Outside Clay Oven

[diamond lil]

Brilliant Sue well done

[preppingsu]

We've mentioned a few times about having a roof structure so that we can cook even if the weather is poor. We used 4 fence posts and a fence panel that we just happened to have lying around (our front yard is a vertiable aladdins cave of reuseable materials).

Slightly sloping towards the back to allow rain run-off.
Cost for the roof was approx £1.00 for some nails.

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The plan is to increase the height of the chimney and cut a whole in the roof to extend it through. But for now it will do just fine.
(The joke is it looks a little like a south american mine!)

I will still cover the oven with a tarp when we are not using it, for added protection.

[itsybitsy]

That's brilliant, Su - well done.

Do you think that cracks will continue to form all the time and have to be filled, or should they stop forming at some point?

[preppingsu]

We will fill the exsisting cracks as they are just natural shrinkage as the clay dries out. They will eventually stop. But they won't hamper the cooking etc.

[smileyt]

Wow, I am seriously impressed! I wanted to build one in my back yard, but unfortunately there is no room. Plus I don't eat pizza, bread or meat so I guess a haybox for vegan stews would be a better option for me .

I bet your neighbours thought you had gone mad when they saw you jumping around barefoot in the clay . !

[preppingsu]

OK, taken a while to update but here goes.
We have now moved on from just making pizzas and have tried other cooking in the oven.

We have realised that to get the oven to a good temperature it needs a good burning, with constant feeding of small pieces of wood over a period of 2 hours. The thermometer went all the way round and then some so approx temp would be over 350degreesC.

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Once the pizzas have been cooked we allowed the flames to die down and then in went the bread. I need to work on timings for bread as this one was still doughy in the middle but as you can see the top was beginning to burn.

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Next was a standard cake mix (chocolate of course). Took about 15mins, slight burning on top but not enough to make it inedible.

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This all happened bewteen 6.30pm and 8pm.

Next came our big test. We wanted to cook a joint of meat overnight. We monitored the temp of the oven after blocking the chimney and adding a door to retain the heat.

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At 11pm the temp was 150degreesC. In went the meat in a lidded roaster.

At 8am the next morning the meat was done, juicy and succluent and fell apart when carving. (sorry no photos.) This would be great for a cheaper cut of meat, for nice slow cooking.
My next trial will be cooking a chicken, but that doesn't need to be done overnight. I also want to perfect my bread/roll cooking - just need to work on the timings. Naan Bread will be an interesting cooking experience too. Hopefully with a bit of better weather I'll be able to do some more.

[pseudonym]

Great thread, thanks for the updates.

[Teapot]

That looks great Su!

[jean405]

well done, great accomplishment, you should do a few courses in how to make them.

Jean

[Justin Time]

Absolutely fantastic. What a great little project for you and hubby. I bet you had a right laugh squidging that clay between your toes.

Just to add to your comment about the arch. No maths involved (that we should consider if our sanity is important, but if you must http://www.mathopenref.com/arcradius.html) but the 'keystone' is important to lock everything together. Your arch doesn't have any weight to it so not terribly crucial. heres a pic



Well done Sue. Mighty impressive.