The 1-hour Brick Oven
This is the brick oven for those who wake up Saturday morning and think
"It would be nice to have a brick-oven calzone for dinner". Nothing is
set in mortar; nothing is going to have to be jack-hammered out of your
backyard if you change your mind; and it really works! What it lacks in
aesthetics it more than makes up for in (nearly) instant gratification.
The longest part of the process is waiting for the fire to heat things
up. If you just want to experiment with some personal pizzas, calzones,
baked potatoes, this is for you.
I got inspired with the Brick Oven Pages
(that's where you'll find nice
brick ovens). Not
sure where to put such a permanent oven as I had seen on the Brick Oven
Pages, I recalled an
architectural coffee-table book about some region of Italy
(I think) where the people have, for generations, disassembled the
unmortared stone houses - converting them into stone walls when the tax
collector was coming - and reassembling when the taxman was gone. That
sounded just right for my indecision. I had an assortment
of masonry pieces at the back of my field and figured it was worth a
try. What is needed is a chamber for the fire and food, and a mass of
masonry to store the heat. A chamber without laying up a vaulted dome
seemed like a quick and cheesy approach. The "design" is based on a
single 6"x10" red clay flue-liner as
the chamber, and a pile of fairly ordinary bricks to add mass.
There is no chimney and no door. It is set on a base of ordinary cement
blocks with one layer of colored (not necessary) cement pavers
(~2.25"x8"x16").
I don't think much is needed of construction details. The
flue-liner is laid horizontally on the
concrete pavers; the pavers are on the concrete block base. The back of
the
flue-liner is closed with the dry-stacked brick you see protruding at
the back - a little air leaks in. Lay up a few layers of dry-stacked
brick over the top of the flue-liner to add mass.There are 6 standard
concrete blocks (base), 3 pavers under the flue-liner, and about 80
bricks in the unit.
Build a small fire at the front and ease it to the back of the chamber
once it is going so the flame-path is longer in the chamber. Once you
have a small fire, 2 or
3 chunks of wood about the size of a brick burn slowly and don't
require such frequent tending. I heats in a few hours. Once it is hot
and the fire is down
to coals it
doesn't require as much air so I close the front a little bit with
bricks to retain heat better. I
have
only fired it 3 times as I write this but the edible output was
fantastic. The flue-liner has cracked lengthwise top and bottom, but
the chamber didn't collapse (yet). I think the flue-liners are more for
acid/creosote
resistance than direct-fire; maybe I just fired it too fast and hot.
But it works even with the cracks. To cook, I pushed the ash and
remaining coals to the back. I used an oven thermometer to check the
temperature which easily got beyond the 550F max. Personal pizzas
cooked in
less than a minute when set in the middle. Calzones were cooked a
little closer to the front and rotated a couple of times to cook
quickly but not burn; the remaining coals, or higher temp deeper toward
the interior cook that side of the food more quickly. Put a few
potatoes in when you
have finished the hot cooking and they bake nicely as it cools
down. OK, do I get the "Red Green Award"?
Dale A. Callaham
11/22/2005 - Durability note. After 6 firings I can see
that this
isn't going to be very durable. When I unstacked the bricks to move it
to a better location, I found that the flue liner is badly cracked -
not just halves as I had seen before. I'm searching for the ultimate
slacker solution as demanded by this project, and will post an
update when I find it. I'm looking into casting an arched slab of
calcium aluminate cement based concrete - maybe with glass fiber
reinforcing? - as a chamber ceiling that can be set atop
firebrick
walls; it could move with heating cycles and maybe avoid cracking.....
6/23/2006
-
UPDATE..... The new dry-stacked brick oven is complete and
being used/tested. I purchased 2 bags of Rutland #601 and cast a 28" x
24" slightly arched slab for the ceiling of the new oven. The new oven
has a hearth of standard firebrick, and the ceiling slab is set on top
of double layer walls of some generic soft/sandy brick to give a
chamber 17" wide and 26" deep and ~9" high. There is a second layer of
brick (double walls, and one layer on top of the ceiling slab) to add
mass. I have fired it to > 650 F twice and there is no evidence of
cracking. When I first fired it, I did so gently, but the slab and
bricks were wet and it took some hours to dry out, and the ceiling slab
was actually sizzling with water being drive to the upper side and
boiling, but nothing has cracked.
A note about wood consumption. For the second firing, with the bricks
dried out, I used only 2 pieces of oak 24" long and about 4" square
(cut and split to smaller chunks) to reach the (too hot) 600+ F
temperature in about 2 hours.
In addition to the Brick
Oven Pages, another good source of construction info, lore and
recipes is at the Traditional
Oven Pages
