Hi All,
I'm going to try and build a small version of a Tandoori oven inside a 50 liter (13 US gall) beer keg. The family are crazy about naan bread (which costs me a fortune) and I have been experimenting with a charcoal BBQ to cook home made naan. This works OK, but I can only cook the naan on one side and flipping it over to finish cooking destroys the naan effect.
Anyway, similar to what Voon has posted here but only smaller. Now I might find out this is too small to be useful, but I have to try.
I have the keg (stainless steel), the flower pot (37cm OD Italian Terra Cotta) and a friend with a plasma cutter and both TIG & MIG welding facilities (always needed an excuse to try out that plasma cutter). My thoughts are as follows.
Cooking Physics : Essentially I want to be able to cook my naan as they do in real tandoor ovens. So slapping the naan on the side of oven, using heat from the terracotta pot to cook the bottom and using the trapped heat inside to cook the top. Probably have to make the naan a little smaller due to the smaller opening of the pot (22cm).
Heat Source : Located in Australia, I have access to an interesting form of charcoal sold by Red Heads (a Swedish match company). It is wood charcoal, but unlike ordinary charcoal appears to have been ground to a fine dust, mixed with a neutral binder and then re-compressed under pressure and pushed into a hexagon shape, with a hole in the middle for better air circulation. It burns very well, quite long, is relatively clean, and generates a lot of heat.
Construction : A 50liter keg is not that big, but I plan to cut the top and bottom lids off the keg (but keeping the lips), essentially increasing it by another 10liters.
On the bottom, I want to convert the rounded bottom to a flat one, so I want to cut out the bottom using the plasma cutter, but leave the bottom lip. Using flat SS sheet stock (and probably some bracing) weld a new bottom on. With the top, do a similar thing, cut the top off but leave the lip on.
The 37cm terra cotta pot fits perfectly inside the keg (I think), so I was thinking about 2inch of vermiculite on the bottom, 25mm high refractory bricks on the base, 1 layer of bricks around the edge (for the pot to sit on). A square hole and matching gap would be provided for an air vent in the bricks. This should avoid the need to cut any tricky shapes in the pot. The pot when then sit on top of the bricks, and be surrounded by vermiculite as insulation.
Concerns : Biggest concern is that the terra cotta pot is not that thick (maybe 15mm at most) and it may not have enough thermal mass. I guess this could be done with some wire mesh around the outside of the pot and adding additional layers of refractory cement to increase the thermal mass.
So that's my plan - no idea if it is going to work but would be interested in others comments. My next best idea is to take the keg down to the scrap merchants and use the money to but a plant to put in the terra cot pot.
Cheers
Luke
I'm going to try and build a small version of a Tandoori oven inside a 50 liter (13 US gall) beer keg. The family are crazy about naan bread (which costs me a fortune) and I have been experimenting with a charcoal BBQ to cook home made naan. This works OK, but I can only cook the naan on one side and flipping it over to finish cooking destroys the naan effect.
Anyway, similar to what Voon has posted here but only smaller. Now I might find out this is too small to be useful, but I have to try.
I have the keg (stainless steel), the flower pot (37cm OD Italian Terra Cotta) and a friend with a plasma cutter and both TIG & MIG welding facilities (always needed an excuse to try out that plasma cutter). My thoughts are as follows.
Cooking Physics : Essentially I want to be able to cook my naan as they do in real tandoor ovens. So slapping the naan on the side of oven, using heat from the terracotta pot to cook the bottom and using the trapped heat inside to cook the top. Probably have to make the naan a little smaller due to the smaller opening of the pot (22cm).
Heat Source : Located in Australia, I have access to an interesting form of charcoal sold by Red Heads (a Swedish match company). It is wood charcoal, but unlike ordinary charcoal appears to have been ground to a fine dust, mixed with a neutral binder and then re-compressed under pressure and pushed into a hexagon shape, with a hole in the middle for better air circulation. It burns very well, quite long, is relatively clean, and generates a lot of heat.
Construction : A 50liter keg is not that big, but I plan to cut the top and bottom lids off the keg (but keeping the lips), essentially increasing it by another 10liters.
On the bottom, I want to convert the rounded bottom to a flat one, so I want to cut out the bottom using the plasma cutter, but leave the bottom lip. Using flat SS sheet stock (and probably some bracing) weld a new bottom on. With the top, do a similar thing, cut the top off but leave the lip on.
The 37cm terra cotta pot fits perfectly inside the keg (I think), so I was thinking about 2inch of vermiculite on the bottom, 25mm high refractory bricks on the base, 1 layer of bricks around the edge (for the pot to sit on). A square hole and matching gap would be provided for an air vent in the bricks. This should avoid the need to cut any tricky shapes in the pot. The pot when then sit on top of the bricks, and be surrounded by vermiculite as insulation.
Concerns : Biggest concern is that the terra cotta pot is not that thick (maybe 15mm at most) and it may not have enough thermal mass. I guess this could be done with some wire mesh around the outside of the pot and adding additional layers of refractory cement to increase the thermal mass.
So that's my plan - no idea if it is going to work but would be interested in others comments. My next best idea is to take the keg down to the scrap merchants and use the money to but a plant to put in the terra cot pot.
Cheers
Luke
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