Tims oven - early days!

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

Here's a shot of the first layer of cooking floor almost all in place. Today I've laid out the next layer of cooking floor, and marked out where to cut the bricks. I also spent some dusty time cutting the first course of bricks, and I'm almost ready to get them into position!

[dusty]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

I also spent some dusty time cutting the first course of bricks

I can relate!

Looks perfect. Keep posting and have fun.

Do you plan on having two layers of bricks on the floor?

dusty

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

Yep, the second layer will be cut to fit inside the dome. The cooking floor will be 100mm/4" in total.

I just decided I'm getting a proper respirator style dust mask before I do any more brick cutting!

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

I just got the soldier course laid out today after work - it's good to actually see some bricks in place! I just need to firm up a few details about the transition to the entry arch before I start mortaring.

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

I didn't get much done today, it's hot!
But I did mortar all of the first course, as well as lay the rest of the 1st layer of floor. I mortared the front row of floor bricks on the entry, just to hold it together. The bricks hang over the insulation - I'm planning on rendering underneath the entry. Next step is to cut out the cooking floor bricks!

[Frances]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

Its looking good Tim!

One thing, most of us have put the herringbone pattern of the floor bricks at a 45? angle, so there aren't any front on endges to catch on the peel - any reason you did it differently? I'm just thinking that if you want you can still turn the pattern direction on the second floor layer... or perhaps you were already planning on doing that?

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

Yep, the floor will be herringbone and set 45? to the entry. I just did the first layer basket weave and aligned to the front to minimise the cutting I had to do.

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

I made a bit of progress today. First I cut and placed all of the cooking floor bricks inside the first course. I definitely made this harder than it had to be by cutting the bricks to fit inside the landing, including where my landing widens up from the entry. I should have just laid these bricks underneath the landing and saved some cutting!

A couple of the floor bricks are not quite flush with the others - should I be worried about this? I was thinking I could take a sander to the raised edges if need be.

I left a brick out in the center of the oven, so I could set my dome gauge to rotate around the exact level of the floor. I'm using my tripod ball head, inspired by Hendo's great post. I cut a thin strip of wood to fit inside the cavity left by the missing brick, and put a 3/8" bolt through it and screwed the ball head on. Then I put another bolt through the base plate of the ball head, and screwed a garden stake to it. I nailed on a cross piece at the length of the internal radius so I can line up each brick.

Finally today I cut out the form for the entry arch and got the first 4 bricks up on each side of the form before dark - I'll take a pic of that in the morning and finish it off, then it's on to the dome!

And finally something completely different - check out the loaf I just took out of the oven. It's a 1.5kg white/wholemeal no-knead-stretch-and-fold sourdough . It got a little crazy in the oven but I think it will taste good for lunch tomorrow.

[egalecki]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

The oven's looking really good, Tim. If your bricks are like mine were, find the brick that goes in that hole in the floor and set it aside! I found mine to be a bit on the irregular side, so not just any brick would have fit!

I have a few places on the floor that are a little higher, but so far I haven't had a problem with that.

What sort of recipe did you use for the bread? It's beautiful. I was wondering how to incorporate sourdough starter in no-knead bread, and I really like mine half white/half whole wheat.

[Frances]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

Its all looking really good, the bread, the oven...

Your floor looks a lot more even than mine and won't give you any problems whatsoever. I've actually become quite attached to one of my floor bricks poking up out of the hearth - but the pizzas don't so its ok.

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

Thanks for the encouragement about the floor Does your brick have a name, Frances? I've been wondering what to call my oven.

The bread was a little off the top of my head but I think it was something like:
100 % flour, mix of wholemeal and white to taste. I use about 4 to 1 white to wholemeal
73-75% water (depending on how much wholemeal, it should be pretty moist)
5% sourdough starter
1.5% salt
0.2% instant yeast

Mix all dry ingredients together then add water and starter and mix well until there's no lumps.
Leave for 1-2 hours, then turn out, stretch dough out into a flat square and fold it in thirds horizontally and vertically. Form a rough ball and put it back in the bowl. Repeat this step twice more at intervals of 1-2 hours or longer if it's convenient.

Lightly punch down and shape into your final shape, and sit in a lined basket or cloth. Allow to rise (usually pretty quick after the long fermentation) and bake at 220 with a steam pan for around 50 minutes or until done.

I know it's sort of cheating to use some instant yeast as well but I wanted this to rise well and not be too sour as it's for guests - if I was using starter only I'd build up 30g starter to 100g, leave it overnight, and then add all of that, and maybe stretch out the time between folds to 3 hours if it looked like it needed it. Hope that helps! The real trick is to keep it moist to help the gluten develop - I often find I only need to do 2 stretch and folds. I almost never knead anything any more, no-knead pizzas are lovely.

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

I finished off my arch this morning, then I had to take a break to make lunch and dinner for successive sets of guests. I conscripted one of the guests to help me lay the first course of the dome, and we got that finished off as well! Our brick laying isn't going to win any awards but I think it looks nice enough and will do the job. I decided that I'm happy to split the dome bricks with a bolster, at least for the earlier courses. It's going to be covered in insulation anyway!

You can see where I used ties in the arch mortar joints - this is to connect the arch with dome for a little extra stability.

Finally a photo showing the crumb of the loaf I posted before - it got devoured before I could take pictures of any more of it!

[staestc]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

The bread just looks tasty! I should have eaten something for breakfast

Please put up a picture from the front so that I can see both arches. I still can't decide what I am going to do about that

Travis

[Frances]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

Nice archway! That's what the entry to my next oven is going to look like

[Tim F]

Re: Tims oven - early days!

The bread just looks tasty! I should have eaten something for breakfast

Please put up a picture from the front so that I can see both arches. I still can't decide what I am going to do about that

Travis

For sure! Here's a couple of angles, plus today's progress. Sorry about the mess

I got another course done and I'm thinking that I will get the dome finished by the weekend if I can do 1-2 courses after work every day.

In front of the entry arch I will build a deeper arch - I'm thinking 26-30cm, with a diameter 4-5 cm larger than the entry so that a door can fit in easily. I'm open to opinions on the best way to transition to the chimney from the top of the brick arch. I could either try to get access to a welder and make up a steel trapezoid that bolts on to the arch somehow and attaches to the flue pipe, or I could make a short brick chimney on top and buy or have made up a base plate/spigot that bolts on to the top of the chimney.