Here I am posting something what was going on at the end of August this year. Unfortunately I had not enough time to prepare this post earlier, so better late than never.
In our parish every year we organize typical Don Bosco’s Oratory for all children older than 6 years in last week of August. This year I promised to build an earthen oven so we could have a pizza party together with parents on the last day of oratory – on Saturday. One goal was educational – to teach children and also their parents how they can make a good pizza, the other was to have fun by preparing their own pizzas and enjoy eating them.
First task was to prepare the base for the oven. I was lucky because there were thousands of pavement tiles available which we had just to put together and create a nice base for the oven. As this was meant just a temporary oven I didn’t care about the optimal insulation layer beneath the hearth of the oven, so I have used foam concrete layer for that. Then a layer of firebricks was set on top of the insulation layer.
The majority of time was invested in building a wooden framework for dome construction. As the inner diameter of the oven was 90 cm (3’) I would need a lot of sand to build a wet sand model. Therefore wooden framework was easier to make and the plan was just to burn it out after few days of curing. It took me almost whole day to prepare wooden framework which I covered with cardboard.
The clay was mixed with sand at home in ratio 1:2 what was probably not the best ratio because the oven got some cracks which would be easily avoidable if I would use more sand.
After everything was prepared it took 3 hours to complete building the oven by laying about 10cm thick wall of sand and clay mixture. We added a little bit of straw into the mixture in the last moment to add some strength. This work was done only by three persons – my neighbor, my wife and me.
After 3 days I started a small fire inside dome and after about 2 hours all wooden frameworks was burned out. At that time I also found that a chimney would be very appropriate solution in order to make pizza baking easier. So few days later I added also the chimney and this was probably the best decision I made.
Initially there was no insulation layer on the dome and my plan was to add it when we will have workshops with children so they will get experience how one can use clay for construction. The insulation layer was planned to be from straw mixed with small part of relatively liquid clay. The other workshop with children was to make decorations on the outside of the oven after finishing the insulation layer. All these phases are clearly seen on the posted pictures.
For the pizza party I asked a nearby pizzeria to prepare professional dough which was their donation for the oratory. At home I shaped 89 pizza boules and store them in both fridges at home where they did the overnight proofing.
The pizza making workshop was a great success and everybody really liked it. The best comments were like this: “Oh, our pizza turned better than what we ever had in any pizzeria.” Actually the oven was working really great and we kept the temperature around 320 dC so every pizza needed only about 3 minutes to be completely baked. In about 75 minutes I baked 45 pizzas. The task of children and their parents was to prepare pizza – stretch the dough and top it with the toppings, my role was to put the pizza on the paddle and bake it. The only way to be able to bake so many pizzas in so short time was to build appropriate sized oven. I was able to bake 5 pizzas at a time.
After the party there was still a lot of dough available so I have baked small boules and it was the only bread I have baked so far in that oven.
So what I have learned: it is not so hard to make such earthen oven. Probably you don’t need so big one and therefore it is easier to make it. Using local material which is free one can create a perfect oven for baking pizzas and bread and have a lot of fun with it.
Happy baking, Joze
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Hi, Jose! It is fanstic idea to bake with children in the parish. I like this idea and I will make a oven near our church. We bought one old church's building only for 5 mounth ago. And as both priest and baker I would make some like you. Can you explain little more details? I never build something :) Have you plain of your oven?
Regards, Rev. Dmytro Ostanin
regarding the plans how to make earthen oven.
I must say that I had no doubts about the success of the project, but in reality everyone was just amazed. The big lesson that you don't need to invest a lot of money for building such oven was warmly accepted and I got immediately two requests to help them building their own oven.
The best part was looking children stretching the dough and topping it - I am sure many of them did this for the first time in their life and this will stay in there memory forever.
Happy building and baking, Dmytro!
Joze
I love the deeper meaning of this whole project. I think you are now an expert in building wood fired ovens! The oven and the pizzas look grand so I'm sure the children enjoyed a lot. How many hours of firing did it take for the oven to reach proper baking temperature?
P.S. I remembered Slovenian has some words that has much more consonants than vowels! How do you pronounce those, for example srca? We also have a dual pronoun but it falling out and getting replaced by the plural. :)
regarding my skills. I did three so far and that it is. One just don't need to worry about the details, important is to make decision and start building. More or less errors during the first build are just necessary to learn something.
Within two hours of firing the oven reached more than 500 dC, so first pizza was always baked within 60 seconds. I like to fire longer to get more evenly heated walls. Unfortunately the 60 seconds pizza has just few toppings: olive oil, salt, garlic and just a little bit of cheese. With a lot of toppings on top it would burn on the bottom while the top part of the dough would be under baked.
