Loaf » earth oven

Our First Earth Oven Building Course

Tom — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:11:00 +0000

This weekend Loaf ran it’s first course in earth oven building. Despite the inclement weather we upped gazebo’s in a Sutton Coldfield back garden, and the group of eight students with the talented Lizzy Bean as tutor, got to work constructing the beautiful oven pictured below. On Saturday we looked at finding the appropriate mud, before laying down some sand and the oven floor on the already-constructed plinth. We then built a sand dome to act as a template, mixed the first lot of cob, and put on the first layer of the oven. On the Sunday we mixed more cob, put on the second layer, plus a third cosmetic ‘clay plaster’ layer, and finished it off with some nice decorative tiles and by cutting the doorway. We enjoyed fantastic food and beer courtesy of our wonderful hosts all weekend. If you’re interested in coming on a future earth oven building weekend then check out the full description of the course here, and email tom@loafonline.co.uk to register your interest. If there is enough demand we will try and put a course on the second weekend in September 2011, if not it will be Spring 2012. Tom.

Dreaming of an earth oven – part 4 (the final act)

Tom — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:43:46 +0000

I’ve made it! Today is Lammas, the 1st of August, and the earth oven is completed! Well it’s nearly completed anyway, the final touch is to scrape out the sand from the cavity, keeping finger and toes crossed that it keeps it’s shape and doesn’t cave in! I’ll do that later today, so if you never hear another word about the earth oven, you know why…

In the last few days since part 3, the following things have happened: I completed the first layer and started adding the second, which had straw added into the mixture to help it bind. It was about 2-3 inches thick:

Then, I cut out the door from the second layer, and added the final (cosmetic, not structural) layer, which is a finer mixture made with soft building sand rather than sharp sand, and has 1-inch long strips of straw in the mixture (couldn’t get hold of the preferred goats or horses hair, although I contemplated sacrificing my nieces violin bow for the cause):

Finally it was time for a few finishing touches. I found some nice tiles from a salvage yard down in Stirchley and inserted them into the final layer:

And noted the occasion on the outside for posterity:

So here it is, the finished article, which I can’t wait to bake in:

All I need to do now is make sure the bakehouse is 100% rainproof, and plant sedum on the roof in the autumn. Weather dependent, it should be dry enough to bake in about 2-3 weeks, but I will encourage it along with a few small fires I think. It’s been a great little project to work on, and great to have the Lammas target to aim for. Happy Baking…

Tom.

Dreaming of an earth oven – part 3

Tom — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:09:16 +0000

The race is on for Lammas now, Just 4 more whole days to finish the bread oven in time for the ancient harvest festival. Over the last couple of days, I’ve finished the brickwork for the plinth and filled it with clay and rubble:

This was filled nearly to the brim, and then the last 2 inches was just sand. Next I used block paving blocks to form the eventual oven floor, making sure it was nice and level;

Drawing a chalk line to mark out the perimeter of the oven cavity;

and piling on six bags(!) of sand to form the dome, that will eventually be scraped out to leave the oven cavity:

Finally I puddled away with the mixture of mud (from the allotment), sand, and water,

and started slapping on the first layer around the dome:

More puddling tomorrow, I hope the weather holds! More to follow in the next couple of days…

Tom.

Dreaming of an earth oven – part 2

Tom — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:02:33 +0000

I’m rubbish at laying bricks. That’s my overall conclusion from the last few days of oven-building. ‘Leave it to the professionals’ would have been a good mantra, unfortunately I went for ‘rustic’ instead – perfect applied to bread, worrying when applied to load-bearing structures. Ah well, I’m sure it’ll hold, and at least it’s level. I’m not quite there yet, got a couple of courses to go until I can fill the middle with rubble and start building my oven on top – it’s been cheap so far though, only £50 to get the entire foundations and plinth built (i’ve been skip-diving for bricks for several weeks now)!

plinth nearly there

Next week comes the big push – I’ve got the week off work to build the actual oven, and with help pledged from a couple of people, that should be plenty of time. I’m still hoping to get finished in time for the Lammas harvest festival on 1st August, although I won’t be able to bake in it right away, it needs a few weeks to dry out. Though I will start the hunt for some local flour and recreate the effect of an earth oven by baking a ‘local loaf’ on a slab of granite in my regular oven. Check out the Real Bread Campaign for more details of the ‘local loaves for Lammas’ initiative and to check other festival celebrations near you. In the meantime if anyone knows of any good locally (to Birmingham) grown and milled flour, please leave a comment below…

Dreaming of an earth oven – part 1

Tom — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:38:13 +0000

www.earthovens.co.uk started it – a Sunday afternoon’s lazy random browsing on the internet clicking from link to mindless link, and all of a sudden I’d found my new project – I wanted an earth oven!!! So I enrolled on the course, last May, on a rainy Herefordshire weekend, and spent two days with 8 fellow dreamers learning how to build a traditional bread oven out of mud. A fab weekend it was too, despite the inclement weather – excellently facilitated by the knowledgeable and laid back Richard Scadding, and hosted in a friends idyllic converted chapel in the Marches, complete with existing bakehouse and earth oven, which produced some fine baked goodies throughout the weekend.

digging the foundations

mixing concrete

tapping and smoothing

the finished foundations and bakehouse

Anyway, that was 2008, enough deliberation. I have been champing at the bit for over a year now, and finally my own project is under way – I’m aiming to finish in time for Lammas, the ancient harvest festival celebrated by baking a loaf with autumns first grain, on 1st August. Check out the Real Bread Campaign for other events happening in celebration of Lammas.

I’ll be hijacking loafonline to chart the highs and lows of the project over the next few weeks, and if anyone wants to get involved then drop me a line at info@loafonline.co.uk – any willing feet for puddling, or bricklaying expertise will be gratefully received! I’m also hoping to share the finished oven too, not just keep it to myself, perhaps get some community baking going – so if this sounds up your street, do get in touch.

This weekend, with a little help, the foundations got dug, and the concrete got poured. I’ve also had a shelter/bakehouse built by a carpenter friend, which eventually will have a sedum roof on top. The foundations are a foot deep as I think the plinth and oven combined will potentially weigh a couple of tons! As the photos show, the plinth is circular and about 4 foot across. The concrete was poured on Sunday and is nice and hard already so I should be all set for starting the brickwork this weekend, I’ll let you know how I get on!

Tom.