The Dragonfly Den in Retrospect, June 2009-May 2012

[SableSprings]

Be aware that you can cook the biscotti at a higher temp than the "inside oven" recipe calls for. You need to simply be aware of the slight browning for the first bake as the indicator of its being done rather than watching the clock. After the cool-down, slicing, & turn, same thing for the second bake...you're learning to bake by your experience, not by the written word.. The last bake is the same...color and feel.

I think you'll be pleased with the results by using the oven. The other thing is that I can't fit a full sheet pan in my kitchen oven, but it's not a problem in the WFO...and if you're doing biscotti, you might as well do a double or triple batch...

[mongota]

p.s. Cookies & biscotti in the WFO are fabulous...something in the total, moist heat provided in the oven chamber that does make a difference...you just have to be watching very carefully so things don't over-caramelize

I'm firing the WFO up today for a late afternoon cook. Hmm....I do make a mean biscotti. Just might have to try a batch after the oven cools down from the first cooking session!

[SableSprings]

Thanks Mongo! At the time we set the perimeter of the concrete pad for the den, I thought it was huge. By the time the oven was enclosed and we brought in a table for six (and a propane grill...and a bread cooling rack), I wished we could have made it larger. As soon as I got into the swing of baking in the WFO...the kitchen oven just wasn't as attractive to me anymore. My wife was really excited about baking in the WFO during our summer since we didn't have AC at the time. In the winter, I've started tacking up a couple cheap tarps over the screens and without wind, the den and baking is much more comfortable. Be aware that once you do start using the WFO for bigger batches of bread, the push will be on to bake more loaves while the oven's hot and more friends, relatives, and neighbors will start dropping hints about what are you baking for them next week......and then you'll be kicked out of the house kitchen for making too much of a mess and have to build you own prep room...I'm not sure if it ever ends...but I love it!

p.s. Cookies & biscotti in the WFO are fabulous...something in the total, moist heat provided in the oven chamber that does make a difference...you just have to be watching very carefully so things don't over-caramelize

[mongota]

Mike, I just read through these pages.
First, congrats on the build. Not just the oven, but the Den as well. A space like that can really expand the use of the oven.
We do need to expand our use of the oven in baking bread. We probably still bake 80% of our loaves in the kitchen oven.

[Ope-dog]

Thank you for the feedback, gents...

Mike, I understand what you're saying and nice to get some insight to the clay flue route. My apologies, for some reason I thought you used metal.. I guess I got confused.
I have a few pieces that were given to me, however I'm not so sure that the size of the liners is going to work out for my build at this stage. So I'm trying to figure out options and advantages / disadvantages for the different chimney types. I'm glad I asked.. good to hear your perspective for sure!

... and yes, that flue exploding video gives me lots of pause as well!! :-)

[SableSprings]

Scott, I stacked and nested clay flue liners for my chimney...no metal chimney pipe. The smoke collection chamber (above the landing) is built of firebrick but I used all common brick for the outer chimney facade. After it exits the roof, I just put a screened chimney cap on the outer flue liner. If I would've seen the flue "explosion" video when I was building, I would have opted for an interior metal pipe and used a brick facade up to the cap...but, I've been using the oven pretty regularly since the fall of 2009 and no problems so far. If I do have a flue failure in the future, I will replace the liner with stainless steel pipe and "finish" with brick strips (weight reduction) up to the cap.

One place I screwed up was the inner liner dimensions. I bought 10" flue liners for the inner section and assumed that was inner dimension. ..wrong! I intended a larger area than what I got, but for my 39" oven the reduced flue size has not been a major issue.

[UtahBeehiver]

The base of the chimney is fire bricks the upper is a double wall SS Selkirt vent which is covered with a copper decorative sleeve. The oven was has been in operation since 2012. There are a couple joints on the oven I need to tuck and point some loose mortar but otherwise it has held up to our harsh winters. The glass embed polished concrete hearth on the other hand has suffered from the winters here an is going to need some work. There was a recent post of a bricklayer who deals with cracked clay fireplace liners that are in brick that you may want to read.

[Ope-dog]

Glad to hear everyone is ok! Air quality was indeed horrible all around the PDX area... unreal. But better now for sure! Speaking of smoke, maybe either of you could help me with this question: My initial thought on the chimney for my pompeii was to use some old clay flu liner I have, insulated, and covered with brick. But I'm not sure that the size of the liner is going to play nice with the size of my vent area. So my back-up is just to make a chimney out of firebrick. But I have poured through this site for days (literally) and have not seemed to stumble across a build that has used firebrick exclusively for the chimney.

Per your design, Mike, I can totally understand going with a metal chimney liner and the complete set up as you're building through a roof and it's necessary. On your build, Russell, where it's out in the open and free of structure, did you choose your chimney style for aesthetics, structural load, or is there something I'm missing about making a chimney solely from fire brick and calling it a day?

Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated!

- Scott

[UtahBeehiver]

Thanks for the concern, my daughter moved from Wilsonville to Portland proper a while back so out of fire danger but she says the air quality is awful.

