We are currently in the process of having a masonry heater built. We are
including the bread oven option. I have decided that I want to learn how
to make sourdough bread in this oven. I don't have much baking experience
though I have recently made a few batches of bread with baker's yeast in an
electric (convection) oven. They were edible.

I notice the FAQ had an article on Dan Wing's _The Bread Builders_ that
seems like a book I should be getting because it looks like it deals
specifically with sourdough baked in masonry ovens. However, the review
says that it does not include recipes. I suspect this means that I need to
supplement it with at least one other resource. I think that I need a
book/web site that will be compatable enough with Dan Wing's advice so as
not to confuse me, suitable for a novice and supportive of my goal to bake
in my masonry oven. What do you suggest? Thanks.

--
Jayne

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:32:58 -0500, Jayne Kulikauskas
> wrote:

>We are currently in the process of having a masonry heater built. We are
>including the bread oven option. I have decided that I want to learn how
>to make sourdough bread in this oven. I don't have much baking experience
>though I have recently made a few batches of bread with baker's yeast in an
>electric (convection) oven. They were edible.
>
>I notice the FAQ had an article on Dan Wing's _The Bread Builders_ that
>seems like a book I should be getting because it looks like it deals
>specifically with sourdough baked in masonry ovens. However, the review
>says that it does not include recipes. I suspect this means that I need to
>supplement it with at least one other resource. I think that I need a
>book/web site that will be compatable enough with Dan Wing's advice so as
>not to confuse me, suitable for a novice and supportive of my goal to bake
>in my masonry oven. What do you suggest? Thanks.

Howdy,

I'd suggest that you get the Wing book, and bake the bread
for which he provides a recipe (yes, there is one).

Keep baking that one bread (and keep a detailed log of such
variables as times and temps) until you have a sense of
mastery of the subtleties of its production.

Then, reach out for "recipes."

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

"Jayne Kulikauskas" > wrote in message
...
> We are currently in the process of having a masonry heater built. We are
> including the bread oven option. I have decided that I want to learn how
> to make sourdough bread in this oven. I don't have much baking experience
> though I have recently made a few batches of bread with baker's yeast in
> an
> electric (convection) oven. They were edible.
>
> I notice the FAQ had an article on Dan Wing's _The Bread Builders_ that
> seems like a book I should be getting because it looks like it deals
> specifically with sourdough baked in masonry ovens.

It does. We built our stone oven in the garden using the very helpful
information in the book.

> However, the review
> says that it does not include recipes.

Don't believe reviewers. My favourite recipe is an adaption of one in there.
My sourdough starter was developed according to the instructions in there. I
wouldn't be without that book.

> I suspect this means that I need to
> supplement it with at least one other resource. I think that I need a
> book/web site that will be compatable enough with Dan Wing's advice so as
> not to confuse me, suitable for a novice and supportive of my goal to bake
> in my masonry oven. What do you suggest? Thanks.

I was a novice to masonry ovens - working ones, that is. I had baked
'normal' bread for more than forty years. I'd flirted with sourdough several
times over those years but none of the starters from any recipe book was as
good or long-lived as the one in that book so I regarded myself as a novice.

I suggest that you buy the book and read it. And then read it again. And
again. And try what's suggested in there. You should have a better
understanding of the processes of building the oven and making the starter
and making the bread. It's an inspiration.

There are those (among them me!) who say that just because something's in
print doesn't make it so. I agree. But there are exceptions.

By the same token just because something's on the net doesn't make it so.

Get the book, read it more than once because you might not take everything
in at the first go.

Then think.

Then wonder.

Then take the plunge. And enjoy!

Mary

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:29:39 -0000, Mary Fisher wrote:

> "Jayne Kulikauskas" > wrote in message
> ...

[ Dan Wing's _The Bread Builders_ ]
>> seems like a book I should be getting beca
>> However, the review
>> says that it does not include recipes.
>
> Don't believe reviewers. My favourite recipe is an adaption of one in there.
> My sourdough starter was developed according to the instructions in there. I
> wouldn't be without that book.

I was planning to use an established starter at first, since I am already
trying to learn so many new skills, but I would like to develop a starter
eventually. I'm pleased to learn you had success with his instructions,
since I may be following them myself some day.

>> I suspect this means that I need to
>> supplement it with at least one other resource. I think that I need a
>> book/web site that will be compatable enough with Dan Wing's advice so as
>> not to confuse me, suitable for a novice and supportive of my goal to bake
>> in my masonry oven. What do you suggest? Thanks.
>
> I was a novice to masonry ovens - working ones, that is. I had baked
> 'normal' bread for more than forty years. I'd flirted with sourdough several
> times over those years but none of the starters from any recipe book was as
> good or long-lived as the one in that book so I regarded myself as a novice.
>
> I suggest that you buy the book and read it. And then read it again. And
> again. And try what's suggested in there. You should have a better
> understanding of the processes of building the oven and making the starter
> and making the bread. It's an inspiration.
>
> There are those (among them me!) who say that just because something's in
> print doesn't make it so. I agree. But there are exceptions.
>
> By the same token just because something's on the net doesn't make it so.
>
> Get the book, read it more than once because you might not take everything
> in at the first go.
>
> Then think.
>
> Then wonder.
>
> Then take the plunge. And enjoy!

Thanks for the advice and encouragment.

--
Jayne

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:44:55 -0500, Kenneth wrote:

[...]
> I'd suggest that you get the Wing book, and bake the bread
> for which he provides a recipe (yes, there is one).

One ought to be enough to keep me busy for a while.

> Keep baking that one bread (and keep a detailed log of such
> variables as times and temps) until you have a sense of
> mastery of the subtleties of its production.
>
> Then, reach out for "recipes."

This makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

--
Jayne

In article >,
Jayne Kulikauskas > wrote:

> We are currently in the process of having a masonry heater built. We are
> including the bread oven option. I have decided that I want to learn how
> to make sourdough bread in this oven. I don't have much baking experience
> though I have recently made a few batches of bread with baker's yeast in an
> electric (convection) oven. They were edible.
>
> I notice the FAQ had an article on Dan Wing's _The Bread Builders_ that
> seems like a book I should be getting because it looks like it deals
> specifically with sourdough baked in masonry ovens. However, the review
> says that it does not include recipes. I suspect this means that I need to
> supplement it with at least one other resource. I think that I need a
> book/web site that will be compatable enough with Dan Wing's advice so as
> not to confuse me, suitable for a novice and supportive of my goal to bake
> in my masonry oven. What do you suggest? Thanks.

Something I was not aware of until recently was the distinction between
a live fire Neapolitan Pizza oven and a traditional masonry oven. In a
traditional dome shaped Pizza oven with a live fire the refractory
material is relatively thin and so heats up fast and can go to very high
temperatures (1000 F) as might be used in Neapolitan pizza. In a
masonry oven the brick mass is enormous and so it takes a very long time
to heat and cannot reach super high temperatures because the sheer mass
of the brick is enormous relative to the heat source, but once the mass
is heated can maintain a relatively steady temperature for a very long
time.

Practically for somebody who does not bake much having a short preheat
time may be advantageous and the Neapolitan design may be an advantage
because you like only want a few bakes out of a single firing. In a
commercial bread baking environment, steady heat is what they want and
the masonry oven may be superior.

Since the oven looks like an add on to your heater what I am saying is
moot but if you are designing solely to bake bread you might want to
consider the Neapolitan design because it offers short preheat times and
the ability to both bake bread and reach ultra high temperatures for
very short bake (less than 1 minute pizza).

This is discussed at length at the forums of www.fornobravo.com (they
market kits for italian style pizza ovens but their forums cover a lot
of pertinent information).

Roland S

"Joe Doe" > wrote in message
...
>>
> Something I was not aware of until recently was the distinction between
> a live fire Neapolitan Pizza oven and a traditional masonry oven. In a
> traditional dome shaped Pizza oven with a live fire the refractory
> material is relatively thin and so heats up fast and can go to very high
> temperatures (1000 F) as might be used in Neapolitan pizza. In a
> masonry oven the brick mass is enormous and so it takes a very long time
> to heat

That depends on what you call a very long time. I don't think a couple of
hours or so is a long time.

> and cannot reach super high temperatures because the sheer mass
> of the brick is enormous relative to the heat source, but once the mass
> is heated can maintain a relatively steady temperature for a very long
> time.

If you want to cook pizzas in my oven it's easy, you just leave a fire in
the oven, the pizza is cooked in minutes.

We did this for the first public cooking of our oven last year. Several
family members came round, from a four year old through teenagers, 20s and
their parents. I had dough and toppings ready, they built their own pizzas,
cooked them in minutes and ate them on the spot. It was raining but we
erected a canvas canopy over the eaters. It was a great success.
>
> Practically for somebody who does not bake much having a short preheat
> time may be advantageous and the Neapolitan design may be an advantage
> because you like only want a few bakes out of a single firing.

Not in every case. I want to bake enough bread for a month in ours. And I
have done.

> In a
> commercial bread baking environment, steady heat is what they want and
> the masonry oven may be superior.

I think that's irrelevant to Jayne's question.
>
> Since the oven looks like an add on to your heater what I am saying is
> moot but if you are designing solely to bake bread you might want to
> consider the Neapolitan design because it offers short preheat times and
> the ability to both bake bread and reach ultra high temperatures for
> very short bake (less than 1 minute pizza).

Do you sell such things perchance?
>
Mary

On Feb 13, 10:55 pm, Joe Doe > wrote:
> In article >,
> Jayne Kulikauskas > wrote:
>
> > We are currently in the process of having a masonry heater built.
> > We are including the bread oven option. I have decided that I
> > want to learn how to make sourdough bread in this oven.

> masonry oven the brick mass is enormous and so it takes a very
> long time to heat and cannot reach super high temperatures
> because the sheer mass of the brick is enormous relative to
> the heat source, but once the mass is heated can maintain
> a relatively steady temperature for a very long time.

Yes, that is the kind we're getting. The main purpose of the oven is
to heat the house (well, actually, the main purpose is to provide
something to sit around :-), and the bread oven is built in, but is
not the main purpose of the heater.

(By the way, hi, I'm Vic, Jayne's husband!)

> Since the oven looks like an add on to your heater what I am saying is
> moot but if you are designing solely to bake bread you might want to
> consider the Neapolitan design because it offers short preheat times and
> the ability to both bake bread and reach ultra high temperatures for
> very short bake (less than 1 minute pizza).

Since the heater is already in the finishing stages of being built, we
can't incorporate any suggestions about how to design it. Jayne does
want to learn how to actually use it, though. But what you wrote
sounds like it would be useful for somebody who is thinking about what
kind of oven to build.

Thanks!

Vic

hi jan and vic,

you seem to be worried that you will need special recipes to bake in
your new oven. In reality baking and baking recipes (and grains for
bread) evolved alongside the hearth oven so modern recipes and baking
tips typically merely try to your new oven. For instance many recipes
require modern oven to be turned down part way through baking which
duplicates the falling temperature of a traditional oven (which
improves depth of crust and allows for the inside to get baked whilst
the crust doesn't get actually burnt). The main benefits of your oven
should be that you get good heat into sole of loaf from contact with
hearth and 'radiation' heat from oven walls which is very rare in a
modern oven.

the main question is to learn to manage the heat of your oven, which
Dan Wing's book does cover in depth, its not like turning a switch. As
mentioned by Roland http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza_oven...nt/manage.html
is good short piece on oven management.

