[Sca-cooks] Mud oven - repost, sort of.

[Stefan li Rous]

Bear said:

<<< Dumping hot ash into the space under the oven can be a fire  
danger and may
be hazardous to whoever is loading the oven.  The only ovens I've  
seen that
have open space underneath are Roman ovens that were set up outdoors  
where
using the space to protect the firewood from rain might be an  
advantage. >>>

Why is dumping the hot ash into the alcove under the oven any more  
dangerous than dumping it somewhere else? Where somewhere else? What  
do you carry these live coals in, when moving them to this somewhere  
else? Now, we think metal shovel. But back then shovels tended to be  
of wood. But perhaps they wouldn't scorch too badly. But scrapping  
out the coals, letting them fall to the ground and then scrapping  
them into the hole doesn't sound too bad.

I don't remember these alcoves as being very big. Would they be big  
enough to store enough wood to heat an oven hot enough to be of use?  
Perhaps just to hold enough wood to start a fire to then dry out more  
wood, but that seems like a convoluted solution.

I think some folks here have fired up and used mass ovens. How much  
wood did it take to heat up the oven sufficiently?

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****