Hello from Uganda Introductions Discuss Hello from Uganda in the Good Background Information forums; <begin off topic, trivial rant here> Why does the image limit include smilies? <insert angry ranting smilie here> Stupid image ...

[Archena]

<begin off topic, trivial rant here>

Why does the image limit include smilies?


<insert angry ranting smilie here> Stupid image limits....


<grumble>
</end off topic, trivial rant>

[Frances]

Very cool oven! Looks great, well done!

[texassourdough]

Hooray!

Great to hear you are back online and eating well!

Bravo!
Jay

[Janine M. LeGrand]

How did we build it? Details? Ok, I'll try to recap. Please ask if I don't cover something you want to know...

Starting off, we put down about 2 to 3 inches of "insulation" made of termite mud, clay and lots of short cut pieces of grass stems. Then a layer of local bricks to make the oven floor. We covered the floor bricks with several thin layers of termite mud and clay in order to get a smooth floor--the bricks were very uneven in size so this was needed. Then we let that dry a few days.


We built up a big dome of wet sand, packing it down as we went. Actually we were running out of sand, so we also threw in broken brick bits as inner filler in the center top. We made sure the brick pieces were large enough to easily sort out from the sand as after its use as an oven form the sand will go into concrete for another building project. I scribed an opening for the entry arch and let the sand sit overnight.

We made the oven walls out of local brick motored together with termite mud and sand and followed the shape of the sand form. Is it called cambering in?? We didn't keep the bricks horizontal but tilted them following the curve of the sand. I avoided bricking in the area's for the archway/doorway and the chimney.


I made a simple wooden door out of wood we had used for a frame pouring the foundation. I chose the shape of the door by making a temporary arch out of brick flat on the ground. I used the door itself as the frame for building the arch as we built it vertically in place.

The joining of the entry arch (which is flat) to the curved walls was a bit of a challenge. After the entry arch was at least a little bit dry, we put the door in place and braced the arch itself. Then I filled in the odd-shaped space between the dome and the arch with wet sand. Then I made the walls with the connection holding the mud up by resting it on the added sand.

The last layer was a homemade adobe--termite soil + sand + lots of hay-like stems of grass. We covered the sides and top of oven to insulate. We have enough now mixed termite adobe that I will put on another layer when I can bear to stop using the oven.

I fired the oven with a series of fires, starting small and ending up with a big burn. I kept a good fire going for over 24 hours to help to dry out the adobe and that seemed to work.

Then next was lots of cooking--in fact now I just finished munching on homemade WFO bread and WFO roasted garlic.

I have had a few problems with rain. If rain threatens, we put a tarp over the oven. If the oven is hot and rains come I just keep a big fire in it to help drive out the moisture. Thanks, by the way, for the warning about keeping an adobe over covered with a tarp....for right now it is being uses to much to get bugs--it barely cools before I fire it again. Snakes might like the warmth, but I have the oven itself off the ground. I am planning to build a simple roof out of local poles and some iron sheets.

Hope I answered most of the questions--I am getty very tired now as it has been a very long day (I was up most of last night). Ask whatever else you want.

Yours in Christ,
Janine

[cynon767]

I just have to ask- does that chimney lead directly into the top of the oven chamber? If so, you might want to consider bricking it in and just letting the smoke out the front. Having a vent at the top of the oven that way will let out a tremendous amount of wasted heat. Hot air rises, and it will just go straight out a top vent before it has a chance to really heat the brick to its full potential. The door may still be a little on the tall side, but that's not as easy a fix, and may not be quite as important.

Otherwise, it looks pretty fantastic. Good work!

[DrakeRemoray]

That is a great looking oven. You get the prize for the most determined oven builder!

Drake

[Janine M. LeGrand]

Hi Jamie,
You have a good eye! Yes, the chiminey is a bit higher up than I would have liked. I marked it right over the door as far forward as I could on the sand form, but that really didn't take into account the thickness of the walls and how I needed to bring the walls forward a bit to match up with the flat plane of the arch around the entry. When I was walling in the last bit of the walls to connect the top of the arch to the dome it occured to me that that is where the chiminey really should be--but I was too eager and too close to having a working oven to desire to change it at that time. However, the chiminey opening seems fairly small--formed around a glass bottle I had (about the size of a typical wine bottle) and my plan has always been to make a removable adobe plug. For right now, I am covering it with either a brick or an old empty powdered milk can when I want it closed. I'll experiment a bit and see what seems to work best, venting or no vent. I will say that I think it is easier to block it up if I don't want it than it would be to decide to add it after the oven was built...

On the fancy WFOs, do people put in a way to close off the chiminey using some sort of switch (flue?, baffle?--not sure of the right word)?

As for the door height, I was aiming for the actual opening height to be about 60 percent of the interior dome height...thought I read that ratio (though never I didn't see it explained precisely), somewhere, though maybe I misunderstood... Not sure what percentage I actually got as we eyeballed the whole build, constantly adjusting things as we worked to build it.

Oh, another thing on the to do list is it improve the fit of the door-- I want to add a little mud to make a slight "backdrop" that the door fits into so the edges seal better when I want it fully closed.

Yes, still lots to do, but most of the time when I'm home the oven is HOT and I am too busy cooking to work on it for right now. After a year and a half of basically only boiled or fried food it is really great to have an oven! I will say I am going through a ton of firewood though so at some point I really should look at these issues and make adjustments/finishes.

Again, thanks for all the advice.

Yours truly,
Janine

[Archena]

Originally Posted by Cynon767

Otherwise, it looks pretty fantastic. Good work!

Originally Posted by DrakeRemoray

That is a great looking oven. You get the prize for the most determined oven builder!

Drake

What they said! That's really cool!

Get a good night's sleep.

God bless!

[Janine M. LeGrand]

Hi Drake,
Thanks! Building one of these really is a big project with a lot of hard work needed. I will say, every step of the way this seemed to take longer and need more hard work that I thought it would. The manual labor is pretty intense mixing all the cement mannually, then the adobe by hand (foot), lifting all the wet sand up to make the form then removing it...

The amusing thing during the build was all the speculation of the neighbors as to what we were building. Water tank was the most popular idea, followed by dog house... Got lots of people dropping by to see what was happening; now to see what is cooking and try the food... I've had lots of people tell me they will come by to use the oven--but no one actually has so far (but I have been pretty busy cooking) My German Shepherd stays right near the oven (hey, HE likes it) which does cut down on the gawkers a bit or I'd be overrun.
--Janine

[texassourdough]

Hi Janine!

As I stated earlier, well done!

On a conventional WFO the chimney is "outside" of the oven. I.e. the door is between the oven and the chimney. What you have is probably, arguably, more like a tandoori oven. When truly baking you will want to plug the chimney to keep the heat in! A qustion you might ask yourself is why the smoke can't just come through the door? (Answer may be your dome is too high??? which is why WFOs tend to have farily low domes (otherwise it is a sooty dead space at the top of the oven.

In any event, you have an oven that works and cooks and you wlill learn how to make it sing!

Well done!
Jay