New member Intro

[Beemanbaker]

Hi all, greetings
I am an “old” Florida USCG vetran.

My bees provide honey and wax for my
projects and baking. Having lived in over 20
countries, I have enjoyed learning how others
cook, bake and keep bees.

I like to bake breads and have a
sour dough starter that is over 100 years old!
I have baked placing a slab of rock over a
fire pit or a large terracotta tile over my
charcoal bbq with a dome lid. Both work great!

Now I want to make an ultralight dome with
arch entryway that I can lift off with 2 people
and place over my brick charcoal bbq with a
preformed slab over it.

What do you think?

regards
beeman

[UtahBeehiver]

Welcome to the forum, this is an interesting concept you are proposing. Many of our bread makers are looking for ovens where they can heat saturate the fire brick for baking bread. Having an ultralight dome and heat saturation are opposite ends of the spectrum. Dense casting is for heat saturation and durable but heavy, insulating casting material is insulating but does not retain heat but light weight and not structually strong. David S is out casting expert, maybe he can shed some light on you proposal. Have you considered building a WFO oven whether it be cast or masonry?

PS, Heritage sour dough starter, very nice.

[david s]

You are getting the thermal mass from your large stone or tile that you place over the charcoal pit so a lightweight insulated dome over the top would probably work ok. The trouble is that a lightweight casting although a good insulator, is not very strong and the continual moving is likely to damage it. You might achieve better success simply insulating the present charcoal bbq lid with some ceramic fibre blanket. When I cook bread in my small oven I usually cook one loaf and two baguettes at a time and I fire my oven for exactly one hour which does not saturate the oven with heat, but provides enough stored energy to do the job and uses little more wood than the weight of the dough ie 1 kg. In my case the power comes from the 2” thick dense castable material of the dome walls and floor lnsulated on their outsides. This is a far more efficient use of fuel.

[Beemanbaker]

I have a possible portable dome.
It is an old cast iron pot we used to use to
boil chickens for defeathering and is thick metal.
I could place it on the cook stone to heat up an can cover it with the old webber cover I use over the coals for
steak bbq.
Then put the dough under it and start experimenting
with the timimg.

Beeman

[Gulf]

Hi Beeman,

Thank you for your service to our country. Did you mail order the sour dough starter or is it something that has been handed down to you?. Either way, an heritage sour dough is something that I would like to play with some day. Have fun with the experimentation on the make shift oven. You may want to try the bread cloche method inside of it. That will help keep the moisture in and help equalize the unequal temperatures that can be bombarding a loaf from different sides in an oven like this. In my oven, I have used a cast iron dutch oven and granite ware with some degree of success.

However, I think that you will be more excited about baking bread in an oven that is designed for bread. It can be large or small. It can be expensive or affordable. The old folks made these ovens out of what what was in nature and what was within their reach. There have been lots of improvements with the availability of better insulation. But, a bread oven is still within most every ones reach.

If you have the room, I advise building a bread oven and keeping the BBQ for the steaks. It will also come in handy for searing/smoking roasts and other dishes for the oven. What ever you decide, don't alter that cast iron kettle. Keep that for the "piney woods stew" .

[Beemanbaker]

Thank you so much for your feedback.
I will follow your advice and probably make a WFO

Regards

[Beemanbaker]

Wondered if it can make a heat resistant morter with morter mix plus sand and Perlite?
Tandoori almost done.
Made from old brick bbq.

Regards

Beeman

[david s]

I presume you want to create a mix to insulate under and around the inner clay pot of your tandoori. You want a mix that will insulate well, but have enough strength to hold the inner pot in place securely. If it were mine I’d be using 8 parts vermiculite or perlite, 1 part cement, 1 part sand, 3 parts water. Because of the large amount of water required in the mix it will take a long time to dry. Allow a week for the mix to cure before lighting any fires and don’t seal around the top so moisture can escape. After maybe 20 firings or more you can then top the insulating mix with some mortar to prevent getting it wet again from rain.

[Beemanbaker]

Tkx so much for your feedback!! Here is a pick after cutting the top pot. Do I need to cement the together?
Regards

[david s]

No, I wouldn’t, the mix around the outside will hold them both in place.

[Beemanbaker]

Was thinking that might work. Thanks