Planning, yet again, to make my first brick oven

[leemid51]

I have been planning, and wishing, and hoping, to build my first brick oven. I've spent hours in 3D cad designing it, even though Forno Bravo has plans, and yet have never completed the task. While I know it will take some serious planning to rearrange my schedule to allow it to happen, I would like to trot further down the road toward my goal. In that light, I would like to meet anyone near Sherwood Oregon who has built one from scratch.

I have extensive bread experience, developing pizza experience, and am committed to the two concepts. I look forward to the day I can post pictures of my actual building of an oven. Perhaps in the mean time I may post some pictures of my pizza baked on my new baking steel. What a difference that made!

Lee

[UtahBeehiver]

SableSprings aka Mike lives in Roseburg, OR. he is a long time member and does a lot baking in his oven.

[SableSprings]

Welcome Lee! Although I am a bit south of you, but Douglas County is beautiful and I'd highly recommend a trip to Crater Lake National Park if you haven't seen it. Just relatively short trip down I-5 to Roseburg on your way to the park. I normally bake around 15 loaves of bread for the neighborhood on Fridays. I tend toward baguettes and Asiago baguettes. Today I did 12 Asiagos, 5 Tater Wheats, 4 ears of corn (Possum Korn style), a pot of beans, roasted shrimp, and a tray of red potatoes. My neighbor brought down 18 mini-ciabattas to bake as well. Too hot to stay outside in the den and have dinner, but we did get a small group together at 8 when it started to cool down and had some little ice cream sandwiches my wife made...ah, it's a tough life!

I'd be more than happy to show you the Dragonfly Den & oven if you're in the area (and we're here). I built the oven with lots of trepidation and second guessing, but I'm approaching 3,000 loaves baked in the oven and just over a total of 4,366 pounds of dough (pizza, biscotti, cookies, bread, buns, etc.). Obviously, I use a spreadsheet to track all my bakes because I used to teach CIS (Computer Information Systems) and just love seeing all that data...

I used to bake occasionally, but I have to say the oven has changed my concepts of breads and cooking in general. I look forward to our Friday Bakes and Saturday bread deliveries far more than I ever would have conceived. I even make bread kits and take a cast iron set of nesting skillets so I can bake pot breads on road trips (a la Jim Lahey).

I do have a friend's son who lives in Portland and had an WFO built in his backyard by a local contractor. If you're interested, I'd try to put you in touch with him.

Let me know how I can help you...it is definitely one of the most satisfying things I've done (oops, yes dear - 45 years of marriage is good too..)