S.A. Fax: (612) 624-4941



Woodburning Oven, part deux - brick2.txt [1/1]

From: milligan@smartdocs.com (Nancy Roatcap)
Date: 1995/08/26

organization: SmartLink.net Premier ISP 805-294-1273
content-type: Text/Plain
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: rec.food.sourdough

Here comes more of the chronicles of ovenbuilding, for those
of you following my folly. If you didn't catch the first
installment and would like to do so, mail me and I will be happy
to send you a copy.
If you remember, I left off frustrated with a minor
construction error, unchangeable, that left me unable to follow
the plans for the front of the oven.
The plans call for fire brick to be laid on top of the
foundation wall for the front, where you would rest your peel
while loading. In order to bring the brick up to the height of
the interior hearth, pavers are laid on the wall before the brick
can be mortared on. The interior hearth is 1/2 inch lower than
the plans show and there is no room for a mortar bed for the
pavers, and too much room to fill with mortar for the firebrick.
The only solution is to pour a cap on the foundation wall
that will allow the bricks to be laid flush with the hearth.

July 9: After much consideration and a good 4th of July getaway,
I decide to redesign the front. I want the oven to have more of
a "southwest" look, than a "backeast" look. The plans call for an
enclosing (weatherproofing) wall to be built atop the foundation
wall (of bricks or wood, no matter), but I want the rounded form
of the oven to be apparent, and so then would be the top of the
foundation wall. The cap that must be poured in the front will
now be a visible part of the finished oven. I decide to pour the
entire front up to the hearth level rather than using the called
for firebrick.

July 12: I pour the first of 3 slabs that will make up the front
of the oven. This one is 2 inches thick, the width of the wall
and protrudes 1 inch out from the front and sides of the
foundation. I did the formwork yesterday and it resembles a
torture device, complete with clamps, ratcheting tie downs and
pieces of wood sticking out here and there. For the first time I
mix the concrete from scratch; white cement, sand and pea gravel.
This is all new to me and I am not confident of the outcome. I
decide to put "veins" of color in the concrete, shooting (in the
dark) for a marbled granite look. The concrete is very dry and
hard to work, but I have learned the drier the better, so I pound
it into the form, sprinkle a little red powder in a line against
the form, then pound in some more.

July 13: In the morning I pull the forms and decide not to tear
last nights work apart. After work I build the form for the
second slab. Also 2 inches thick, it protrudes 1 inch out from
the first slab and is 8 inches narrower on each end. Tomorrow
evening I will pour the slab, then build the forms for the third
and final pour day after tomorrow. It will also be two inches
thick, (making it flush with the interior hearth) protrude an
inch beyond the second slab and again be narrower by 8 inches on
each end. The effect, I am told by a Saturday morning visitor,
is decidedly "pueblo". By Sunday I am ready to begin construction
of the walls, throat and the dome; three arches of 16 bricks
each.

Woodburning Oven, part deux - brick2.txt [1/1]

From: milligan@smartdocs.com (Nancy Roatcap)
Date: 1995/08/26


July 16: I stand all the wall bricks up, spacing them with a
story stick 1/4 inch apart and marking their positions on the
firebrick with a china pencil. I mix the mortar and revel in the
difference between the readymix and my mixed from scratch blend;
more plastic and less gritty, it is much easier to work with. I
wish we had used this to put up the foundation blocks. The walls
go up, one bricks height with a 1/4 mortar bed, skinny side
facing in. The interior hearth is 28 inches wide and 37 inches
long. Before I finish, I tear out the jamb bricks twice to get
them exactly on the same plane. The door must be 10 inches high
so I mortar a 2 inch piece of brick to the top of the jamb
bricks, leaving enough room for a mortar bed to level the 2X3
inch piece of 1/4 inch angle iron that spans the door and holds
up the front of the dome.
During the week I lay the bricks that comprise the "throat", two
lines of four courses just 1&1/2 common bricks long protruding
from the jamb bricks out onto the slab I poured the week before.
These courses bring the throat up higher than the 10 inch jamb so
the angle iron can be mortared and leveled behind them, as it
will require this support when the oven dome is completed against
it. Also this week I work on building the form to support the
arch, two pieces of plywood cut from a pattern made by placing
the bricks on the wood in the desired shape and tracing their
outline. I clamp the pieces together and carefully cut it with
the jigsaw, then put a block between them and screw them together
with the driver drill, checking for square and level.

July 15: I start out bright and early by laying up the three
straight courses of the back wall of the oven. It takes some time
to cut the bricks as the wall tapers in to conform to the dome,
and I cut them all before I mix the mortar. The arch form goes in
supported by four upright bricks and shims made of old post cards
to bring it up to wall height and level. As I begin to mortar up
the arch, I can see I lose a little ground with each successive
brick as mortar adds a fraction of an inch to the allotted space.
The arch bricks must touch each other, long skinny sides down and
a few grains of sand add enough to keep me from setting the last
brick. By now I am getting good with the brick chisel so I decide
to shape the brick. It doesn't work so I take out its neighbor
and try the same technique. No good, I can't cut enough of the
brick off in the right places and the arch comes down after 3
hours of work.

More to come later.
NancyR.


Re: Req. plans for outdoor brick oven

From: chrisb@vid.hp.com (Chris Bostak)
Date: 1996/02/07
organization: Hewlett Packard
newsgroups: misc.rural

Dave Jensen (djensen@mailhost.gate.net) wrote:
: Howdee!

: I would like to build my own outdoor brick oven to bake bread.
: Know anyone who has plans for this?

I know of a few sources for this. I have only heard anything about the
first reference. He has plans for three sizes of ovens. A few people have
tried to do this and apparently, it takes more than your average masonry
skills to make one correctly.

- Alan Scott
Oven Crafters
5600 Marshall-Petaluma Road
Petaluma, CA 94952
(415) 663-9010

- TMR Linea Bar
Bar & Restaurant Equipment
219 Ninth Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 621-1171

- Maurice Sabbagh
Earthstone Ovens
1233 North Highland Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
(213) 656-5926

- "The Bread Ovens of Quebec"
by Lise Boily and Jean-Francois Blanchette
(National Museum of Canada, 1979)
This guide costs @ $12 (800)555-5621