[SableSprings]

Thanks for your concern Ope-dog. It's just me now, but the fire is upriver about 20 miles and currently headed away from the house. Other than the smoke issues, the Dragonfly Den & I are both safe. I have suspended baking for several weeks because of the smoke and stress it puts on neighbors smelling the wood burning as I fire up the oven. I'm assuming you're dealing with similar smoke issues as well. Hopefully this little cool front (with some showers) coming through Oregon the next couple of days will help the fire fighters and clear some of our air.

All three of my starters are chomping at the bit to get going again (Chef Bill-the AP original, Adelle-whole wheat, & Ryelee-rye flour)...

[Ope-dog]

Mike, as a fellow NW resider (Hillsboro, OR) I do hope you and your family are safe! I used to own property on River Rd out in Glide. (Just past the Peel store..) I hear it's been devastated in that area. And UtahBeehiver, if your daughter still resides in Wilsonville I pray that she and her family is also safe and well. It's times like these when suddenly an oven-build isn't the most stressful thing on our minds, unfortunately.

[SableSprings]

When my wife decided that the den needed French Doors, I got to decide which way they were hinged. Contrary to most folk's experience, I set the doors to swing inside. The reasoning behind this was totally for my convenience entering the den with a full board of bread dough headed for the oven. I wanted to simply be able to push the door frame to get den access...no hands needed. This arrangement has worked out great since the den was completed. Two issues however, have come up over the last several years, 1) the door frames were made of 1" x 2" wood and warp a bit with the seasons and 2) a moderate gust of wind would blow the doors open. I fixed the warping problem by adding some wire tensions to the door corners...and of course AFTER I installed them several people pointed out that I should have installed the outer frame bolts higher than I did. (but they work OK). For the wind issue, I spent several years simply using a plastic coated wire tie twisted to the door handles while the den was not being used. I also put in a couple of magnetic holds at the door top frames to keep the doors closed while we were baking. That sort of worked, but was a bit of a pain because the magnets weren't strong enough to hold the door securely by themselves and the plastic on the wire was getting pretty gross looking. Finally I went to the hardware store and bought a set of self adjusting slide latches. I installed them and found that the bolts were too short - just a light push on the doors and they opened easily with the swing-in door hinging.

I walked away from my longer visit to the hardware store with two, sleeve bolts. I hoped that by installing them on the doors and having the longer sleeve bolts slide into the upper door frame header, I'd be able to easily secure the doors shut when we were not using the den. In the two pictures below you can see these installs. The blue circled hardware are the self adjusting slide latches and the yellow circle is around the final sleeve bolt location. The second picture hopefully shows them both a bit better. The longer sleeve bolts work great (although, I found them a bit difficult to install). I have also found some stronger magnets (not pictured) and put them on each side of the sleeve bolts. Finally, the doors can be closed so the wind won't blow them open when we're not using the den and the magnets keep the doors shut (and flying critters out) when we are working the oven area.

Has anybody else noted that we WFO builders use the words final and finished a lot even when knowing some new tweak/fix/improvement/repair is always just around the corner?

p.s. Chef Bill (my sourdough/Levain) is fed and bubbling and I've got 21 loaves on my dough bill for Friday...yahoo!

[UtahBeehiver]

Mike,

I heard the big O was getting some snow (my daughter lives in Wilsonville now). Pretty cool bread stencil. I have yet to get into bread making yet, only using left over pizza dough as attempts. I still need to get up there an see the oven.

[SableSprings]

We don't get much snow in our area during the winter, but I was set to bake 16 loaves of Bill's Pugliese (using my sourdough/levain named Bill) when we had an annoying amount of snow. I gave my wife a great big hug & kiss for pushing me to get the den built around the oven.

I was practicing doing bread stenciling on the Pugliese...so I attached some pictures of them as well. I bought a stencil with the dragonfly and used an X-acto knife to cut the joined hearts stencil from a transparency sheet (for overhead projectors). The blue tape was to hold the two stencil pieces together and a little extra to provide a decent "oops" zone for the cocoa powder drop.

[SableSprings]

Since the winter of 2009 I've baked 3,395 loaves of my bread and spent $1,931 on ingredients--for an average loaf cost of $0.57 (as of this post 25 October 2017). I can still fit into my pants because I've given away almost 71% of my breads to my friends and neighbors .

My baking friends and I have put 5,008 pounds of dough through this oven (pizza, bread, biscotti, cookies, etc.) not to mention a wide variety of other meal items, i.e. Turkeys, chickens, roasts, ribs, beans, corn, stews, roasted veggies, (and even souffles). Here's the rundown of costs for this retirement project (also as of 25 October 2017).

$ 9,937.09 Total WFO, Dragonfly Den, prep room, and wood shed
1,161.41 Baking cost (hardware)
1,683.36 Baking cost (ingredients)
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$12,781.86 Investment to date (9 years)
154.00 Donations and sales
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$12,627.86 Total cost of Dragonfly Den Operation to date

$ 3.22 Hardware overhead/loaf
0.57 Ingredient cost/loaf
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$ 3.79 Cost per loaf of Dragonfly Den Bread

So now you know I don't do this for the money...it's for the smiles from my friends and neighbors as we share the treasures from the oven and my love of baking