What concerns me a bit is that you seem to give the impression you
hope to bake bread in your oven simply by virtue of it bing next to
your fire. Without seeing pic or plans of you oven its hard to tell
how hot it might get just from its postion, maybe you will be able to
do slow pot roasts without any extra fire but its really unlikely you
will get up to bread baking temperature let alone for pizza. I have
seen several old farmhouse bread ovens in West of England and in Spain
that are in the wall inside the (big) fireplace but couldn't learn for
certain how they were used. Obviously one has a big pre-heat advantage
in this scheme but I have to assume the typical baking use is to
temporarily put some of fire into the oven till its up to right
temperature.

Which brings me to the mail from Roland re possible advantage of a
more thin walled oven for occasional baking. I think he is missing the
point that pizzas are baked with a least part of fire still in the
oven, as people remarked, baked very quickly, in mine http://www.myplot.org/oven/
typically one and half to two minutes. Usually a fire still inside
oven for bread baking would scorch crust long before inside was baked.
Curiously I just saw a Spanish baker's oven that was being used with
fire still inside but I think this was simply due to its vast size and
the comparatively small quantity of small loaves that the baker was
baking at a time (about four) http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.p...15&prefix=chel
and in addtion he had to turn every loaf. Anyway without fire left
inside to bake you need retained heat to bake, and for that you need a
more or less thick oven wall. My adobe/cob oven's walls are about 14"
thick (and its outside), takes about 3 hours to get to baking
temperature from stone cold. If I baked every day it would take much
less time as its often still 200F/100C inside the next day. Maybe I
could of got away with a thinner oven wall but the design I used is
pretty tried and tested both from http://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Own.../dp/0967984602
and historically. Incidentally I have seen an originally coal/wood
fired oven in use behind Harrods, London, now fired with a giant
movable gas flame thrower (see Wing page 206), which has 22 courses of
brick in its oven walls and needed to be let out for two weeks before
repairs could be done inside.

Finally, as http://www.fornobravo.com and Dan Wing and Alan Scott book
on page 201 mentions you can either learn to use your oven by trial
and error and work out some kind of test for reaching baking
temperature such as flour thrown on hearth (how long foes it take to
smke?) or feel on your hand etc - or you can install some 'modern'
means of accurately measuring oven temperature. Unfortuately a normal
domestic oven thermometer is almost irrelevant, even the inside oven
wall temperature is comparatively little use, you really want to
measure the deep heat of your oven wall to check when you have enough
retained heat stored in it. Fortunately the functionality has improved
and cost come down of infa red hand held temperature readers since
Wing/Scott book was written ($200 then). The model I now have I got on
ebay.co.uk cost me £27and is best of both worlds in this field since
it is both infa-red reader and takes link to thermo-couple 'K-type'
probes RayTemp 8
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RayTemp-8-Infr...QQcmdZViewItem
have to say the despatch guy at the supplier company (they seem to
sell the model on ebay.co.uk fairly regularly) was really really nice
and friendly and since we were still in correspondence about which
type and length of probe I needed when he despatched he sent me three
different ones just in case at no extra cost (list price approx. £30
each)! And all of which I use http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.p...=9&prefix=tech
If you really want to measure the inside oven wall temperature you
will need to go over 2000 F (this infa red reader in itself only goes
up to approx 1000F) so you would need something like this 'high
temperature probe' at http://www.eti-ltd.co.uk/general_pur...rmocouple..htm
(made up to right length for your oven wall so tip is just at or below
inside surface). However I find that probe such as 'penetration probe'
at same URL going up to 500F and measuring in middle of oven wall is
by far the most significant reading. Seems like you have probably
already built your heater/oven but ideally these probes should be
built in during construction, however I am sure you could drill out
with wall bit and then back fill with cement or whatever with probe
inserted.

good luck, post a pic of oven and baking results if you can.

Other interesting stuff at http://heatkit.com/html/bakeoven.htm

yours
Andy Forbes

"atty" > wrote in message
ups.com...
....

What concerns me a bit is that you seem to give the impression you
hope to bake bread in your oven simply by virtue of it bing next to
your fire. Without seeing pic or plans of you oven its hard to tell
how hot it might get just from its postion, maybe you will be able to
do slow pot roasts without any extra fire but its really unlikely you
will get up to bread baking temperature let alone for pizza. I have
seen several old farmhouse bread ovens in West of England and in Spain
that are in the wall inside the (big) fireplace but couldn't learn for
certain how they were used. Obviously one has a big pre-heat advantage
in this scheme but I have to assume the typical baking use is to
temporarily put some of fire into the oven till its up to right
temperature.


That's what I think too, and it will be easy to rake out hot ash
directly into the fire, which would be a great advantage.


Anyway without fire left
inside to bake you need retained heat to bake, and for that you need a
more or less thick oven wall. My adobe/cob oven's walls are about 14"
thick (and its outside), takes about 3 hours to get to baking
temperature from stone cold. If I baked every day it would take much
less time as its often still 200F/100C inside the next day.

Mine has about the same thickness but of brick and stone, it takes
about four hours to get to baking temperature in summer (it's in the shade).
I haven't used it in winter yet.



Finally, as http://www.fornobravo.com and Dan Wing and Alan Scott book
on page 201 mentions you can either learn to use your oven by trial
and error and work out some kind of test for reaching baking
temperature such as flour thrown on hearth (how long foes it take to
smke?)

The time it takes to achieve certain colours is a very good guide
but I still use my hand. Using modern technology isn't what I wanted.

Mary

hi mary
>
> Mine has about the same thickness but of brick and stone, it takes
> about four hours to get to baking temperature in summer (it's in the shade).
> I haven't used it in winter yet.

I should have added mine takes 3 hours firing (with fire gradually
moving back to rear of oven from oven door) then half hour with embers
spread out, then half hour with fire out and door shut to even out
heat before swab and bread in - so much the same as yours

It will be intersting to find out how much difference to time the
postion of Jan and Vic's oven makes

> Finally, ashttp://www.fornobravo.comand Dan Wing and Alan Scott book
> on page 201 mentions you can either learn to use your oven by trial
> and error and work out some kind of test for reaching baking
> temperature such as flour thrown on hearth (how long foes it take to
> smke?)
>
> The time it takes to achieve certain colours is a very good guide

do you mean colour of flour, how longs it takes to darken?

