Sunday, May 17, 2009

Wood fired Pizza




I promised all who were following my slow, intermittent mud/cob/adobe oven posts that I would post a photo once the oven was done and we made the first pizza.

Well, the oven isn't technically done; we did add a 2 1/2 inch layer of mud/woodshaving/sawdust insulation but it would really benefit from another layer of insulation and a finish plastering of mud/sand to help make it more weather resistant.


BUT, the working part; the clay shell and 1st layer of insulation is all you need to bake and like the impatient child that I am (and my kids were asking, when are you going to make pizza, Dad?") we lit up the fire.

I built a small starter fire and kept it going for 2 hours adding sticks of hardwood 3-4 times during that span. I made a sourdough dough the day before and used the leftover dough to make 3 10" pizzas. The oven worked great. The pizzas cooked in about 2-3 minutes and the bread cooked in 25 minutes (instead of the hour I usually need in my conventional oven at 450degrees F.) and the only problem was that my dough was too "sourdough" for a real Pizza margherita. Next time I'll mix up a bona fide pizza dough and make them a little thinner.

3 comments:

  1. I can only say fantastic! and is there any pizza left?

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  2. Thanks,D.M.
    I got the instructions on how to do this from Kiko and Hannah Denzer's book "Building an Earth Oven" This was made with mostly recycled/found materials and if you exclude my labor cost about $200. I highly recommend their book for the pictures of sample ovens. The only real problem was my choice of Home Depot Casters. I doubt they'll really support the weight so I won't be moving it unless I have to. (I had wanted an oven I could roll to the end of the driveway for neighborhood Street gatherings.) I still have to learn how to really use it. (Once it's fired it gets up to 700 degrees F. and will stay hot with slowly declining residual heat for 10-12 hours.

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  3. Hey, Andrew, RE: your comment-well, the HS is in financial trouble, at this point, last I heard and things seem to change all the time, it is going to be run by just two full time teachers!!!

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