In the spirit of off the gridness and in an effort to be more self-sufficient, my wife and I recently tackled a new project at home. We built a wood-fired oven, or WFO, if you prefer.
An outdoor wood-fired oven gives us another option for many kinds of cooking. It also provides a great accompaniment to the barbecue. The WFO is a lot of fun to built and use. It provides a lot of feel good factor for having done it ourselves with little money. Of course, it also makes great tasting food.
We over-researched the subject by reading several books and by searching online before finally building it. We need not have prepped so much. Two of the most helpful resources were http://www.traditionaloven.com and the book “Build Your Own Earth Oven, 3rd Edition: A Low-Cost Wood-Fired Mud Oven; Simple Sourdough Bread; Perfect Loaves” by Kiko Denzer.Materials list and cost:
I used:
less than 1.5 yards of 5/8 minus for the entire project – about $40.
"Urbanite" and large rocks - free.
Concrete block – free from freecycle.
Sand – free from river.
Coarse Sawdust – free from a local lumber mill.
Perlite – about $30 from the hardware store.
Clay – $150. (It could have been free with more elbow grease)
Material for the door – free from around the property.
Total cost: under $200.
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Type: We discovered that there are several types of WFO’s. Which is best depends on who is writing the article. Our primary concerns were the difficulty of the project, the cost of the project, and the look of the project. A $15,000 brick and marble WFO would look silly sitting next to our farmhouse, would be way beyond our budget, and might be beyond our construction ability. We decided on an adobe, cob, or clay oven. They exact material seems to be interchangeable. Since we are part-time potters, we happened to have a sixty-gallon garbage can full of left over clay from the past couple of years. We decided to use what we had
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I am wondering (you might have an answer), are these kinds of ovens more energy efficient than modern kitchen ovens or industrial ovens?
I'll let you know if I ever get to making my own one.
Tell me about your laser thermometer. I've not seen one of those. We would like to be able to tell just how hot the oven gets. "white" "red" "orange" works pretty well when temping metal, but not so much for the inside of a dark oven.
Remember that for our heat we burn the wood to coals and then soak the oven with the door on for a couple of hours. That really saturates the base and the oven with heat which is then reflected back into the cooking chamber. Patience is a virtue here. If we have a long day ahead of us we will renew the coals and keep a few pushed to the back of the oven. It does take more wood then. Usually we use scrap fir or cedar to start it going and the heating fire is from maple or alder. We are curious how this would work with charcoal briquettes right out of the bag. I suppose that this could be rigged to use gas as well. Curious.
We start our fire at least 2 hours before showtime and continue burning while we cook. Since we have an interior diameter of 36" there is room for the fire at the back and pizza in front. After every few pizzas we pull the fire to the front to clean the cooking area, or after a cheese and topping malfunction. A great benifit of having a fire while cooking is that the pizza wants to be cooked from both sides at the same time. Perfect crust and slightly tan cheese!
I have lots of questions.
Can you please add a photo of your door?
Is there a chimney, or does all the smoke come out the front?
Where does the fresh air come from to feed the fire?
What method do you use to remove fire and ash before cooking?
Thanks.
I am getting ready to post another series of pics. we've torn off the exterior layer, mixed in about 40% more sand, have placed the new exterior layer back on, are letting it cure to the right consistency for wacking (preshaping) then final shaping. We are going to add on an arched entry made of clay which has been fired in the kiln. This will give us a place and the support for a front located chimney.
I'll post pics of the hardware then as well.
Mine is more rustic, I've not added the final finishing clay level. The odd rustic look is made by the insulation - that's clay slip mixed with sawdust. Seemed to do the trick anyway - only started getting really hot after we'd been using it about 4hrs. First pic as the pizza was in, 2nd pic as I removed the first ever cooked pizza.
Mine is made of 1/2'' iron and bends a little over time because of the extreme heat.
13...."A door made from 2x6’s was cut to shape. 1x6’s were cut to go over the face of the door and to extend 1” beyond the door in order to act as a flange to keep the door from falling in. An extra chunk of tile-backer was cut to shape and screwed onto the inside surface of the door for a heat shield. A pair of handles left over from a previous project completed the door."
Now it's clear. But i'm concerned about that door, it might catch on fire.. Mine turns orange-red sometimes..
Here they are quite common, we call them "hornos de barro" ("mud oven").
But we don't make it that way, we use mud mixed with: dry grass, horse/cow poop, glass dust, and other little secret engredients. And it's VERY important to bake it very very very well. And you have to let the mix seat a couple days so it ferments a little.
We also use mud bricks for the structure.
And is mandatory to put a chimney with some sort of valve if possible.
They reach sick temperatures, if you put a piece of wood inside, it will start to burn just in contact with the inside hot air.
I'm not trying to criticize your work, I really like your oven, I just want to give some advice because I know the subject ;)
As I mentioned someplace else here, we are going to remove the outer clay layer, mix in more binder material, recover it, and add a small chamber in front with a chimney.
I'll update this with the new pics as we progress.
firebox, with the upper portion for cooking, baking etc.? It seems like a
lot of work and a burly foundation, just to have a relatively smaller
cooking area from which you need to add and remove coals
No chimney?
Thanks!