[Sca-cooks] clay for ovens

[Katherine Throckmorton]

Stefan wrote:

> The Gulf Wars site, unlike 
> Pennsic, does allow  for permanent structures. So the oven might 
> have been a week old or  it might have been a year old. Of course 
> using an oven for a week and  then disappearing other than maybe a 
> weekend visit or two, until the  next year might make you prey to 
> other lack of maintenance problems.

According to a friend of mine who has one in her back yard if the oven is up for a long period of time it is nessesary to patch cracks as they appear.  If the Gulf Oven developed cracks later on it is likely to be due to lack of maintinence.  Over a weekend or even a week, cracking, in my experience, isn't a big issue once the oven is dry.

> 
> I did note though in re-reading that story I pointed to in the  
> PENNSIC section of the Florilegium, that when they went looking for 
>   the "good" clay it was a particular bed of clay and not just any 
> clay  in that river bottom, which they were looking for.

I've dealt with ovens where clay was used and I've dealt with ovens where dirt from the site was used.  There are definate advantages to clay-it gets up to a higher temperature, holds heat better and is more fuel efficient.  But cracking during drying is pretty much inevitable.

-Katherine

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