SC - Building ovens

[Stephen Bloch]

> Erin Kenny wrote:
> 
> I have thought about this, but not yet tested the design.  My 
> thoughts go as follows.
>
> ... [detailed construction discussion omitted]
>

Thom Leonard's _The Bread Book_ includes a 17-page chapter on
constructing and using a brick oven.  He says, among other things,
"An oven built of a single thickness of brick will work well, but the
extra mass and strength gained by a simply applied 2-inch layer of
concrete makes all the difference."  Concrete, of course, puts it way
OOP, but a layer of clay on the outside of the bricks should serve the
same purpose, adding heat-retaining mass.  I've wanted to build such a
thing for several years now... in fact, I was considering building a
mobile one, either on a wheelbarrow (as appears in at least one late
medieval woodcut) or on a car trailer.

If you're curious about the book, which also discusses baking bread from
levain (semisolid sourdough starter), grinding your own flour, and even
growing your own wheat, ask your local natural-foods store; it's
published by East-West Health Books, copyright 1990, ISBN 0-936184-09-4.

					mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
                                                 Stephen Bloch
                                           sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
					 http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
                                        Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University