50 Local's Portable Oven

A few years ago I built a portable oven in a horse trailer and designed it in the style of brick ovens I saw in France.  I bring it to Home shows and many chefs have cooked their specialties in it.

A couple of months ago, chef David Ross, of 50 Local in Kennebunk asked me to build him one.  As with all my ovens, I look for improvements in design, and always look to make them beautiful.

Here are recent photos by:

Myriam Babin Photography

myriam@myriambabin.com

www.myriambabin.com

mobile: 917 488 7198

New York Kitchen blog

www.newyorkkitchen.net

Thanks to her and to David Ross.

 

www.myriambabin.com

Build Your Own Brick Oven

Traffic on this blog indicates that there are hundreds of people building brick ovens for themselves.
Great!  I hope that the information contained in many of these posts has helped build successful wood-fired brick ovens.


I continue to recommend domed ovens over sprung arch ovens...and firebrick ovens over cast refractory ovens.  If you are looking for an oven that will not fall apart in your lifetime (or perhaps your grandchildren's), the dome, which has been the traditional shape of brick ovens for over three thousand years is the best choice.

Search this blog, which has over three hundred posts for nearly every detail in the process of building, firing and cooking.  Then decide how much you can do yourself.  I have helped owner builders when asked.  I also have a few workshops in the next year where you can get a hands-on feeling for the job.

Thanks for visiting.
David Neufeld
True Brick Ovens

Cold Comfort

The recent snow and cold in northern New England offered up a unique opportunity.

My back deck pictured here needed clearing.  Deep snow, blown, drifted, and sifted, packed like styrofoam.  Clearing the deck gave me blocks of snow for an amateur igloo, in progress.

Cold comfort...

Inside Job

One of the last parts of finishing an oven is checking the inside of the dome.  To do this, I get inside.

This is the last chance to fill any small spaces in the final few courses of brick at the top of the dome. Not being claustrophobic, it is also a bit of a caving experience and I get to look at my work from a pizza-eye view.  As you can see, setting up a platform so that I lay level with the shelf and mouth of the oven is essential.  I might recommend that you have someone nearby in the event you get stuck.

The owner of this oven, who wanted a visible exterior dome also wanted it colored charcoal grey.  Here's the final face:

Italian Bread Workshop

I have often had the pleasure of collaborating with Sandy and Michael Jubinsky to demonstrate brick oven baking at events.

The Maestro

It was enlightening to attend their Italian Bread Workshop at their Stone Turtle Baking School in Lyman, Maine.  www.stoneturtlebaking.com

Measuring ingredients

In addition to the precision that Michael brings to the craft of bread baking, he is both entertaining and informative.  My wife attended the workshop while I photographed it and since then we have been enjoying REALLY great bread.

Here are some captioned photos:

Participants were led through every step with the reasons for the technique described.  Unlike much of the off-the-cuff bread some of us have made (not naming anyone:), Michael stresses measuring every ingredient by weight.

Stretching (instead of kneading) the dough

shaping the dough

scoring the loaf

Great Bread

Brick Oven Testimonial #1

 

Alanna Doughty

Head baker at Pietree Orchard, Sweden, Maine

See posts on Pietree Oven built by True Brick Ovens

Just before opening for our 2013 season, Pietree's new oven was fired, and we pulled out our first, albeit a bit crispy, pizza.  Through the coming months we learned her temperaments, and began a wonderful bond.  For me, walking outside to the wood pile and spending time splitting and hauling wood, looking up every few swings at the windmill, surrounding orchard and far off mountains, this is where my relationship with the oven began.  I would pull off the outer and inner doors and rake the coals from the night before.  Yes, after nearly 18 hours of no fire, the oven was still at 400 degrees, and I could begin my fire for the next day.  This year I hope to use that morning heat to bake bread and fruit galettes, and the overnight heat for baked beans.  After a perimeter burn, I would bank the fire, and bank again to prepare for the days pizzas. Afternoons were spent baking off rosemary focaccia- not quite as hot as the pizza needed, and yet could take the heat from an open flame.  

I learned to when to stir the coals, when to add small pieces and when to set up my door draft. I learned how fire burns, and what wood burned well and how high to get the flame to lick the top of the pizza's cheese.  The very act of learning and sharing with customers became something sacred for me.

My favorite story is from our last week open in December.  I shut down the oven for the last time of 2013 around 3 on Christmas Eve and asked the crew in the farmstand if they thought the oven would still be warm when we returned on the 27th, 3 full days later.  "No way! It is supposed to be in the single digits the next few days!" Tom exclaimed.  But I believed.  Friday I skipped over to the oven, opened the doors and pulled the trigger on the laser thermometer.  200 degrees.  Amazing.  

Everyone who comes to the farmstand is drawn to the magnificence of the oven, the sheer size alone pulls us in.  Folks walk right past the "employees only" sign to ask questions and watch the fire, or run their hands over the stones on the outside before they are gently reminded to go back inside.  I love that David is a local builder, and I love that some of the rocks came from the fields right here at Pietree.  I love knowing that I can make pizza with fire, with the work from my hands and back.  I love knowing that I have to wait- no instant gratification here.  It makes things that much more delicious.  I hope to have a long, loving relationship with this oven.  I know that if I take care of her, she will take care of me, and produce some amazing food.  

Brick Oven Doctor

Occasionally, I get emails or calls from people who have a sick brick oven.
"My oven won't get up (to temperature)!"
"Something's really wrong here! The oven smokes a lot and I'm suffering from second-hand smoke (whining)."

mouth too big

"I'm the victim of UNintelligent design!"

I diagnose the problems, which usually trace their cause to the first-time builder/mason or to a design found on the internet.

Brickwoodovens' design doesn't work

Brick ovens are different from nearly every other wood-burning device.  The place where the fire goes is meant to be entirely isolated from the flue and it is intended to hold heat for a long time.
Because of these two factors, improper placement or sizing of the flue will result in ovens that won't heat or that smoke OR ovens that quickly cool down.

perfect draft

plenty of insulation

Dozens of posts on this blog explain the dynamics of mouth/dome proportions, creating good draft, and conserving heat.  The operation manual on my website: truebrickovens.com gives a step-by-step on firing a wood-fired brick oven.

Still, and sadly, there are masons and home builders who want to reinvent the oven.  Then I get a call.
Once an oven is built and all the masonry constructed around it, it is difficult and expensive to fix.

In a recent situation, I likened the oven the person had built by a mason to a car which had a body, wheels, and tailpipe but no engine, transmission, or steering wheel; fairly expensive to repair.

Pompeii, Italy

Pietree oven before stone face

I think that the domed ovens found in Pompeii, Italy and used throughout the world for centuries were and are the perfect design for pizza and bread ovens.  With some modern insulating materials, they retain heat in our time without the need for constant firing.

So, call the doctor if you need to, but better still, build it right the first time.