> but I still use my hand. Using modern technology isn't what I wanted.

the "one mississippi, two mississippi" tactic at
http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza_oven...nt/manage.html I have
found to be more or less true, at least for pizza

the sentence on same page

"the entire cooking dome will have turned clear, and the cooking
surface has reached the desired 750F for cooking pizza."

i.e. at a certain specified oven interior wall temperature what had
been previously soot covered will lose that soot cover is as accurate
as any digital thermometer if not more so. Usally I find I need I hour
burn after that point in order to get required heat stored in the oven
wall for bread baking. But all of these time things are obviously
variables (for instance if one has insulation around oven, when did
you last bake etc)

nonetheless, at least for anybody who likes to try baking as 'guest'
in more than one oven, as I do, I think an infa red thermometer and/or
themo-couple probe/reader is very useful. Viz my trails on a
reconstructed rural oven from the 1930's in Catalonia, Spain
http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.p...=14&prefix=tiv
including using my earlier Raytek handheld IR reader (the model
mentioned in Wing/Scott). At this oven
http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.p...0August&ctrl=5
with help of probes etc I managed to bake more or less sucessfully
first time pizzas and then two loads of bread whereas its builder
hadn't managed a successfull bake since its building two years
previously (has to be said its construction is less than optimal with
very uneven wall depth - but hey they have a belching dragon oven
mouth)

If you do use a thermometer its good to keep a graph type record that
can end up looking something like this http://www.myplot.org/oven/images/tech/tech11.jpg
If anyone interested pdf of template for this at http://www.myplot.org/oven/oven_plot.pdf

yours
andy forbes

> Mary

G'day all;

"atty" > wrote in message
ups.com...
....
point that pizzas are baked with a least part of fire still in the
oven, as people remarked, baked very quickly, in mine
typically one and half to two minutes.
[1-1/2 to 2 minutes? Wow! Is that a typo? Seems way too fast to get the
dough & toppings "done"...

If that's not a typo, I'm really gonna enjoy building my oven...

Dusty -- Comin' atcha from: N 33° 45' 30.2", W 114° 11' 17.6", which is a
flatspot 3-washes north of BLM marker 811, off Plomosa Rd, ~2-miles east of
US95, and ~6-miles north of Quartzsite, Az., via AMC9.]
....

"atty" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>>
>> The time it takes to achieve certain colours is a very good guide
>
> do you mean colour of flour, how longs it takes to darken?

Yes.
>
>> but I still use my hand. Using modern technology isn't what I wanted.
>
> the "one mississippi, two mississippi" tactic at
> http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza_oven...nt/manage.html I have
> found to be more or less true, at least for pizza
>
> the sentence on same page

LOL! I'm sure that would work.
>
> "the entire cooking dome will have turned clear, and the cooking
> surface has reached the desired 750F for cooking pizza."
>
> i.e. at a certain specified oven interior wall temperature what had
> been previously soot covered will lose that soot cover is as accurate
> as any digital thermometer if not more so.

I've never seen soot on the internal wall so it must be a good sign.

> Usally I find I need I hour
> burn after that point in order to get required heat stored in the oven
> wall for bread baking. But all of these time things are obviously
> variables (for instance if one has insulation around oven, when did
> you last bake etc)

Yes. And I agree with the sentence on the above page: It's often a good idea
to make some extra dough, and plan on cooking a few flat bread appetizers
before the serious cooking begins, just to get the feel for how your oven is
cooking. That's what I did at first and wouldn't rule out doing in the
future. We're learning all the time and there are other variables. The
direction of the wind - or whether it's windy at all - for instance.
>
I wonder where you are.

Mary

I just want you to think about this:

Baking a few loaves at a time in a masonry oven
gives you a huge carbon footprint.

So you can tell me if I am wrong about that.

"So what??!" you say. "So I'm already driving to the
supermarket every week in my SUV for five pounds
of flour, and I'm off to Bangkok in a jet to meet some
young girls."

Actually, intermittent use of any cooker which has a huge
heat capacity is uneconomic and environment-unfriendly
for a number of reasons.

The time has come for some one to design a bread oven
that can be rapidly heated and make 2, or just a few,
loaves. Geothermal would be good. Solar, too.

Resistance-heated might be a stop-gap solution, notwithstanding
transmission costs and carbon effluents at the source.

--
Dicky

On Feb 24, 11:59 am, "Dick Adams" > wrote:

> The time has come for some one to design a bread oven
> that can be rapidly heated and make 2, or just a few,
> loaves. Geothermal would be good. Solar, too.

I've seen pictures of solar coffee roasters. They use mirror systems
to concentrate the energy... so they look like solar sterlings but
have a roaster bucket instead of piston.

I've been hoping someone would design an induction unit. I figure if
you have cast iron oven tank (or even ferro-ceramic) induction might
be good. I like radiant oven heat. I make the assumption that you
could run one with a wind turbine. The Bergey's run to 10kW... but
will set you back $35K.

Will wrote:
> On Feb 24, 11:59 am, "Dick Adams" > wrote:
>
>> The time has come for some one to design a bread oven
>> that can be rapidly heated and make 2, or just a few,
>> loaves. Geothermal would be good. Solar, too.
>
> I've seen pictures of solar coffee roasters. They use mirror systems
> to concentrate the energy... so they look like solar sterlings but
> have a roaster bucket instead of piston.
>
> I've been hoping someone would design an induction unit. I figure if
> you have cast iron oven tank (or even ferro-ceramic) induction might
> be good. I like radiant oven heat. I make the assumption that you
> could run one with a wind turbine. The Bergey's run to 10kW... but
> will set you back $35K.
>
Damn! Aside from the obvious environmental benefit (*), or use at sites
where the grid is not feasible, that's pretty expensive power.
$35,000/10 kW / $0.15/kWHr = 23,333 hours to bay back the investment.
What's the expected lifetime of the turbine? Maintenance costs?

