Which oven is the best

Posted by Rob (30.12.202.61)

In Reply to: Which oven is the best posted by Butch

I also have the desire to build wood fire oven in our yard. I am not quite skilled in this type of work, but the drive is just too strong!

I was thinking about purchasing ready made dome and do the rest on my own. But as many time mentioned in conversations on the web, I looked into sizes more closely founding round type of domes take a lot more space and the base of the whole structure would be large.

Further to my research, another point is the space on the hot floor. Round ovens of the appropriate size for me offer lot less than ovens with square or rectangular floors. I did a test where I placed on the ground 2 papers cut outs of a large pizza size and on one side another one whish was for the imaginary fire. I did it in both rectangle and round shape. It just shows round dome would need to be lot larger then a rectangle to be able to fit what the rectangle did. Further on, this reflects in material amount as well where rectangle oven wins again. Adding to all this, the cost of readymade domes is quite high plus one never knows if it starts to drop sand from the ceiling or the floor or not.... and so the decision has been made! We are going into building of the whole oven.

My Italian colleague thinks igloo shape brickwork involves too much sand and fire clay between firebricks, and apparently this is dangerous in wood fire ovens because with age the dome starts to collapse. "...alike the old Pompeii ovens you can see ruined on photographs..."

I would like to hear if anyone has experience with rectangular dome in particular with baker Alan Scott oven. Thanks Charlie for suggesting www.traditionaloven.com the white oven is very similar to what we would like to add to our outdoors area.

Which oven is the best