My Alan Scott Oven

[George_in_MA]

Here's a photo of my Alan Scott oven. Still a few more things to do to finish it cosmetically, including cleaning up around the oven so it doesn't look like a construction site. As the temperatures here are in the single digits, that's going to have to wait until spring.

The hearth is approximately 3 feet by 4 feet. It's larger than anyone would need for their own use, but I wanted something that would turn out marketable quantities of bread so Lori could live out her fantasy of running a bakery. I told her we'd start in the backyard and deliver bread to neighbors--as Alan Scott does--and also haul it to farmers' markets. Then, if she can't get her fill of baking that way. we'd look for a cheap commercial rental property.

I like this oven, but would also like one that fires more quickly with less wood. I think I may have to convince Lori to let me build a Pompeii beside it next year.

Not sure how to post photos on this forum, so if it doesn't show up, you can find the photo at this URL:

http://www.frappr.com/brickoventampa/photo/1084329

George

[George_in_MA]

Okay, so I'm thinking the photo may be too large to post here. In any case, the link works.

Here's another try with a smaller photo. This is of the first pizza I cooked in it. It takes a while to get used to cooking at high temperatures. After burning a half dozen or so pizzas, I finally learned to not leave the oven unattended.

George

[PizzaMan]

Nice!!

'Very nice job on the oven!

Let us know how it goes selling to the neighborhood. (That's my fantasy, too, though I have a much smaller oven--42" round floor.)

Keep us posted.

PizzaMan

[aikitarik]

Oh yeah.. verrah nice. Share your recipes, if you're allowed!

[james]

I like the brick work. Very nice.

To post photos here, they have to be less than 100kb (you have to use a graphics program to re-size them) and you can put 5 on a page. It's a nice feature of the forum, so let me know if you can get it to work.

I would enjoy hearing about the baking cycle for making lots (multiple batches per firing) of bread. What type of mixer, the routine, weighs and measures, bulk proofing, etc. It sounds fun, and daunting, to work at those sizes.

James