Hot From the Oven – updates on wood-fired ovens, Cob Ovens, Earth Ovens, Brick ovens…how to build them, how to use them

Once you’ve built an oven (or three), things start happening. Each oven is unique, and offers its own opportunities and lessons. You can learn something every time you use it, or every time you build a new one. Look here for questions, answers, and stories, not only from Kiko Denzer, who will be adding on to what’s in Build Your Own Earth Oven, but also from readers and other oven builders and pyromaniacs. Please do add your stories, recipes, questions, sources, and experiences.

Contents

Ovens, builders, a new (oven) book for German readers

Out of the blue one day I got a phone call from a guy named Ian Miller. He said he had built a few ovens, baked a fair amount of bread, was married to an Austrian and (among other things) …

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New Community Oven in New Jersey

HANDS stands for Housing and Neighborhood Development Services. They work out of Orange, New Jersey to try and reclaim dilapidated houses and other “eyesore properties,” and return them to the neighborhood as affordable homes and community assets. They also work …

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Video: clean & hot: how to light a fire in your oven

How you prep and lay a fire makes a big difference to how things work — or not — in your oven (and other stoves). It’s really pretty simple: dry fuel, small sticks (plenty of surface area), plenty of space …

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Adjusting mass for optimal performance

Here’s a valuable perspective on the benefits of smaller, easier, cheaper, “faster-cooling” ovens, and a working baker’s comparison w/the classic Alan Scott brick oven design (which isn’t always the best option for someone who wants to start small and simple).…

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Guest Article: An Earthen Oven Odyssey by Joe Kennedy

I have been making earthen ovens for over twenty years now. I made my first one in 1991 when I was working with architect Nader Khalili at CalEarth in the Mojave Desert. We were making a lot of adobe bricks …

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Terra Preta and “the Biochar Solution”

The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change, by Albert Bates
A review by Kiko Denzer

Living trees lock up carbon, and burning releases it. That’s the conflict-ridden equation of global warming. Albert Bates has been at the front lines …

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Alan Scott, Brick Ovens, A Marriage

Alan Scott’s Ovencrafters provides DIY masonry oven plans and hardware (doors and pyrometers) for bakers wanting to start their own small business, or just to bake large amounts of bread and other food for family and friends. It was set …

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How Wide A Door?

This seems to be one of the bits of the book that could be improved in the next edition.

Yesterday, I got it again in this lovely note from a lady named June:

Hello Kiko:
I am a 68 year …

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Kiko’s Recommended Oven Links

This is a somewhat random list of sites and sources of information — mostly free. It also bounces around between earthen and brick ovens, traditional and modern, simple and complex. If you have any recommendations, let me know!

— Kiko…

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Dan Wing on Trailers for Mobile Ovens

Much as I try to discourage them (see pp 98-101 of Build Your Own Earth Oven, 3d ed.), lots of people want to put their oven on a trailer and tow it long distances at high speed. Dan Wing, co-author …

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Michael Pollan, a Cob Oven, & the NY Times

“Communal table: A 36 Hour Dinner Party”

The NY Times Magazine recently published this article by Michael Pollan about a 36 hour dinner party cooked in a mud oven. Best, for me, was how he explained the purpose of the …

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Solstice, 2010: bring in the mud! (into the house, that is)

This time of year I don’t usually get too muddy, but I brought some mud into my office last month so I could have a better and more efficient source of heat — finally! This little “heater hat” effectively turned …

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the upside down fire

You can greatly improve how your oven performs by how you lay and manage the fire. Here’s how and why I build what Pat Manley calls “an upside down fire.” The first principle of fire requires applying to heat to …

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Frequently Asked Oven Questions

If you can’t find an answer to your question here, in the book, or elsewhere on the site, please feel free to contact the author through the feedback form, and we’ll update this section.

Jump to: Efficiency, design, etc.…

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ovens and efficiency

Dear Oven builders, mud teachers, bakers, and eaters:

I would like to talk to you about some of the claims being published about the efficiency of earthen ovens.

I think we need to be clear that any masonry oven, whether …

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Noah Elbers on earth vs brick ovens

Noah is a working baker, builder, and farmer who has built and used earthen ovens, a classic Alan Scott oven, and now a very fancy Spanish Llopis oven. Here he provides very clear and detailed data on the differences in …

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Oven dome height for different size ovens

In the space of two days, I got two emails from people asking the exact same question. So here’s clarification, which I’ll have to include in the next printing! Thanks to those who wrote…

“Typical dome height” is 16” (p. …

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new commercial oven at CSA farm

Here’s a new commercial oven at Gathering Together Farm, a small farm/CSA restaurant in Philomath, Oregon, with cooks JC and Lisa posing with tools. This is a super-insulated design, with an external basket frame covered w/clay-slip-soaked burlap and insulating (sawdust-clay) …

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oven journal: details of fire & food

My oven journal, such as it is, follows. It includes how we went about preparing several big holiday meals, as well as other details that may be of interest if you’ve just built an oven and you’re not quite sure …

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oven fuel, firing times, and insulation

A couple of years ago, I decided to try and keep a bit better track of my oven’s performance. In particular, I was interested in seeing how much wood I was burning compared to how much bread and other cooking …

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cob ovens on trailers

“I was wondering if you might have any info or resources for cob oven on trailers?”

This is without doubt THE most frequent inquiry I get. It’s also a large part of why I decided to put up a blog. …

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