Elizabeth's oven

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

AAAKK!

It's raining on my curing fire! I put one layer of blanket on, and there's tarp on that part, but the entry is too hot to cover up!

Crap. Does the blanket dry out ok if it gets a little wet around the bottom?

And we never have just rain. We have to have wind too.

[asudavew]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

Awesome!

Take your time, and don't rush now~! Take your time on the curing.

Congrats

Dave

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

The second fire, of newspaper and kindling, is now burning. Most of the smoke goes out through the vent, although some is going out the front. It was a little hard to get it going at first- I think I'll have to check out the fire-building pages!

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

Elizabeth
I have enjoyed watching your build very much. Is it true that garden fed wood fired oven ground hog is tasty?
berryst

I dunno. Lola (the little dog) got hold of it twice, but then let it go under the porch again. We haven't seen it since. Either I'll start smelling something vile soon out there, or it's maybe moved. I haven't seen any more damage out in the garden, either.

Since Lola let it go, I doubt it tastes very good. But if it shows its little rodenty face again, we might find out!

[berryst]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

Elizabeth
I have enjoyed watching your build very much. Is it true that garden fed wood fired oven ground hog is tasty?
berryst

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

groundhogs don't like basil, sage, or rosemary at my house... and my smallest dog has already scared the living crap out of it! so maybe it will leave.

[christo]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

I feel your pain. The deer got all the tops of my tomato plants and also ate my hostas....

Apparently Deer do not like Basil - that plant is doing wonderful.

christo

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

I'm not sure, but I expect to use some residual heat in several days to do something. I don't have a door yet, so I can't do anything that will take too long. I think maybe a chicken, split down the backbone and flattened, with some fresh herbs and garlic stuffed under the skin. Or I could do it with the beer can stand thingy and a pan- that way I don't run the risk of messing up one of my cast iron pans. I might put some veg. in around the bottom too- I have a lot of fennel right now, and I love it roasted.

While we were gone, a groundhog took advantage of the absence of dogs to eat my parsley, my carrot tops, my fennel tops, my lettuce, and some of my sweet potato vines. He's taken up residence under the deck, you see, and I'm going to let the dogs at him. I HATE groundhogs. Especially when they eat my garden. (anyone notice that they never eat the things you have too much of, like zucchini? why is that?)

[christo]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

Welcome back!!! Nice fire!!!!

Very nice reveal on the arch. It turned out great.

What is the first thing you will cook in it?

Chrstio

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

Ho Ho Ho, we have fire! So it's only a small one made of newspaper, but there's fire!

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

Ok. The beach was terrific, not much rain, not too hot most days, good water temps, but now I'm ready to fire it up. I'm going to burn the newspaper this morning. We have a bunch right on the table...

Oh, last night when we got home I ran out and took out my forms- The arch stood up! And my blanket came while we were gone too, so I'm set!

(I must confess that most nights when it came time to cook dinner, I kept thinking "I wish I could be doing this in my new oven.." along with "I wish I had a potholder, better knife, silicone spatula, cooking spoon which didn't bend at the neck...) The normally well-equipped house we rent on the beach has had a few thieving guests, methinks. The owners really try to keep it nice, too, so that's disappointing for them. Somehow, though, they've developed a superfluity of 9x13 pans. 5 of them.

Ok, off to burn some stuff!

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

I stopped where I did because I didn't have enough fireclay to make enough homebrew to do the bottom- what you see underneath is my baking floor and my insulating layers. I didn't think that coating that part was as big a deal as the top, since if you look at some of my earlier pictures, you can see how big the gaps were between bricks on the dome. I wanted the mass on the dome to be more even than that, so I used a mortar bag to squeeze in between cracks and a trowel to slap it on the outside.

I didn't think that a layer of mortar on the outside of the floor would really increase any thermal mass that much, so I'm just going to use more blanket there to keep the heat in.

when you cut your bricks with a wet saw, do it in a pan so you can catch the water, dump the whole thing into a bucket and let it settle, pour off the water, scrape out the clay from the bottom and dry it out. I got quite a lot of fireclay that way- just not quite enough to do the whole thing.

[Modthyrth]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

It's absolutely gorgeous, Elizabeth! The cleaned-up dome looks absolutely impeccable.

When you coated the exterior, why did you stop where you did? Just curious and noticing little details like that as I get nearer to starting my own dome.

Have a marvelous vacation! Come back well rested and ready to fire up that beauty!

[egalecki]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

Whew. I got the outer arch finished just in time to let it dry a few hours before I button it up for the week.

Do you see my clever use of bamboo sticks to keep my half bricks level? I used them inside the dome too on the last couple of really steep rows. They didn't get in the way as much as the bigger sticks I'd tried. Also check out my temporary buttressing (just in case, I hate it when things fall over on me) for the sides of my arch. I'll figure out something permanent later.

It was great to get the floor cleaned up too, and to get the outside coated.

We're off early tomorrow for the beach, so have a good week, all, and take care of yourselves!

[Les]

Re: Elizabeth's oven

You go girl! Excellent work. Doesn't it feel great to drop in the keystone? Kinda like "mission accomplished" (without the bullets). Enjoy the beach - you deserve it (that's exactly where I headed, except on the west coast)

Les...