Tarracotta Flower Pot Oven -- using two flower pots Getting Started Discuss Tarracotta Flower Pot Oven -- using two flower pots in the Pizza Oven Design and Installation forums; How about trying it small scale first? Get a cheap, small pot, fix it and see if it will bake ...

[Archena]

How about trying it small scale first? Get a cheap, small pot, fix it and see if it will bake a muffin.

Alton Brown made a smoker from two terra cotta pots so it might just work.

[Les]

Originally Posted by Archena

How about trying it small scale first? Get a cheap, small pot, fix it and see if it will bake a muffin.

Alton Brown made a smoker from two terra cotta pots so it might just work.

Talk about baby steps - a muffin, that cracks me up (great idea though). Which brings me to topic - I agree with David, the terra cotta we have in the states are way to thin to be subjected to repeated heat that your oven will see. I would also be cautious where it came from - some countries don't give a damn what materials they throw into it. I can see it working as a smoker because mine runs around 180 deg F - not even close to the temps you will see firing it to what your pizza wants.

JMO,

Les...

[Archena]

I can't take credit for the muffin idea. I'd read it from a guy who made several to try different mixes of cob.

[ratbagradio]

I've built my terracotta pot oven and am currently curing it. The one drawback so far is that because I layered a terracotta clay and perlite mix around the pot the mix shrinks over the underlying pot shape so cracks form in places which you need to render and fill with fresh mix.

You always get shrinkage with clay I gather of some 12 or 15 percent depending whether it's green ware or whatever -- so when you are covering a large area this is going to happen as the coating dries. This is why , I assume, layering clay inside a tandoori shape is less problematical.

[My original idea was to layer the clay mix inside the oven while the pot was upright and then invert it for baking on a flat hearth of bricks. But to make that worthwhile you really do need a large pot and two sets of hands to upturn the pot layered with clay-insulation mix.]

But the design concept seems to work..so far. When I start baking I'll let you know.I have had a few big fires in the oven without any problems with the original clay pot. (If the pot does crack -- well then the dome remains as it in effect served me as form work).

The other advantage , which I'm adapting, is that when you cut your door shape in the pot -- the first thing I did by using a file(easy it was too)-- you get a customized door. All I need to do is add a handle and push the cut out section into the door jam to lock in heat.

Now if you were really taken with this notion, I expect you could cut yourself a door in a large pot and bury it in an embankment and try to harness the ground's thermal mass.(Or cover it with stones so long as they don't explode!) Your standard mud brick oven is really that...So if you wanted a quick oven, considering how the Maori create a hangi because with have-pot-will-travel --there's a quick and portable one right there. Lighter than a dutch oven too!

You could go bush baking with your terracotta pot and I guess even bury smaller pots in the campfire coals!

Just one further note on terracotta -- and I use it for sculpting occasionally -- the much admired Moroccan tagine pot with its unique conical lid is more correctly used on top of the fire/heat source rather than inside an oven. So you are applying direct heat to the terracotta base and using the terracotta conical roof to transfer heat throughout your casserole. But check out a tagine design and thinness and ponder the possibilities of terracotta... but reemmber with tagine on top of the stove you soak then m in water first.

dave riley

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

David R,

Very intersting concept,, Hope it works out as Im really curious and would love to build a 2nd, little oven like you describe just to try it,,, Maybe the alton brown model

Mark

[christo]

could you make pieces from clay, dry them and fire them in the brick oven?

i got my oven hot enough to melt wine bottles. would that be enough to shrink and provide some level of firing?

christo

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Hey Christo,,,,

Did you melt the wine bottles on purpose ??? or were they just tooo close, ???

Mark

[david s]

Clay undergoes the irreversible change at 573 C so that it won't return to mud if water is added. Glass usually melts at around 900C but every glass is different, artists who do glass slumping test each glass they use. Some even have a plastic content which makes them melt at an even lower temp.