Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

[busboss]

Has anyone here had any experience with building a rocket bread oven ( a la Aprovecho stye) using drums or barrels? If so, please post your experience and photos. Particularly interested in any vertical barrel styles. Thanks!

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

I haven't received any suggestions so I forged out on my own. With the help of Jeff (aka pizzahacker in San Francisco), here is my work in progress:

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

[Greenman]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Looks interesting busboss. I would be interesting to see how it works and what you cook in it.

[TropicalCoasting]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Im very interested too

I like the idea of a shove a few twigs in and go for quick mid week cook
The problem may be lack of heat storage and constant need to feed twigs.
But am very interested to see the results and tweaks if necessary.

[Gulf]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

If that paint job holds up to a rocket stove, please post the manufacturer. I'm having problems with paint at very much lower temps on my smokers .

[scott123]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

I'm curious, did Jeff really recommend that high of a dome?

Also, could you maybe scribble the final configuration on a piece of paper to show where the heat is flowing through the device and how you're handling deflection?

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Heat will rise through a channel and chimney made of firebrick as is common with traditional rocket stoves. The heat is usually too much for any metal construction.

My custom sized Baking Steel arrived yesterday. It will be the cooking surface. After firing, I will take temperature readings. The void surrounding the perimeter of the stainless cooking chamber will be filled with ceramic blanket.

Paint is listed as tolerant of 2000?F.

Scott123: Dome is about 9.5 inches tall. Have you seen pictures of Jeff's? I looked at his version in person. His has two tiers of cooking chambers. I eliminated the lower chamber to allow for my fire chamber and chimney design.

This is an experiment for sure. I am hopeful for good results.

I'll post results in a few weeks.

[scott123]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

My custom sized Baking Steel arrived yesterday. It will be the cooking surface.

Steel is an exceptionally poor choice for the cooking surface in a bottom heat source scenario. Redirecting heat from below the pizza to above it, so the top bakes as quickly as the bottom, involves some pretty major alchemy- deflection under the hearth, an air gap between the deflector and the hearth, a deflector that's larger than the hearth, a lower ceiling, etc. etc. You're shooting yourself in the foot by adding a material that accelerates bottom browning in an environment where accelerated bottom browning is already a potential issue.

Steel is only useful to home bakers with ovens that go to 550 and who have a broiler in the main compartment. For everyone else with bottom or side heat scenarios- BGEs, non IR grills, Kamados, gas ovens with a separate broiler drawer, wood fired ovens of any kind, your setup- steel is completely and utterly useless. And for Andris not to inform prospective buyers of this fact is incredibly dishonest.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but, unless the steel fits in your home oven and you can bake on it there (using the broiler), you just bought a very expensive door stop.

Edit: One other area where steel might be helpful is in a top heat only scenario, which is pretty rare. The way the uuni is set up, it's pretty much top heat only. Steel helped the uuni 1 with a more conductive surface, but the heat from above was still a bit too weak to pre-heat the steel effectively. The uuni 2 tries to compensate for this by going with aluminum, an even more conductive material. The jury's still out on whether or not it can brown the bottom of the pizza suffciently. Anyway, if you can take the heat from your firebox and find a way to direct all of it up, over and down on to the steel, that might work, but, by tracking the progression of little black eggs, this is incredibly difficult to achieve. You'd make your life a lot easier just by using a ceramic hearth- you'll still need deflection, but not as much deflection/redirection of heat that you'd need with steel.

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Thanks for the input.

As I said from the start, this is an experiment. A fun one I might add.

The proof (failure or success) will be in its actual performance.

I'll keep you posted so we can all learn from it.

Thanks again.

[Greenman]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Interested to see what you come up with Busboss. If you are prepared for a few false starts or setbacks then you will produce something that works. To what degree is waiting to be seen. It is easy to adopt the proven methods, it takes a bit more of a sense of adventure to stray from the surveyed line.

Good luck with it!

[moderator]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

You might want to consider a Tandoori oven. The barrel shape is perfect for that. I attached a beer keg Tandoori since you are working with a similar shape.

There is some good threads on Tandoori ovens.

Here is a good Tandoori thread if your interested.

http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f43/...uild-8898.html

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Put the finishing touches on it today.

Clean out door and pizza paddle holder.



Finished with fuel feed tube attached.



First fire.

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Cooking surface.

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

For those who asked about the heat tolerance of the paint. It handled the first firing with no issues.

The first pizza cook will be later this week.