California Brick Oven

The Ventura project offered the opportunity for some unique details.

Among them are:

1. Stone roof
2. Front face arch cut from a single piece of large paving stone plus an ocean-smoothed keystone
3. Jerusalem stone side accents
4. Generous limestone shelf extending beyond the side of the oven structure
5. A stone chimney

As each project is approached with the view to customizing the details to the location and taste of the owner and providing a local and cultural context to the aesthetic design, it is unlikely that an oven identical to this will be built in the future.  That would be virtually impossible even if the spirit of this oven was requested.

Back in New England now with some interesting detailing to add to future projects, I've just started a fire in my own brick oven for roasting a leg of lamb this evening.

Brick Oven Insulation: How Much?

If there is one problem that can be avoided easily in the construction of a brick oven, it is heat retention.

Part of this depends on MASS: the masonry that will hold whatever BTU gets thrown at it.

The other (the easy one) is insulation.

Two words: Over-insulate... okay that's almost one word.

My brick oven and the ones I build or consult on are super-insulated because there's nothing I like (aside from fresh bread, fresh pizza, fall apples, a climb up a mountain in 60 degree sunshine...) better than knowing and hearing that an oven I built stayed hot for days.

The current oven in Ventura, CA has 6" of insulation placed as shown.  4" of Foamglas solid insulation is under the floor and insulating refractory concrete is pour around the base and chimney.  The goal is for very little heat to escape. 
Doing all this before you close up the structure saves the disappointment of having an oven that won't get or stay hot.

More recently I have come to understand the value of ceramic fiber insulation (brand-named Fiberfax).  Layers of one or two inch sheets laid over the dome and placed around the chimney assure me and the owners that there is a fireproof envelope around that hot dome of bricks.

Caution: The stuff is flaky and requires a mask and gloves for safety.

Viva Italia in Ojai

I rarely but purposely review a restaurant that stands out even among really good restaurants.
Osteria Monte Grappa in Ojai, California achieves the distinction of making one feel and taste Italy.
If the waiters spoke Italian or accented English, I would have been totally convinced.

That minor deficit aside, the owners travel to local farms daily to harvest vegetables, and to local butchers for their meats.  Both dishes we had included great sides of polenta and steamed chard and golden carrots.
The atmosphere in Osteria Monte Grappa reproduces the Italian tendency to welcome couples and families.  The warmth among the staff is familial and the food is both honest and extraordinarily tasty.

There are surprises.  Two we experienced were an eggplant dish with smoked mozzarella and a desert called Panettone that brought me back to Tuscany in a mouthful.

Bread Sells Houses

Michael Jubinsky, owner of Stone Turtle Baking and Cooking School in Lyman, Maine needed to sell his house in Rhode Island.

His broker called to say his house would be shown to a couple at the end of a day in which they would have seen ten other houses.  'Ugh!' thought Michael (or some other appropriate comment).

Michael, being a precise and expert baker, put together the ingredients for cinnamon rolls, placed them in the oven and timed them to be done the moment the prospective buyers walked in the door.

And they did...


They were greeted by the smell of 'home sweet home' (and incidentally, not only full liscence to consume the cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven but also to take the leftovers away with them).

The broker called minutes after the visit (a bit miffed) to say that he already had the people ready to sign for another place (presumably more expensive if he was miffed), but they signed for Michael's.

He and his wife Sandy were able to move to Maine and start what has become a premier baking school.

Thus was proven that a loaf of fresh bread (or cinnamon rolls) can move that house that you've had on the market for months.

Forward to the Past

Brick oven design has evolved in a few significant ways.

• Modern wood-fired ovens on the market today, although claiming to be brick ovens, are by and large, cast refractory.
• Designs for many current ovens don't leave enough access to the interior --the area below the flue is narrow.
• All brick ovens built today can take advantage of space-age refractory insulating materials to retain heat for long periods of time.

My current brick oven design is tending more toward the original proportions of the ovens I saw in Pompeii--- wide opening at the face, generous throat, and smaller but proportionally precise mouth.

The Ventura, California project is a good example. 

Ventura Brick Oven

Some good sunny days have let this outdoor brick oven project progress well. 

A load of almond wood has been delivered, unique to California and seeming exotic to this New Englander.

For aesthetic reasons, the herringbone floor pattern centered the small triangle of brick in the center of the mouth.  All bricks were set from there out.  The outside diameter of the oven was scribed on the floor and the perimeter bricks cut on a saw. 

 Floor bricks on 'foamglas' and woodbox below

From the initial slab and base, layout of the floor bricks, construction of the dome (flashback to that in the next post) to the steel reenforced exterior walls (to be faced with stone) encompassed 10 days.

This project is planned to have a stone roof. 

But before that, the oven will be 'cured' and then pre-heated to drive the water of construction from the masonry.

A little rest now for the holidays.

California True Brick Oven

This project in Ventura, California is set alongside a patio on a small hillside property.  Space constraints and aesthetic considerations prompted a cantelivered block to support the oven base slab.  Also a monolith pour of the top and arched face will allow me to mortar finish stone to a solid structure while giving the whole a strength capable of withstanding tremors.

The layout and construction of monolithic forms often takes longer than mixing the actual concrete to fill them but the reenforced result is worth it.

Supports on the interior and cement board that remains part of the structure made form work a bit simpler.