From Concept to Cooking: Part Four

Kneading Conference bread from my oven

Audrix on market day

Inspiration for your brick oven can have any starting point.
For many in America, their first introduction to wood-fired brick ovens is a via a pizza.

Although pizzas from wood-fired ovens are remarkable, artisan bread holds the place of ancient tradition.  The upcoming Kneading Conference in Skowhegan, Maine (kneadingconference.com), where I brought my portable oven last year, illuminated the variety and techniques of artisan bread making.  A number of professional bakers made breads in my oven and I learned more than can be written in a year's worth of blog posts.  Recently, I had the pleasure of having Michael and Sandy Jubinsky of Stone Turtle Baking and Cooking School (stoneturtlebaking.com), whom I met at the KC last year, present a artisan bread workshop with my oven at the Northern New England Home and Garden Show (www.homegardenflowershow.com/‎).

Also, previous posts describing community wood-fired brick ovens in Europe also centered around bread.

Naturally, when I design an oven project, I take into account the experiences and cultural contexts of the people for whom I am working.  The project at Pietree Orchard in Sweden, Maine (see featured project on truebrickovens.com) sought to bring a European influence to New England. 

exterior of Pietree oven

exterior of Audrix oven

This sometimes involves 'transliterating' styles.
Style is an essential part of brick oven design.  The interior of the oven may be built in any way you wish (see a ton of previous posts) but the exterior should reflect your aesthetic taste.
After that, whatever else that may come out of the oven will taste better for it.

Face of Pietree oven

From Concept to Cooking: Part Three

This oven was part of a patio/house/oven splice.  The pattern of patio bricks and the placement of the oven were determined by the enclosed outdoor space created by two porches on the house.

The brick pattern was laid to converge in front of the oven mouth and meet in the corner of the two porches.  Extending the brick motif from the patio to the oven and the granite usage from the ledge upon which the oven was built to the patio edges and the oven face also seemed natural.

 Combining brick for the upper part of the oven enclosure and stone veneer for the lower portion (wood box) gave the project a break from all brick or all stone.  The oven has a faux slate roof.  As with all my projects, one central goal is to make the whole new part seem like it has always been there.

From Concept to Cooking: Part Two

I'll use the Ventura, California brick oven as an example here.  Because the project was across the country from where I live, the conceptual work was limited to discussions of size, location, and materials.

Influences such as actual location, special materials, and additional aesthetic choices were left until the day of my arrival or later.  The project launched immediately following a rough sketch of the proposed oven.  The location was marked out and my helpers arrived to help lug materials up the 35 steps to the work site.

But even as the concrete block base and the poured floor slab were in progress, I began conceptualizing how the roof and face would be designed and executed.  This was to be an oven of arches.  It was intended to combine multiple types of stone and stucco.  And it needed to be artistically cohesive.

Good weather (December) helped.  The brain works well when it is 68F and sunny.

Part three next...

From Concept to Cooking: Part One

EVERY brick oven project I've done started as a concept.  There might have been a central desire for a brick oven as a decorative cooking device OR the desire for a connection to past traditions.  OR both.


I use CAD programs because they help me calculate measurements, but I prefer a pencil and paper or a collection of photos from which to reference details.

Concepts are important tools for planning.  They frame the visual and practical aspects of the brick oven.  As with my work as a landscape designer (northstarstoneworks.com), I listen to the future oven owner for clues that will give me a starting point for sketching their project.  These clues come in the form of experiences they've had with brick ovens or cultures where brick ovens are commonplace and also the home that they live that they presumably like.

Splicing a place with a person (or persons) leads to some interesting translations of traditional brick oven forms.  Suggested materials may influence the design and location effects the practical side of the design.

There does come a time in this back-and-forth of ideas when I am asked to 'take over'.  The recognition that my design skills may be more developed than the owners is often the reason that I am hired in the first place. 

At this point, I mention all the best ideas I have, even ones which may be considered in 'left field'.   My goal is to present the client with a project that exceeds their own imagining but with their unique situation included.

Once the concept is clarified, the construction can begin.  The concept will remain, be rechecked, and applied to changes, improvements, and the final product.  

More posts to follow on this subject.

Brick Oven Smoker

An entire smoked dinner, shellfish, lamb, and vegetables

Expanding the use of any appliance we have makes that device both more economical and the space that it occupies for efficient.

Since brick ovens are also beautiful objects capable of cooking most foods, smoking food in them gives us yet another reason to build one.

Turkey after 2hrs in the oven

Smoking in a brick oven is simple.  The fire we build, as we would if we were heating it for pizza, is allowed to burn until the dome temperature just reaches baking temp (400F).  The coals are pushed to the back of the oven and a chunk of apple wood (or any other fruit wood available) is pushed against those coals.

The food is placed in the oven in a tray and the oven door is shut.  Depending on the meat or fish being smoked, the work is done until the meat reaches safe temperature for consumption. 

Smoking food while grilling is even easier since the flavors of the food are determined by what green material you place on the coals.  I have used apple tree trimmings, rosemary sprigs, and hickory chips.

What $14K Buys

Williams-Sonoma will sell you this pizza making rig for $13,499.95.
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/kalamazoo-artisan-fire-outdoor-pizza-oven-and-pizza-station/?pkey=coutdoor-pizza-ovens&
The interior cooking area is 24" by 18", it is gas fired, and rolls around your patio.


An oven of more accommodating dimensions (such as a 30" interior dome) built by me or other qualified masons from real masonry materials would cost about the same.

An oven of much bigger dimensions built as a family or community project would cost much less.

The pictured oven here has these advantages:

1. No burly masons working in your yard.
2. Instant set-up (almost)
3. No messy firewood to cut, split or burn.
4. Your kids can ride on it.

Disadvantages you might consider are:

1. You can make only one small pizza at a time.
2. In x number of years it will be delivered to your local dump.
3. You spent $14K (the cost of an economy car) on pizza?
4. No great-smelling wood smoke to entice your guests.
5. Your kids can ride on it.

As a mason, I can only say that the word 'Artisan' used to describe this device makes it possible for R2D2 to be an artisan mason if the robot had the right firmware.

The Barrel Arch Option

Last fall I posted a blog on a friend's colonial era home built by his great-grandfather.  It had huge granite 'arches' in the cellar supporting the chimney and their original fireplaces and masonry cooking gear.

We designed a brick oven to fit the space in the original kitchen where the original hearth had been and needs of the present home and preserved architecture.   H
e pursued some details that I have found illuminating.

For one, all my ovens have been domes but this one, because of space restrictions, needed to be a barrel arch.

His sense of proportions led him to create arch forms and arches that had multiple radii, a traditional look that makes this oven unique.

We used the same techniques and materials to insulate and mortar the bricks and are the point of attaching the stainless steel adapter that will connect the flue to the existing chimney via insulated stovepipe.
Proportions for the height of the oven interior to the mouth and the flue size were kept in line with working ovens.  The next steps will surround the oven with fiber insulation and exterior brickwork that will result in a very colonial look for his kitchen.
 

Please note that my friend is already a meticulous person who has experience in welding, house repair and machinery upkeep.  Although this is his first masonry project, he brought his attention to detail to the job and over the course of the winter, has built the oven he wanted.

To other owner/builders wishing to try building an oven, time and care and the primary factors.