New Bread Oven

[Loren]

I have just finished building my bread oven and found this site via pizzamaking.com. I sure whish I knew about this list and the Forum before I began work on the oven. In 2004 I started investigating the building of an oven and the only site I found was Brian's brick oven page. Since then there have been a lot of great sites that have come out, there is much more information out now than I could find years ago.

I built an Allan Scott style oven and fired it up last weekend for the first time. I have a lot to learn and this site has a tremendous amount of information including the link to the bread classes given in Sonoma next March by Peter Reinhart, unfortunately they are already full.

It is amazing that I have been to this site many times and only thought you sold pre fab ovens. I could kick myself for not finding this forum earlier, hindsight is 20/20. I am in search of some good tools to use for making pizza so I will check the tool section.

I had a look at the Pompeii oven and the brick work is something else!

Thanks for the great site.
Loren

[asudavew]

Re: New Bread Oven

Welcome aboard.

I am sure we would all enjoy pictures of your oven!

And don't worry about not getting here sooner, you've made it here now!
And there is still plenty to learn about firing and running your oven, and bread making, and baking, and cooking, and firewood, ... well... loads of things. And you can learn much about ALL of those things right here.
Tons of reading!


We're glad to have you.

Dave

[CanuckJim]

Re: New Bread Oven

Loren,

Sshh. Don't tell anyone, but there are a few AS oven types on this forum. I'm one of them: 4'x3' floor, high mass (the oven, not me). You might want to go to the main site, www.fornobravo.com , and download the bread baking, pizza making and general cooking e-books. You must register to get them, but they're free in pdf format.

Jim

[Loren]

Re: New Bread Oven

I am lucky to have found this site! There is so much information here I am completely lost, this is great. Here are some pics of the oven...

Thanks guys!

Loren

[dmun]

Re: New Bread Oven

This may qualify as a dumb question, but why the firebox underneath? Was this designed to work as a "white" oven?

[RTflorida]

Re: New Bread Oven

I like it. Maybe just a fireplace? In any case it is really cool seeing both fires burning at once.

[Loren]

Re: New Bread Oven

Ah, never a dumb question. To tell you the truth I am not sure what it will turn in to be. Here is how it started, I will try to shorten up a long story. I ordered a bunch of hearth bricks and found out how much they were when I picked them up, WOW!$! So I got cheap and bought some fire brick and saw how much of a difference there was in quality, I then decided not to skimp on the main oven. So I had a bunch of fire brick left over and came up with the? smoker, fireplace, BBQ, ash dump idea. Also since I have never done brick work before I could practice there first. I was even thinking of firing it up and see what temp I could get it so I could do a quick pizza in it, maybe with a pizza stone and coals underneath. It is tied into the ash dump and ties in to the flue quite nicely. I would like to use the main oven as a smoking chamber and do some nice fish and jerky.

Here is an early pic, it was a pain in the back to build it? I'll see if I can find a pic of the roof later. It is kind of cool how I interlocked the bricks to make the opening of the ash drop/flue.

Loren

PS What is a white oven?

[Loren]

Re: New Bread Oven

Hey Jim,

Nice to know you have the same style oven I do. I will probably have a lot of questions for you down the line. I just signed up for Peter Reinhart's class in March, should be interesting...

Loren

[dmun]

Re: New Bread Oven

PS What is a white oven?

A "White" oven is a bake chamber which is heated by a fire below, and flue gasses traveling around it. In other words, the fire isn't in the oven. These are often part of a masonry heater assembly. Commercial ovens that need to be fired continuously are often set up as white ovens.

[Acoma]

Re: New Bread Oven

I am concerned about the lack of insulation to the lower area. Did you insulate it properly? How so? If you are doing a double barrel approach, I hope both areas were equally insulated. Can you elaborate?

[Loren]

Re: New Bread Oven

I am not sure what you are talking about when you say the double barrel approach. I never intended to use both at the same time. The lower part has no insulation, however it does have 2" of concrete cladding. Also it is hard to see but there is a block wall behind the back brick work. Have a look at the pics to see what I am talking about.

Do you still think there is a problem with no insulation?

You can also see the roof detail. I am not sure what you call that type of "key slot" but that is the only way I could figure out how to hold the arch together with a flue hole in the middle of it without using some type of steel support.

Loren

PS Thanks for the white oven info... Interesting.

[Acoma]

Re: New Bread Oven

Is the bottom to act as a fireplace only? How do you plan top and bottom for usage? That is what I am wondering. I would like to answer further once I understand the usage of each. When I say double barrel, your top and bottom oven had me thinking with reference to the double barrel of a shotgun.

[Loren]

Re: New Bread Oven

It may only be a fireplace, or smoke generator for the main oven, or just a grill. Too early to tell yet. The top is obviously the bread oven. I don't think there will be any problems, only time will tell.

Loren

[asudavew]

Re: New Bread Oven

It is very interesting!

[Acoma]

Re: New Bread Oven

Knowing that detail, then yes, it looks to be quite the set up. One you will enjoy for many uses. And like the others are saying, keep info and photos coming.