Dave

(*) Discounting environmental footprint of the manufacturing process...

Dick Adams wrote:
> I just want you to think about this:
>
> Baking a few loaves at a time in a masonry oven
> gives you a huge carbon footprint.
>
On the other hand, if you are baking, or cooking, a lot a retained heat
wood fired oven is the most energy efficient way to go. You can start
with some pizzas when the oven is really hot, do two or three batches of
bread while it just hot, then roast some meat, and use the remainder of
the heat to cook some beans (or pumpernickel) overnight, or just to dry
out wood for your next bake.

You can also use a propane burner to heat the retained heat oven, which
will reduce soot and ash, but probably not change the carbon footprint.

Mike

--
Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day:
Schizophrenia beats eating alone

On Feb 24, 5:59 pm, "Dick Adams" > wrote:
> I just want you to think about this:
>
> Baking a few loaves at a time in a masonry oven
> gives you a huge carbon footprint.

hmmmmm
I don't think baking 8 loaves (or 16 if I do two loads) from a bicycle
trailer full of scrap wood picked up on streets of London in an oven
made from London clay subsoil and pavement laying sand + bit of straw
puddled together by foot is other than carbon neutral?

probably best till there's a low cost low tech solar energy
alternative?

meantime I have the insurance that I still get bread if Putin turns
off the gas to Europe or Bush bombs Iran apart

laters
andy f

On Feb 24, 4:43 pm, Mike Avery > wrote:

> On the other hand, if you are baking, or cooking, a lot a retained heat
> wood fired oven is the most energy efficient way to go. You can start
> with some pizzas when the oven is really hot, do two or three batches of
> bread while it just hot, then roast some meat, and use the remainder of
> the heat to cook some beans (or pumpernickel) overnight, or just to dry
> out wood for your next bake.

All true and a good way to go... And a good philosophy to use in your
kitchen oven as well.

> You can also use a propane burner to heat the retained heat oven, which
> will reduce soot and ash, but probably not change the carbon footprint.

It will change the carbon footprint. Propane, NG, etc. were
sequestered (in underground reservoirs) before they were released by
us. Therefore not a part of the atmospheric equation. Once burned,
well... the exhaust is water + greenhouse gas.

Wood, on the other hand, is neutral. It took exactly the same carbon
from the atmosphere as it will release when burned, or if never
burned, what it will release when it decomposes on the ground.

On Feb 24, 4:37 pm, Dave Bell > wrote:
> Will wrote:
> > On Feb 24, 11:59 am, "Dick Adams" > wrote:
>
> >> The time has come for some one to design a bread oven
> >> that can be rapidly heated and make 2, or just a few,
> >> loaves. Geothermal would be good. Solar, too.
>
> > I've seen pictures of solar coffee roasters. They use mirror systems
> > to concentrate the energy... so they look like solar sterlings but
> > have a roaster bucket instead of piston.
>
> > I've been hoping someone would design an induction unit. I figure if
> > you have cast iron oven tank (or even ferro-ceramic) induction might
> > be good. I like radiant oven heat. I make the assumption that you
> > could run one with a wind turbine. The Bergey's run to 10kW... but
> > will set you back $35K.
>
> Damn! Aside from the obvious environmental benefit (*), or use at sites
> where the grid is not feasible, that's pretty expensive power.
> $35,000/10 kW / $0.15/kWHr = 23,333 hours to bay back the investment.
> What's the expected lifetime of the turbine? Maintenance costs?
>
> Dave
>
> (*) Discounting environmental footprint of the manufacturing process...

Depends. The turbine will run the entire house assuming everything is
electric. So if you figure your total energy bill... hot water,
kitchen, lights, heat, etc... No doubt it is still expensive... but
you typically sell surplus back into the grid. The trick is to predict
NG costs. That is about to go up, probably around $12 - $14/therm.

The turbine should last 25 years.

"Will" > wrote in message ups.com...

> Wood, on the other hand, is neutral. It took exactly the same carbon
> from the atmosphere as it will release when burned, or if never
> burned, what it will release when it decomposes on the ground.

Wood, on the hoof, is vegetation, growing and supporting leaves,
performing photosynthesis, fixing carbon, removing "greenhouse
gas". Doing much other environmental and ecological good, as well.

Wood does not necessarily decompose on the ground. If it
did, none of it would have made its way to peat, coal,
petroleum, and natural gas.

So, bite your tongues, energy squanderers!

Dick Adams wrote:

>
> Baking a few loaves at a time in a masonry oven
> gives you a huge carbon footprint.
>
> So you can tell me if I am wrong about that.
>

Well it all depends on whose ox is being gored :>)

10,000 years ago almost all of Minnesota was covered with a glacier.
There has been considerable warming since the peak of the last ice age
here in God's Country. However, as I sit looking out at the current
blizzard and hope that somebody in the neighborhood has a new snowblower
that they need to try out on my sidewalks, I realize that the warming
has not progressed far enough for the North country. Assuming it to be
true that CO2 assists in the warming, all this excessive fixation on
carbon footprints is troubling. If too many cut back on carbon
oxidation, it will place a large burden on us warming enthusiasts to
make up the difference. It is already hard to find enough tires to burn
for the Midsummer warming festival.

It would be nice if it would warm up fast enough so that I could replace
my crabapple tree with a peach tree. However, the main benefit would be
that there would be a longer season to bake sourdough bread in an
outdoor oven. Nobody is outside in the blizzard baking bread today here
in Minnesota.

Got to go throw another log on the fire.

Charles

"Dick Adams" > wrote in message
...
I just want you to think about this:

Baking a few loaves at a time in a masonry oven
gives you a huge carbon footprint.

