Wood-Fired Masonry Oven Architecture

Used in

• Chapter 1 The Rhythm of the Hearth

The rows that check it

• 5 confirmed
• 1 amended
• 1 marked for safety

• H5 amended Safety Never fire a wet cob oven hard: steam blows the dome apart; cement mortar fails above 300 °C
• H16 confirmed Heat soaks into firebrick at about an inch an hour; a 3-inch dome charges in 90 minutes and bakes for a day; door 63 % of dome height
• H17 confirmed Pompeii buried 33 bakeries with domed ovens, bread in some
• H18 confirmed Count Johann VI of Nassau-Dillenburg, mid-16th century, ordered communal bakehouses to save wood and prevent fires; the Backhaus rhythm
• H19 confirmed About 0.9 kg wood per kg flour in a direct oven, 0.55 in an insulated one; a village that bakes together burns a third of the wood
• H36 confirmed Cob oven build: bottle-and-slurry or vermiculite base, firebrick floor with a finger's gap, sand form 60 to 90 cm by 40 cm, 1:3 clay to sand 8 to 10 cm, straw layer 10 cm, door 63 …

In the Index

Fire and fuel The kitchen and its dishes Wood, willow and the cask The village and its trades