Barrel Oven Build Start to Finish

[**Miles**]

The fire brick completed and ready to start on insulation.

[**Miles**]

The insulation. I put one 1" thick layer of ceramic fiber batting and covered that with 3.5" of mineral wool. The ceramic fiber batting was purchased from Amazon. I went back to buy more a week later and the price had doubled. Literally. This was the same week Trump announced his tariffs for the first time. The fiber batting became way too expensive. Fortunately I found some posts here on this form saying they had used mineral wool successfully. It was WAY cheaper and easily sourced from Home Depot.

[**Miles**]

Chicken wire was used to hold the insulation in place and hold the stucco in place. I put bends in the chicken wire to help it go into the proper shape and gently hug the insulation. I also used some concrete screws and stainless wire to hold the chicken wire down at the base. This worked out really well as it made it a lot easier to get the chicken wire to snug up against the insulation.

[**Miles**]

For the stucco I used regular mortar with some additive to make it more waterproof and workable. I only ended up doing one layer. Two might have been better, but the one layer cured nice and strong.

[**Miles**]

I used MAPEI Mapelastic Aquadefense 1 Gallon(s) Liquid Indoor or outdoor Waterproof Membrane to completely waterproof the stucco. I did this in multiple coats. The first coat was heavily watered down so that it would soak into the mortar. The second coat was full strength.

[**Miles**]

Decorating the arch with red brick. I shopped around a lot for brick veneer. Dang that stuff is expensive. I ended up buying regular red clay brick from Home Depot and renting a 10" wet saw to cut each brick into thirds. It took a few hours to cut all the brick I'd need...and saved me at least $400. I really like the way this turned out too.

[**Miles**]

More of the red brick. I used a grout bag with regular mortar to fill the gaps between the brick veneer.

[**Miles**]

More of the decorative stuff going on.

[**Miles**]

Building the chimney. I used triple wall insulated chimney pipe.

[**Miles**]

First small fire to cure the oven. Not sure this step was really necessary. I do live in HOT, DRY AZ. But it was fun to build the first fire anyway. The chimney draws up 90% of the smoke once it's hot.

[**Miles**]

Baked some cookies for the first cook.

[**Miles**]

Some pizza cooks.

[**Miles**]

That's the end. Hopefully someone finds some usefulness from this post.

[david s]

The base of the chimney/top of the vent.

Hi Miles,

Was there a reason you went for an updraft rather than a cross draft system, as it appears the entry to the chimney is level with the crown of the arch?

There are advantages with this system, but the flame circulation does result in uneven chamber temperatures as well as higher fuel consumption.

Dave

[**Miles**]

David, I had to look up what you meant by "cross draft" and "updraft". I'm still learning all the terminology.
But I think what I built would be considered cross draft. The vent is in front of the oven door. The height of the oven entry or door is 16" and the oven height is 24". This gives about a 66% door to oven height ratio, which seems fairly in line with recommendations I found on this site.
The pictures in post 12 and 13 I think are the best to see this.