Not using wood. It's sustainable (often prunings, we've grown it
ourselves or acquired it from friends' gardens) and it would use more power
to dispose of it in other ways. The oven itself was built using mostly
reclaimed materials, only the mortar was new. I can bake a month's bread
(not just 'a few loaves') with one firing of that oven, it would take a lot
of electricity to do that in the kitchen oven.

So you can tell me if I am wrong about that.

You're wrong.

"So what??!" you say. "So I'm already driving to the
supermarket every week in my SUV for five pounds
of flour, and I'm off to Bangkok in a jet to meet some
young girls."

You might be doing that, we use feet, bikes or a scooter and never,
ever, fly. Don't shop at supermarkets either, we buy locally grown and
(water)milled flour. We don't have an SUV, the car is only used for long
journeys, such as to the Scottish Highlands last weekend when we were unting
with hawks. All the rabbits are now skinned, gutted, jointed and in the
freezer, we're having the pheasant today. Our annual mileage is rarely more
than 3,000 (we keep a log). Other meat is reared by a daughter on her
organic, low input, rare breed Welsh farm.

Actually, intermittent use of any cooker which has a huge
heat capacity is uneconomic and environment-unfriendly
for a number of reasons.

Not when the heat is used progressively, to cook things which need
less heat after the bread has baked. This is what was done in the past in
Britain. It doesn't take much organisation.

The time has come for some one to design a bread oven
that can be rapidly heated and make 2, or just a few,
loaves. Geothermal would be good. Solar, too.

That is already possible and in use.

We think very carefully about ALL the energy we use, whether for
heating, power or lighting. We sweep floors rather than use a vacuum
cleaner, we light the table with beeswax (i.e. sustainable) candles. Only
spot lighting is used when we need personal illumination, using LEDs or
other low wattage lighting and we tend to go to bed early in the dark
months. Our central heating is rarely on, the house is well insulated and
the thermostat set to 10 C. We wear more clothes rather than turn on the
heating. We have solar water heating with a pv pump. We have our own hens
for eggs and grow most of our own vegetables.

What do you do?

Mary


Dicky

On Feb 25, 4:22 am, "Mary Fisher" > wrote:
> "Dick Adams" > wrote in message
>
> ...
> I just want you to think about this:
>
> Baking a few loaves at a time in a masonry oven
> gives you a huge carbon footprint.
>
> Not using wood. It's sustainable (often prunings, we've grown it
> ourselves or acquired it from friends' gardens) and it would use more power
> to dispose of it in other ways. The oven itself was built using mostly
> reclaimed materials, only the mortar was new. I can bake a month's bread
> (not just 'a few loaves') with one firing of that oven, it would take a lot
> of electricity to do that in the kitchen oven.
>
> So you can tell me if I am wrong about that.
>
> You're wrong.
>
> "So what??!" you say. "So I'm already driving to the
> supermarket every week in my SUV for five pounds
> of flour, and I'm off to Bangkok in a jet to meet some
> young girls."
>
> You might be doing that, we use feet, bikes or a scooter and never,
> ever, fly. Don't shop at supermarkets either, we buy locally grown and
> (water)milled flour. We don't have an SUV, the car is only used for long
> journeys, such as to the Scottish Highlands last weekend when we were unting
> with hawks. All the rabbits are now skinned, gutted, jointed and in the
> freezer, we're having the pheasant today. Our annual mileage is rarely more
> than 3,000 (we keep a log). Other meat is reared by a daughter on her
> organic, low input, rare breed Welsh farm.
>
> Actually, intermittent use of any cooker which has a huge
> heat capacity is uneconomic and environment-unfriendly
> for a number of reasons.
>
> Not when the heat is used progressively, to cook things which need
> less heat after the bread has baked. This is what was done in the past in
> Britain. It doesn't take much organisation.
>
> The time has come for some one to design a bread oven
> that can be rapidly heated and make 2, or just a few,
> loaves. Geothermal would be good. Solar, too.
>
> That is already possible and in use.
>
> We think very carefully about ALL the energy we use, whether for
> heating, power or lighting. We sweep floors rather than use a vacuum
> cleaner, we light the table with beeswax (i.e. sustainable) candles. Only
> spot lighting is used when we need personal illumination, using LEDs or
> other low wattage lighting and we tend to go to bed early in the dark
> months. Our central heating is rarely on, the house is well insulated and
> the thermostat set to 10 C. We wear more clothes rather than turn on the
> heating. We have solar water heating with a pv pump. We have our own hens
> for eggs and grow most of our own vegetables.
>
> What do you do?
>
> Mary
>
> Dicky

Sounds like an interesting life. Are your writing a blog?

"Mary Fisher" > wrote in message t...

> [ ... ]

> ... we tend to go to bed early in the dark months. Our central
> heating is rarely on, the house is well insulated and the
> thermostat set to 10 C. We wear more clothes rather than turn on
> the heating. We have solar water heating with a pv pump. We have
> our own hens for eggs and grow most of our own vegetables.
>
> What do you do?

Limit progeny, neuter household animals (and strays, sometimes),
distribute condoms from street corners, etc.

Doin' my part!
Dicky

>
> >> The time it takes to achieve certain colours is a very good guide
>
> > do you mean colour of flour, how longs it takes to darken?
>
> Yes.

can you give some details Mary? you throw a pile of flour down and
then watch? for how long?

> >> but I still use my hand. Using modern technology isn't what I wanted.
>
> > the "one mississippi, two mississippi" tactic at
> >http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza_oven...t/manage.htmlI have
> > found to be more or less true, at least for pizza
>
> > the sentence on same page
>
> LOL! I'm sure that would work.
>
>
>
> > "the entire cooking dome will have turned clear, and the cooking
> > surface has reached the desired 750F for cooking pizza."
>
> > i.e. at a certain specified oven interior wall temperature what had
> > been previously soot covered will lose that soot cover is as accurate
> > as any digital thermometer if not more so.
>
> I've never seen soot on the internal wall so it must be a good sign.
>

that surprises me, you have fire inside of oven? surely at some stage
there must be some blackening by smoke of the oven walls?

