At long last some pictures from my oven – it is scaled down – it took so long because I had to re-make the ends of the Fascia with Capping Boards three times because the client (my wife!) did not like them. I must say it does look quite pretty now and we are extremely happy with our oven.

We have had six firings so far and made bread, pizzas, baguettes, casseroles, barbecues and roast pork and potatoes. It fires up to 380
degrees Celsius very fast and easy. My wife has perfected getting the bread proofed on time so I just start the fire whenever the time is appropriate for starting with baking of the breads and other meals. With our procedure we already got used to it all fits in on time.

Pictures:

This (above) is how I got the shape for the arch. It’s called a catenary arch and is a strong engineering structure (I discovered on your website).

Cross-section through the oven. As you can see, its 24″ wide and is 31″ deep. Should have been 30 inches, but measurement went wrong.

The first brick on the oven building progress!

The vermiculite layer in place and the re-bar ready for the concrete. The vertical round bar in the middle was to create a hole when I pulled it out after the concrete set. I pushed the tube for the thermocouple through there and into a corresponding hole drilled in the firebrick.

Concrete hearth slab laid; soft mixed concrete was mixed and poured in the wooden boxing.

Then the slab cured a long before 10 days. We were ready to start the oven, can start as soon as after 48 hours.

The sand/fireclay bed mixture 50:50 mix ratio of peanut butter consistency being trowelled onto the slab.

The last firebrick (I decided to relay the brick twice!)

The first arch. The bricks are very porous solid “face” bricks, which were what I could get. Worked OK in the end.

Solving the chimney conundrum! The flue hood and then chimney connection worked out accurately.

You WILL burn!

Hearth temperature at the start of the first firing. The thermocouples were slid into tubes installed in the proper places.

The first pizza ready to go into the oven. And right after the very second pizza went in.

The first pizzas ever cooked by us nearly to be ready.

After the pizzas the first loaves – can you imagine the excitement at seeing this when the oven was opened? Absolutely great bread and really so straight forward and fast to make/bake. Now I know that it’s the own sourdough bread baked at home (totally efficiently) which is the best of all bread and activities.

General view of the layout. The oven is as close to the kitchen as we could get it. The herbs go straight onto the pizzas!

The slate slabs are from an old TB hospital which closed down. The door was made by a friend who put my wife’s name on it. At the moment we are putting a corrugated iron roof over the whole thing above us and the oven.

We wish you all the best.

Kind regards,
Dave