My Barrel Vault Oven Build - Durham

[barney]

Excellent build and rapid progress! Really wish I had found out about ash holes before I started on mine now...

What a monster too, should be able to get a good bit of baking done in there soon, I'll bet you are just itching to get a fire going, though it does ruin the look of the lovely, fresh fire brick a bit.

Good luck with the rest, though with your skills it doesn't look like you need it.

[cannyfradock]

Rick

That's the neatest job I've ever seen someone do with the thermal blanket and the vermecrete.....good tip on securing the blanket to the bricks.

Terry

[ringo]

Great work there.

Makes me a little embarrassed buying a modular oven but I wouldn't have this level of skill (have you seen the state of my bricks!)

Looking forward to more updates

[moonhead]

Cheers for the comments. I promise you the brickwork is helped greatly by the irregular shapes of the bricks and flattered by the photographs, but I’m pleased as punch with it. I think I may have one of my neighbours hooked on the idea as well.

After three nights burning candles I couldn’t wait to get a small fire going. Just a small kindling fire for an hour, then two hours the next day.





The weather has been very kind and plenty of sunshine has also been doing its bit to dry off the vermiculite too.
I got a start on the chimney last weekend up and over the entrance. I’m using a mortar mix of 4 sand, 1 cement plus 1 lime for this. A couple of rolled steel flat bars span the opening keeping thing up.










I’ve gradually built up the intensity of fires and had the first hot blaze Friday. Even having built up the fire to really hot blaze, the insulation over the oven is doing a fantastic job, the exterior stays cool. Even bringing the oven up to the point the soot starts to disappear it was hard to believe what was on the inside.







The Chimney I finished off yesterday. Not sure if it needs to be taller but it can stay as is for the time being. I’ll sort out some sort of cowl / cap the keep the rain out, I may add a chimney pot later.
I didn't get a picture after I'd finished, (had to rush out to the pub- It's a hard life but someone's got to do it), so this is the progression with the start of the stack, up to this height the chimney is fire brick. The shoulders I'm going to cap with some black granite as well as in front of the oven.








There has been no sign of steam but the colour has change to a lighter grey now so time to get a scratch coat on today I think. No more fires till later in the week once this has had a chance to cure at its own pace.

Rick

[moonhead]

Here's the picture of the current level of the chimney. I know it needs more height but whether that's more bricks or a pot I have to decide. But now it's really starting to take shape, a rather large one at that.



After removing the gazebo which has been keeping things dry I have the scratch coat on. Took around three hours to finish, due to the vertical face at the back of the oven taking longer than I thought. The best way for that I found was to start applying at the base and keep applying from the bottom, raising it higher each application. The gap between oven and fence didn't help much either.

The mix I've used for the Scratch coat is
4x Sharp Sand
1x Cement
1x Lime
plus the addition of a water proofer









Once all was done some surface scratching in preparation for the final coat.





and the back wall



I had tucked it up for the night in its gazebo before remembering to take the pictures.

During the week I have manage to finish the front entrance as well as the chimney capping.
I wanted something that would really put that finishing touch to all the hard work that's gone into this build.
I had originally thought about black slate but after a visit to a friend of my brothers, who has a marble works, suggested a rather nice black granite instead at a very good price.



And so onto this weekend. I have been trying to get the whole thing finished for my sons 16th birthday on the 25th, which I knew was very unlikely. However there was no reason to let a few little finishing details get in the way of utilising a good old firing session.

So...

Fire lit





Dough at the ready - courtessy of Jamie Olivers, Italy.



First Pizza heading home - Pepperoni & Mozzarella





Two more vanished before they could smile for the camera but not the last one. Fire roasted onion and pepper, pepperoni & Black olives. Olive Oil was sprinkled over then fresh Rocket.
The BEST Pizza I have ever had. Delicious.

Makes all the hard work worth every second.

[faz]

Great job! Those pizzas do look rather nice

[cannyfradock]

Now then Rick........That's some serious aesthetics going on around your oven......love that brickwork.......and your choice of bricks.

......those pizzas look spot on. No criticism, but I tend to purposely leave my pizzas 5 seconds longer to get some colour on the edge of the pizza base.

Great work Rick and.....#thaksforsharing.

Terry

[moonhead]

Thanks guys - your right the pizza definatly needed more browning but in the excitement of getting the first one in I had let the fire burn down to low and had used all the wood up! as you can see on this pic.



Lesson learned and I'm sure there'll be more to learn. Next firing I'll try keeping the final burn right at the back and allot bigger so the flame stretches out over the cooking area. Trial and error until I learn the best position for the fire.

This was the second large burn and getting on to three hours, but only partially burning off the soot from the roof. But gotta suspend cooking and get the top render over the to and paint it first. Just waiting on some heat resistant Silicone to form a flexible gasket between the render and chimney.

Rick

[spinal]

May I be so rude as to ask you to post some more pics of that black granite front? Thinking of doing something similar

[moonhead]

Hi Spinal
yes I'll get some more taken and upload for you
Cheers Rick

[spinal]

Also - did you get it cut to size, or did you find something off-the-shelf that fit?

[moonhead]

All the sections were cut and the viewed edges polished, but most came from a selection of offcuts they had in the yard. They left it to me to stick the up-standtogether but they did supply the black resin adhesive. Its a two pack resin a little like the car repair stuff, but it goes off really quickly!







Hope this helps

[spinal]

Thanks - that looks great!

Is the front shelf two pieces, one on top of the other, or is that just a groove?

Have you had any issues with scratching the shiny surface with the pizza peel?

M

[petec]

Wow ! great build - congratulations
really like the stepped look of the oven front - lovely feature.

Enjoy those pizzas
Cheers
PeteC

[stevo]

the polished granite at the front totally finish off the look - very very nice job. (pain in the ass to keep shiny like that though).

Stevo