New "Kitchen Gadget"

Thanks. We've really been having fun with it & we fire it up almost every weekend. The oven floor is about 2'X3' -- sorta small, but it's what would fit in the space. How much fits in depends on what you're cooking. Some things, like bread, are cooked after the fire is swept out of the oven, so you can use the whole space. Other things, like pizza, are cooked with the fire going, so you can only use about 2/3 of the floor (two decent sized pizzas).

We built this ourselves, and used a lot of recycled brick, copper, etc., so it wasn't all that expensive -- a couple grand tops, not including the chimney. We splurged there and went with stainless steel, so the stack was about $1,500 alone.

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When fully fired, this thing gets up to around 1000°. (Perfect for a 90-second pizza.) After I fire pizza, I have to rake out the fire and let it cool down for about an hour until the walls get down to 550-600° before I can put bread in.

Thanks for the "welcome". This is a very cool forum.

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Weavershouse: 

EVERYBODY should have one! We built is as kind of an afterthought as part of an addition we built which included a new back porch. (Originally, this space was to be a spot for the grill -- the grill got bumped to it's current location under the porch.) It's on the porch, just outside the kitchen. Here's a pic near the end of construction. The oven is the brick structure behind the steps. The porch is now our "Summer kitchen." (Tho' we used it all Winter as well!)

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photo 4

Wild-Yeast:

I visit the Forno Bravo forum from time to time. It helped a lot at the beginning when I was trying to figure out the basics of oven management. But this forum seems to be more focused on bread, my current Holy Grail.

Also, the FB ovens are primarily pizza ovens. They are lighter and thinner (don't hold as much heat for retained heat cooking) and are domed (think "igloo") ovens. Ours is a traditional arched-roof oven. So, much of the FB know-how, while it got me going in the right direction, is a bit off the mark for our oven.

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Russ: A friend of mine has a Big Green Egg. (I never heard the term "kamado" before, but from the pics on the web, the BGE looks like one.) He likes his a lot. Have you considered an oven cloche for bread?

As for mixers, I have the smaller KA (old). I'm limited to two loaf recipies, max. And even those will bring the mixer to a dead stall if it's not a wet dough! It's a workhorse for other mixing tasks, but a dough mixer/kneader, it ain't! Last weekend, I thought I'd killed it after the second batch. ;-(

Since I already have a KA that is fine for all uses BUT bread, I see no point in simply getting a bigger one. So I'm looking at the DLX and the Bosch. I must admit, I'm leaning towards the Bosch just because I've loved every Bosch tool I've ever had -- they're bulletproof and designed like a watch. Also, the biggest gripe about them seems to be that they're harder to clean and the bowl is plastic. Those issues have both been addressed with a new design and the SS bowls that are now available. The DLX is in the running tho'. I'd like to see one in action to help with the choice. But, since it'll be a while before the budget has enough slop for a new mixer, I have plenty of time to window shop. Provided I don't let the magic smoke out of the KA first. ;-)

First, I want to recommend two books to you if you yearn to cook with fire:

The Magic of Fire: http://tinyurl.com/5hd7sz

The Bread Builders: http://tinyurl.com/5pxtn6

My oven is based on plans by Alan Scott, one of the authors of The Bread Builders and a leading wood-fired oven guru. It's hearth is 4" of reinforced concrete covered by 4" of firebrick on edge for a total of almost 8" of masonry. The walls and dome are also edgewise firebrick and 3" - 4" of reinforced concrete, with 4" -12" of vermiculite insulation.

You could certainly roast stuff on shelves in a fireplace, but I doubt you could bake in a fireplace without something like a dutch oven -- you just don't get the elevated air temps since the fire is constantly creating a draft of fresh air from the room up the chimney.

When baking bread, etc., my oven, like all traditional "black" ovens uses the fire built right in the baking chamber only to heat the masonry to proper temps. The fire is then allowed to burn down, the coals are raked out and the oven is sealed for baking, the cooking heat coming from the hot masonry, and not fire.

As Mike Avery noted in another thread, you can build a wood-fired oven for a lot less than I spent, especially if you build it in the yard and not as part of a structure like a house, where building codes require special considerations and expenses. That way, you can pretty much eliminate the expensive foundation work, fancy cladding and roof and triple-wall chimney. I'd guess that, if you're careful and use re-purposed materials, you could build a nice oven for around $1,000, with most of that spent for firebrick and concrete. (Even less if you want to build an earthen oven.) My guess is that, for baking, you'd spend less and have a better result doing this than modifying a fireplace.

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