To answer your question about Slovenian words that are hard to pronounce and have no vowels - like vrt (garden) , smrt (death), ... In these words we have "r" which is acting like a vowel and is also preceded by a "soft sound" like Russian "Ьь" so it comes out that we have kind of a vowel in. The same trick is used to pronounce "srca" (hearts) - "sЬrtsa". It is really hard to write this but really easy to pronounce. Another important word in our language is "kruh" (bread), pronounces the same way. Kruh is really hard to pronounce properly if you are not used to that so my poor relatives from USA have almost broken their tongues trying to pronounce this. There is "r" and "h" at the end what just completely confuses them. Remember: we pronounce as we read like Finns and they are good in reading Slovenian words.
So have fun with this, but I wish you more fun with baking!
Joze
Now it seems easier! I totally know what you mean about the "soft sound" because I already encountered it when I studied how to read Cyrillic for my study of Russian some years ago but my focus went instead to French and Mandarin. :)
It shines brightly all over the internet. It shows in your breads, your comments and here in this post. The world would be a better place if it was filled w people like you. Stunning, just simply stunning!
hester
But I agree completely with you that it would be nicer living in this world if we would be more patient to each other, help each other and be less selfish. Whatever I am trying to do, I am doing with a good spirit and I am happy if I make people happy or if I just make them smile. Sometimes you just need to say a nice word, show a smile on your face, you really don't need to do big things. I really like to make happy my wife and children and grandchildren. Christmas time is coming and there will be a lot of opportunities to make them happy - not with the gifts but with all tiny things, attentions and devotions.
Happy baking Hester!
Joze
Nice work, and great post. Thank you so much for sharing with us!
Floyd, it was really a great pleasure to share it!I was hesitating for a while whether I should write about this but after people liked so much my pizza oven I decided to show them an easy way how they can make their own cob (earthen) oven.
Happy baking Floyd!
Joze
It's post like this that keep my faith in humanity! A beautiful, rustic oven - with the ability to enlighten not only loaves, but the future through children. Good on you for that! A wonderful build.
Thanks T.Fargo for your nice words and happy baking!
Joze
I can't help thinking about how fun it had to be for everyone involved and all the future years it will be enjoyed by people who didn't have the fun in making it! Stuff you build with your own hands has a special place in your heart forever and this was a special build.
Well done and happy WFO baking Joze.
that everybody involved really enjoyed. At the beginning my neighbor was sceptic if I will succeed to finish it in time and if the dome will not collapse. But it turned out just great. Of course we have learned a lot and next time we will do it better.
Thanks for your very inspirational comment and happy baking DAB!
Joze
That looked like it would have take a lot more work.
There is nothing like wood fired pizza! Good job!
but it was worth to invest all that time. When the oven was ready to be fully fired I had to teach the animators making pizzas, especially stretching the dough. Although most of them were young ladies above 16-18 years old, their pizza dough handling capabilities were really poor and they wanted to use rolling pin for that as they did at home before. So I showed them some easy tricks how to do it in a proper way and then they completely forgot on rolling pin. All dough for this learning process was at least 16 hours old raised in fridge.
At the end these animators assisted parents and children with instructions how to prepare pizza in a good manner. Out of 45 pizzas there were only two that sticked to the working desk, but we salvaged them completely with a little bit of patience. At the end all prepared pizzas ended up in stomachs what was a great success. Honestly speaking, this our and half was my most nervous time in the whole project because I was expecting more failures. Thus the teaching process before was so important. I was so busy baking pizzas that had no time to drink a glass of water.
Thanks Danni and happy baking!
Joze
Wish I had your skills, Joze! As much as I like creating stuff with my hands, this is not a project I can handle on my own. Besides, my request to build a WFO has been disapproved long time ago...so, I can only look at your WFO(s) with envy! You're not only handy but also a man with a big heart! Your community is so lucky to have you! Happy Holidays to you and your family!
Happy Baking!
Yippee
but they are different than mine. And that is good that everybody can bring something to the community. It would be boring if everybody would be the same :-)
I am so sorry to hear that your WFO was disapproved. For such oven in Slovenia you don't need any approval. It might get complicated in case that your neighbor would make big problems. But there is a national habit in Slovenia that people fire their grills and those grills are sometimes even bigger than this oven. However, majority of them are like Weber charcoal grills which also produce a lot of smoke and therefore can irritate neighbors. So for such cob oven I would never consider to seek for approval.
Thanks for good wishes and I wish you and your family same!
Joze
Amazing and uplifting post!
It's inspirational to see the joy you have brought to the people around you. Thanks for sharing a piece of your life with us.
Regards,
Ian