Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

[fisherhum]

Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

Successful party!

Two different types of pies and the oven worked great. I started it up early in the day to drive off us much moisture as possible as I had only had the one drying fire previously. The steel definitely allows the heat to disperse evenly throughout the dome quickly as it's a better conductor of heat than brick. The outside layer of bricks obviously isn't dry yet as it was very slow to increase temp. At the end of the day it was only at 280F and I'd been running a fire for 6 hours. I ended up cooking with the hearth temp at 550F (a little low) and the dome at 750F. Pizza pies turned out great. You'll just have to trust me as apparently once they were cooked the focus was on eating them rather than getting a picture. We ended up flouring the back side of the pizza trays and used them as improvised pizza peels and using my oversize spatula as a turning and removing peel. We then went to dessert, a blueberry pie that i'd picked up from a farmers market. Turned out it was uncooked and since I had the oven preheated we just threw it in there. The hearth temp was at 450F and the dome was at 550 at that point. Turned out well, the hearth temp was still a little high so it cooked a little too much on the bottom but the rest was great. I noticed a few cracks around the chimney that developed yesterday so I filled those this morning. Depending on how energetic I feel tomorrow and as long as the weather holds I will insulate the oven and put the roof on.

[Lburou]

Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

Well another weekend of staying in town. I'm hoping to get the front arch jig built over the weekend and will post a quick picture if I get it done. In the meantime I received a few pictures of an old pizza oven I thought I would post. My mom just returned from a hiking trip in Italy and spotted the oven at one of the lunch stops.

Thanks for sharing the photos your mom made Seeing the cracks in a longtime working oven gives me relief after seeing too many cracks in my own oven right after curing it.

[berryst]

Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

I did something similar to this but I used a wooden barrel, then bricked, then burned the barrel out. The result was an oblong oven. So far so good as the oven stands the test of time. I do like you idea and respect all out-of-the-box builds
Berryst

[fisherhum]

Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

Well it's been a few weeks since an update. I got back to the cabin on the 16th only to find that my tarp had leaked and since we've been getting a lot of rain let's just say the dome and floor were quite wet. I spent last weekend trying to get and keep a small fire going and watching the steam come off. I did cut the sheet metal roof and then tarped it down as I didn't have time to screw it down properly. This weekend as everything had dried out I was able to put the insulation over the dome. I used one full bag and the sheets fit perfectly so minimal cutting was required which was really nice. The pictures don't show it well but I had to cut a few pieces to fully insulate around the chimney and in the front wall. If I need more insualation I will put it in the walls. I screwed on the roof and used stove cement and fire caulking to seal the roof to the chimney... and promptly forgot to take a picture so I'll get that for next weeekend. I will try and finish it off next weekend with the hardiplank siding so we'll see how that goes.

[horrocks007]

Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

Looking great. I am sure that oven with roast some nice fish in it's future!

[stonylake]

Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

It's summer so I haven't been paying much attention to the forum. I built a 36" in my back yard at home, but spend most of the summer weekends at the lake and my kids are having pizza withdrawal, yelling that they want another oven. i have been thinking about a modular, but came across this thread and am very intriqued. i also have a couple of old whiskey barrels... berryst, do you have a thread of your barrel build?

[fisherhum]

Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

Fired it up on Saturday but didn't get the floor hot enough for pizza, it was a little soft .... still learning but it's definitely fun learning. We baked some bread on Sunday as I have finished the door and it worked very well. It's holding heat quite nicely. It was still 250F about 9 hours after the fire, I couldn't ask for much more than that. Here's is a quick pre siding picture. I got about 80% of the siding done but the $20 grinder I picked up died, plan B is to pick up a masonry blade for my jig saw and finish off the pieces around the arch. Next pictures will be the finished product.

[berryst]

Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage

It's summer so I haven't been paying much attention to the forum. I built a 36" in my back yard at home, but spend most of the summer weekends at the lake and my kids are having pizza withdrawal, yelling that they want another oven. i have been thinking about a modular, but came across this thread and am very intriqued. i also have a couple of old whiskey barrels... berryst, do you have a thread of your barrel build?

I am not that good the the technical stuff...soooo just search "berryst" and look for "the journey is the destination..." thread
Berryst