Hand Print Press has published a new book about a hybrid style of wood-fired oven called a Barrel Oven!
Build Your Own Barrel Oven
A Guide for Making a Versatile, Efficient, and Easy to Use Wood-Fired Oven
The tools for a sustainable future continue to grow! In this book, Max and Eva Edleson offer a comprehensive guide for planning and building a practical, efficient and affordable wood-fired oven. The Barrel Oven offers surprising convenience because it is hot and ready to bake in within 15-20 minutes and is easy to maintain at a constant temperature.  It can be the seed for a small-scale baking enterprise or the heart of a community’s wood-fired cuisine. All kinds of food can be baked in the Barrel Oven including bread, roasts, pizza, cookies cakes, pies, casseroles and stews. Follow this step-by-step guide to transform local, low-cost materials and the sun’s energy into good food.
Highlights include:
- Detailed how-to instructions about how to build this style of oven including step-by-step explanations.
- Photos and drawings that demonstrate the building process and completed ovens.
- General discussions about siting and location for outdoor kitchens.
- Guidance in deciding which kind of wood-fired oven is best for you.
- Interviews with people who have been cooking in Barrel Ovens for many years.
- Recipes for great dishes to be cooked in your Barrel Oven
More about the Barrel Oven from Firespeaking!
Praise for Build Your Own Barrel Oven:
“Eva and Max Edleson are highly skilled both as builders and as bakers, but what really shines through in this book is their excellence as communicators. They clearly present varied methods and materials, with very helpful discussions of the pros and cons of each option. Other builders’ voices really round out the presentation. This is a book that will likely inspire you to build your own oven, and make you feel like you have experienced mentors walking you step-by-step through the process.”
–Sandor Ellix Katz, Author of Wild Fermentation, The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, and The Art of Fermentation.
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“Max and Eva Edleson offer up this barrel oven as a marriage of native, natural materials with industrial “waste.†The result is a beautiful and useful appliance that combines the appeal and advantages of wood fire with the quick heat of an American industrialized kitchen.‘What?! A wood-fired oven that can bake bread 20 minutes after you light the fire?’
Yup. And it can be cheap, too, especially if you can do simple metal work yourself. And your kids can help you do the mud work.
The more people get interested in wood-fired cooking, sustainability, and traditional ways of eating, the more important it is to have options, examples, and choices. Here’s a great contribution for back-yard bakers serving family and friends, primitive out-back chefs cooking for large groups and gatherings, or a small, wood-fired business in need of a versatile oven. Good stuff!â€
— Kiko Denzer, author, Build Your Own Earth Oven: A Low-Cost, Wood-Fired Mud Oven, Simple Sourdough Bread, Perfect Loaves.