Mobile Brick Oven Restaurant : part one

I've built a number of portable brick ovens in the past.  All of them were built on or in trailers and were 'stand-alone', meaning the oven could be parked and whatever equipment was needed for prep and serving was set up alongside.














The project below is for an entire restaurant kitchen covered trailer.
It is built on a twenty-foot dual axle trailer and, when completed, will have appliances, walls and a roof.
One important goal was to keep the weight down to a minimum and leave space and capacity for the other equipment.

The angle iron lintel over the mouth will allow a hood to be welded in front of and above the mouth to exhaust the smoke.

Photos below show the oven with insulating concrete on exterior, my handprint signature, ready to be completed by metal worker.  More later...

Brick Oven Guru

I do not describe myself as a "Guru".  A recent caller asking guidance used the word.

gu:ru
gooroo/ "an influential teacher or popular expert." as defined on the web.

signature

Okay...I suppose so.

After 431 posts, essentially offering every bit of knowledge I have gleaned, gained, or observed from building brick ovens, it is possible I've exerted some influence.

I continue to advocate for owner-builders while occasionally shamelessly self-promoting the traditions of true masonry and offering thoughtful approaches to the physics and aesthetics of brick ovens.

So, if you have stumbled upon this post looking for the most wise counsel on the building of brick ovens, it's all contained in the last 431 posts.  I will know you have read them when the blog counter goes nuts.

It has been a pleasure hearing from brick oven enthusiasts around the world via emails; your communications contribute to my bank of knowledge.

Many thanks, Mille Grazie, Muchas Gracias,

 تشكرات, Πολλά ευχαριστώ, Большое спасибо,

David

Brick Ovens: Europe's Gift to the World

The brick oven is solidly European.  Once we move away from arid places: Middle East, Southwestern U.S., Saharan Africa, the high altitude, ovens that are built to bake in are most often made of bricks, not as the commonly the clay/mud of arid places..

France

The brick oven is solidly European.  Once we move away from arid places: Middle East, Southwestern U.S., Saharan Africa, the high altitude, ovens that are built to bake in are most often made of bricks, not as the commonly the clay/mud of arid places..
The wetter, colder climates of Europe needed the permanence of brick and in most cases, the ovens were sheltered by roofs rather than masonry/stucco domes.

Italy

France

St. John USVI

Europeans brought their brick oven techniques to places they colonized.

North American ovens of the early colonial era and since were made of brick.

Brick Oven Dome Building

All ovens start with a design idea.   Dome building however, is technical.  Just because an oven looks great from the outside, doesn't mean it will work if the physics of shape, thermal management, and flue design are wrong.

My personal oven in conservatory

TBO 36" at deck level
A sauna room was built under it as a way of providing a foundation with another purpose.
They do not share heat sources or flues.

More than 30 ovens later... there's more learned and more to add.  Precise dome bricks make a strong oven.

Domes, rather than barrel vaults produce even heat.

Note: Common misconception--the hole in the top is NOT the chimney!  It is the last part of the dome that needs to be closed.

Bricks pre-cut on styrofoam dome 

view from top before final chains 

The final space ready for keystones

Pre-cut and fitted keystones

TBO innovated this way of fitting the keystone.

View of dome roof from inside

Greek style oven by TBO

TBO collaborates with owners to make each project unique to person and place.  This oven was built due to the customer's heritage and taste.  An opportunity that exists with every oven TBO builds.

In the past five years I have built more indoor (kitchen or three season room) brick ovens than outdoor ovens; not to say outdoor ovens are less than fun.  But in the northern half of the country the inevitability of winter, bugs, and rain, make an oven attached to the house and under cover a more frequently used device.

face of oven inside

volume of oven outside