I spent most of Sunday building a clay oven - Lots of big pics

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My dad seen a guy on TV who had a big clay oven in his back yard for baking bread and whatnot, and my dad being the impulsive sort that he is, just had to build one. On Friday I did a 120 mile round trip to a wee place called Swatragh to pick up 150Kg of 'Classic Red Clay'. It's a good job I wasn't stopped by the police, my boot looked like it had a large consignment of heroin stashed in it.

Anyhow, we got around to building it yesterday. It started off with the platform which consisted of 2 flagstones held up by breeze blocks. On the platform was laid a layer of fire bricks which would form the base of the oven and would hold in the heat. To get the dome shape of the oven, we had to make a frame out of willow branches as you can see in the following picture. I didn't start taking pics until half way through so by the time I took this first pic we had begun to apply the clay.

1.jpg



More clay is applied, leaving space for the doorway:
2.jpg



The chimney is attached. We built the support for this out of standard breezeblocks, upon which the chimney (an old bit of clay/terracotta sewer pipe) rested. It was fixed in with cement and clay.
3.jpg



The doorway begins to take shape:
4.jpg



Cutting off more clay with the saw. The clay came in big 12.5Kg blocks:
5.jpg
 
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A view of inside the oven:
6.jpg



A base is formed in front of the doorway. The outer surface is smoothed off:
7.jpg



After writing our names in it and drawing various crap we have the finished product for the meantime, voila:
8.jpg



It has to sit like that for a day or two to dry out a bit. Once that has happened, we'll light a fire in it, gradually bringing the temperature up to 300-400C to set the clay hard. During the firing, the willow frame will burn away. After the firing, all we need to do is fashion a door out of a big thick bit of oak and that will be it sorted.

Some of you may ask why we did it. Cooking in this type of oven is different to a conventional oven as there is an even distribution of heat and moisture. Conventional fan ovens have a very dry heat whereas this oven retains a degree of moisture making cooking very fast and making the food very tasty. It can also be used as a smoker, to smoke all sorts of meat.

I'll post more pics as we progress.
 
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Seems like your dad is a proper garden nut, like mine.

Not really seen this sort of stuff before, but i presume the clay will dry rock hard and the twigs indise will be either "nuked from orbit" or taken out.

Be good inviting the the "propane" BBQ posh folk around for bank holiday feast.
 
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Yeah he is a bit of a garden nut, always has something going on out there. We've got a rain cover sorted for the chimney, I think it's just a shallow cone shaped bit of aluminium like those fitted to oil fired boilers.

The neighbour dropped in for a nosey and his comment made me crap myself with laughter.

"That's a bit of an elaborate doghouse! Are you going to build steps up to it so he can get into it?"

It's like something Dino from the Flintstones would live in :D
 
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Zip said:
You're looking very young there Scuzi :p :D

Why thank you! I don't get much sun and I don't eat a lot, it helps me look a lot younger than I really am ;)

We're going to let it dry out in the wind a bit before lighting a fire in it. The temperature will slowly and gradually be raised to about 400C to set the clay. We've got a few spare bags aside in case it goes **** up on firing, but we've been told that 24 hours in the open should be plenty of time before firing it up.
 
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Soldato
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Wow nice work, looks like the kids had fun building it. i bet he will cook all sorts of stuff in that the first month or so then maybe once a year :p .

Mark
 

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Soldato
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Once you have put a fire in there do you need to put it out before you put what ever you are about to cook in there?

I would imagine it would burn otherwise :confused:
 
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Zip said:
Once you have put a fire in there do you need to put it out before you put what ever you are about to cook in there?

I would imagine it would burn otherwise :confused:
I was wondering that, i think you light a fire underneath it?.
 
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Zip said:
Once you have put a fire in there do you need to put it out before you put what ever you are about to cook in there?

I would imagine it would burn otherwise :confused:


For best results a fire will be lit in it for about 2-3 hours to heat it up. The embers will then be removed and the clay and firebrick will maintain the temperature in the oven at around 300C for up to 8 hours.
Another option is to keep the embers going in the base and cook stuff over a grate which can be set into it.
 
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