Bread/pizza oven thread

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Mick, I love your country!   I'd love to visit or even live there, but I'm afraid it will never happen.   

My oven is almost complete.  I insulated the vault this evening.  All I lack is the roof.

For those interested, check out the book, "The Bread Builders"   If your looking to make bread.   Its not a recipe book, its goes into detail as to the fermentation of bread.   Natural fermentation.    Half of the book is also a how to build a brick oven.   A good read from two experts.   

Our youngest son is getting out of the Marines this week.   My rush to complete my oven is for a pizza party on the 27Th.   The oven is cured and has been used, but I want to have it completed for the party.   

I'll be post how I built my oven soon.  If you follow my  Face book page, I've  given a  progress report, but the how to will be much more detail.   

I know this is a smoking site, but it seens we have a great interest in brick ovens.   You can do so much with a brick oven.  Its not just pizza, its a total kitchen.  Oh, and some of the best bread we could ever think of ever making.

Cheers!
Can't wait to see some photos Wes! Especially of it in use!
Won't be long Case.  It is complete except for the roof.  The oven has been cured and used a couple times.    Week from Sat. we are having our first pizza party.   Our youngest will have finished his tour in the Marine Corp.     It will be complete by then.   

A celebration, a time of honor, and a time to remember those who have fallen....   
 
 
I hear those stories a LOT !  Here is one I had done.  RUMOR has it that the Army and Harley Davidson did not reveal any production data so the enemy would have no idea how many bikes were running around Europe

Here's mine.... They even had decapitation rods on them because the Nazis would string fine wire across the roadway but the bikes would have a rod hook on them that guided the wire up the shaft and then cut it..avoid injury to the rider. They used all black out lighting as not to be identified by air recon.   The ammo box,  turned out to be a good place to keep refreshments.  These Serial numbers are all listed with WLA.  This is a great running motorcycle

   Setting up a schedule for the backhoe to come a dig the foundation footings next week, if he's free time wise
This is my mates biz https://www.facebook.com/SurfsideCustomsClassics?fref=ts

Its going well.He is on site when he is supposed to be in a suit & tie in the city running his law firm but bikes are more fun.Its a 3 man partnership.

They are having a big American bike day 5th July.I might go for a look.The harbour divides the city 

Back to ovens.We don't have frost here so I just laid my oven slab on top of a crappy existing slab.

New one is 150mm ,2 sheets of mesh,rebar right around the outside & doubled up each corner.

Poked rebar  elbows up to run inside the block,filled the block with left over brickies mud,gravel then poured a wet mix in later to set the whole deal. It aint moved yet
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.

I was told ovens are built from the hearth up.My hearth slab was refractory concrete & as smooth & level as a pool table thanks to my carpenter mate who did the formwork.

Hope you get some good weather for your start.

Regards Mick
 
I love your friends plans... I know this crowd, we have a few here and my friend is a judge in the county as well.

The frost line here is 36". 34 years ago I dug a 6' square hole to pour a concrete pad block for a 70' amateur radio tower using a single shovel. While it was tiring in the soils we have, I was way closer to 28 years old. Decided I'd either pay for the backhoe and enjoy the use of the oven rather than dig the hole and wind up staying in it permanently :biggrin:
 
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Hole digging one of those young man jobs.The frost line thing is a complete WTF  for way down here. It must make house construction expensive.

I had earth moving gear at the weekender for the extension build but now it won't get into the backyard unless I get a mini digger. Regulation machines & operator are 5 doors down..I am more likely to use an existing slab  that has all the materials stacked on it(of course
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)& lay up on top of it & bring it out a ways.

Location a bit dependent on prevailing winds don't want to piss off neighbours,.
 
Just out of interest . The latest big pizza oven in my hood has a hearth that's a sort of sandwich.
Concrete hearth ,regular concrete,then a layer of insulating brick which is some sort of volcanic rock composite then fire brick or tile on top.Hearth looks 25cm all up.
This would save you the cost of refractory concrete .Just saying.
It sits on an E shape of brick 2 wide perimeter & 1 wide through the centre.
He was insulating blanket over the oven then cement stucco finish. It's inside the restaurant so no weather obviously. It's maybe the 4 th oven he had built over the last ten years.
 
I was actually thinking that I like to style it like the dome.  But i have read a lot about vermiculite fill over the dome and then framed out with metal studs.  Might be less traditional looking but easy for me to get a cleanly finished look to it
 
I  poured a refractory concrete block over the whole oven BUT its got 4 sheets of aluminium foil on the brick& metal cage that sits over it but doesn't touch it.Overkill unless I decide to be a baker late in life.
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I was taught you don't want contact between surfaces with unequal heat properties because that will cause the joints in the mortar to crack,expanding & contracting at different rates, so you need some sort of insulator over the brick.

Once you have that you can finish how you like.

Vermiculite can be made in a paste with cement & water that you can trowel over.
 
 
I was actually thinking that I like to style it like the dome.  But i have read a lot about vermiculite fill over the dome and then framed out with metal studs.  Might be less traditional looking but easy for me to get a cleanly finished look to it
I found ceramic blanket just now.Used in a lot of ovens. 2 layers at 25m x  61cm will work . I have found a roll left over from a job at $100 for 7m. I may buy it & stash it.

The insulating bricks are vermiculite composite. 230mm x 110mm x 75mm. Given the cost of refractory cement I think its a cheaper solution.
 
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