BTW
my oven is on a London allotment, 12 minues bicylce ride from home
(dough I make up at home), quite close but unfortunately not ideal for
baking/cooking a sucession of items

laters
andy f

On Feb 24, 5:59 pm, "Dick Adams" > wrote:
> I just want you to think about this:
>
> Baking a few loaves at a time in a masonry oven
> gives you a huge carbon footprint.
>
aside from apparently lumping together buring fossil fuels and
releasing sequestered CO2 with buring wood in terms of release of
C02, you also seem to be lumping together the release of green house
gases with creation of smoke/soot particles etc.

There is much evidence now that more let us say 'traditional'
pollution, creation of burn particles in the upper atmosphere by jet
flights for instance, may actually be giving an affect of 'global
dimming', reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the planet surface
and this is actually masking the full affect of 'global warming' in
much the same way that one paints one greenhouse with whitewash at
height of summer.

Sunlight reaching the planet surface is recorded as having fallensince
1950s by 22% over Israel, 10% over USA and 30% over some parts of ex
USSR

I am not suggesting we should all burn wood and make more smoke in
order to counter-act global warming, more observing that a bit of
smoke doesn't do much harm, and perhaps more importantly observing
that if we suddenly stopped making so much visual spectrum pollution
for any reason, such as a break in the supply of fossil fuels, we may
suddenly find that global warming is already much worse than realised

yours
andy f

Mary Fisher wrote:

> You might be doing that, we use feet, bikes or a scooter and never,
> ever, fly. Don't shop at supermarkets either, we buy locally grown and
> (water)milled flour. We don't have an SUV, the car is only used for long
> journeys, such as to the Scottish Highlands last weekend when we were unting
> with hawks. All the rabbits are now skinned, gutted, jointed and in the
> freezer,...

A solar freezer?

B/

On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:24:20 -0800, Brian Mailman
> wrote:

>
>A solar freezer?

Hi,

I have no idea if they are manufactured, but they certainly
could be.

They could run much as do refrigerators that burn gas.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:59:02 GMT, Dick Adams wrote:

> I just want you to think about this:
>
> Baking a few loaves at a time in a masonry oven
> gives you a huge carbon footprint.
>
> So you can tell me if I am wrong about that.

You are wrong in our case, at any rate. Our masonry oven is part of the
heating system for the house and is burning wood anyhow. Using the heat to
bake as well as to heat is more efficient. The wood comes from dead trees
on the property which would create just as much carbon if left to
decompose.


--
Jayne

On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 16:52:04 GMT, Dick Adams wrote:

> "Mary Fisher" > wrote in message t...
>
>> [ ... ]
>
>> ... we tend to go to bed early in the dark months. Our central
>> heating is rarely on, the house is well insulated and the
>> thermostat set to 10 C. We wear more clothes rather than turn on
>> the heating. We have solar water heating with a pv pump. We have
>> our own hens for eggs and grow most of our own vegetables.
>>
>> What do you do?
>
> Limit progeny, neuter household animals (and strays, sometimes),
> distribute condoms from street corners, etc.
>
> Doin' my part!
> Dicky

As population growth has slowed in Western countries, consumption of
resources has increased at an even greater rate. This indicates that
over-consumption needs to be addressed directly, not through limits on
population. Mary's approach is likely to do some good. Yours is not.


--
Jayne

On 24 Feb 2007 02:59:10 -0800, atty wrote:

> hi jan and vic,
>
> you seem to be worried that you will need special recipes to bake in
> your new oven.

I'm trying to learn two new skills at once - baking with sourdough and
using the oven. So I was concerned when I misunderstood from a review that
Dan Wing's book did not include any reicpes.

> In reality baking and baking recipes (and grains for
> bread) evolved alongside the hearth oven so modern recipes and baking
> tips typically merely try to your new oven. For instance many recipes
> require modern oven to be turned down part way through baking which
> duplicates the falling temperature of a traditional oven (which
> improves depth of crust and allows for the inside to get baked whilst
> the crust doesn't get actually burnt). The main benefits of your oven
> should be that you get good heat into sole of loaf from contact with
> hearth and 'radiation' heat from oven walls which is very rare in a
> modern oven.
>
> the main question is to learn to manage the heat of your oven, which
> Dan Wing's book does cover in depth, its not like turning a switch. As
> mentioned by Roland http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza_oven...nt/manage.html
> is good short piece on oven management.

I've received a call from the the bookstore that the book has come in. I'm
waiting for my next trip into town to pick it up. The oven has been
completed and we have been using it for heat for a few days.

> What concerns me a bit is that you seem to give the impression you
> hope to bake bread in your oven simply by virtue of it bing next to
> your fire. Without seeing pic or plans of you oven its hard to tell
> how hot it might get just from its postion, maybe you will be able to
> do slow pot roasts without any extra fire but its really unlikely you
> will get up to bread baking temperature let alone for pizza. I have
> seen several old farmhouse bread ovens in West of England and in Spain
> that are in the wall inside the (big) fireplace but couldn't learn for
> certain how they were used. Obviously one has a big pre-heat advantage
> in this scheme but I have to assume the typical baking use is to
> temporarily put some of fire into the oven till its up to right
> temperature.

It looks a bit like the one he
http://www.stovemaster.com/html_en/home.html

It is the same arrangement of firebox and oven although the facing is
different and the shape is not quite the same. The documentation that came
with it claims that it can bake bread and pizza.

[...]
> Finally, as http://www.fornobravo.com and Dan Wing and Alan Scott book
> on page 201 mentions you can either learn to use your oven by trial
> and error and work out some kind of test for reaching baking
> temperature such as flour thrown on hearth (how long foes it take to
> smke?) or feel on your hand etc - or you can install some 'modern'
> means of accurately measuring oven temperature. Unfortuately a normal
> domestic oven thermometer is almost irrelevant, even the inside oven
> wall temperature is comparatively little use, you really want to
> measure the deep heat of your oven wall to check when you have enough
> retained heat stored in it. Fortunately the functionality has improved
> and cost come down of infa red hand held temperature readers since
> Wing/Scott book was written ($200 then). The model I now have I got on
> ebay.co.uk cost me £27and is best of both worlds in this field since
> it is both infa-red reader and takes link to thermo-couple 'K-type'
> probes RayTemp 8
> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RayTemp-8-Infr...QQcmdZViewItem
> have to say the despatch guy at the supplier company (they seem to
> sell the model on ebay.co.uk fairly regularly) was really really nice
> and friendly and since we were still in correspondence about which
> type and length of probe I needed when he despatched he sent me three
> different ones just in case at no extra cost (list price approx. £30
> each)!

I'm leaning towards an infrared thermometer, at the moment. I'll see how I
feel after I've read the book.

[...]
> good luck, post a pic of oven and baking results if you can.
>
> Other interesting stuff at http://heatkit.com/html/bakeoven.htm

Thanks.

--
Jayne

"Will" > wrote in message
oups.com...

>
> Sounds like an interesting life. Are your writing a blog?

LOL!

No. Life's too full and it's for our enjoyment :-)

Mary
>

"Dick Adams" > wrote in message
...

"Mary Fisher" > wrote in message
t...

> [ ... ]

> ... we tend to go to bed early in the dark months. Our central
> heating is rarely on, the house is well insulated and the
> thermostat set to 10 C. We wear more clothes rather than turn on
> the heating. We have solar water heating with a pv pump. We have
> our own hens for eggs and grow most of our own vegetables.
>
> What do you do?

Limit progeny, neuter household animals (and strays, sometimes),
distribute condoms from street corners, etc.

Doin' my part!

Triffic.

"Brian Mailman" > wrote in message
...
> Mary Fisher wrote:
>
>> You might be doing that, we use feet, bikes or a scooter and
>> never, ever, fly. Don't shop at supermarkets either, we buy locally grown
>> and (water)milled flour. We don't have an SUV, the car is only used for
>> long journeys, such as to the Scottish Highlands last weekend when we
>> were unting with hawks. All the rabbits are now skinned, gutted, jointed
>> and in the freezer,...
>
> A solar freezer?

Sadly, no. But the most efficient we could find and kept outdoors in a shed
(which I bought for my bike more than fifty years ago).

Mary
>
> B/

"Kenneth" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:24:20 -0800, Brian Mailman
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>A solar freezer?
>
> Hi,
>
> I have no idea if they are manufactured, but they certainly
> could be.

They are, as are fridges. They started to be produced several years ago,
especially for keeping temperature sensitive medical supplies in tropical
counties with no power supplies.

Mary

"Jayne Kulikauskas" > wrote in message
...
> On 24 Feb 2007 02:59:10 -0800, atty wrote:
>
>> hi jan and vic,
>>
>> you seem to be worried that you will need special recipes to bake in
>> your new oven.
>
> I'm trying to learn two new skills at once - baking with sourdough and
> using the oven. So I was concerned when I misunderstood from a review
> that
> Dan Wing's book did not include any reicpes.

It does.

And it's a superb read anyway.

I have several books on the subject and it's my favourite.

Mary

"atty" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
>>
>> >> The time it takes to achieve certain colours is a very good
>> >> guide
>>
>> > do you mean colour of flour, how longs it takes to darken?
>>
>> Yes.
>
> can you give some details Mary? you throw a pile of flour down and
> then watch? for how long?

My earliest memories of home bread baking was in the early 1940s when my
mother did it, she made a lot of dough in a large pancheon. She cut cubes of
lard and arranged them rough the edge of the flour so that they'd gradually
be kneaded in. The pancheon was covered with a towel and left in front of
the inadequate coal fire for the dough to rise.

Her oven was an old gas one and the gas pressure varied according to
consumer demands. Things were very different then! When coal was more easily
come by she sometimes used the oven in the range, that was heated by the
fire coals and the bread was far superior. She used the flour method in that
oven too.

Because of the regulator not being reliable she used the flour system, I
assumed that everyone did! I was delighted to find references to it in other
books, including The Bread Builders - my bible :-) I can't do better than
repeat what's in there on p 197 (although I'm sure the Mississippi method
referred to by someone else will be more than adequate).

"The most common way (to judge the temperature of the oven) is to throw a
handful of flour into the oven then watch the results. How long it takes to
turn tan, brown and black varies with the temperature of the hearth. For
loaf bread the flour should be quite brown at 15 seconds. If it starts to
burn right away, you either have to wait a while or mop the hearth again,
lightly, a couple of times."
>
>> >> but I still use my hand. Using modern technology isn't what I wanted.
>>
>> > the "one mississippi, two mississippi" tactic at
>> >http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza_oven...t/manage.htmlI have
>> > found to be more or less true, at least for pizza
>>
>>
>> > "the entire cooking dome will have turned clear, and the cooking
>> > surface has reached the desired 750F for cooking pizza."
>>
>> > i.e. at a certain specified oven interior wall temperature what had
>> > been previously soot covered will lose that soot cover is as accurate
>> > as any digital thermometer if not more so.
>>
>> I've never seen soot on the internal wall so it must be a good sign.
>>
>
> that surprises me, you have fire inside of oven? surely at some stage
> there must be some blackening by smoke of the oven walls?

At some stage I'm sure there WILL be soot on the oven walls but once the
fire is lit I don't look inside except to stoke. When I judge that the fire
has burned for long enough I look inside but by that time any soot has
burned away :-) There is a bit of darkening of the stonework above the door,
caused by smoke from the first lightings - there's no chimney.
>
> BTW
> my oven is on a London allotment, 12 minues bicylce ride from home
> (dough I make up at home), quite close but unfortunately not ideal for
> baking/cooking a sucession of items

I hope it's not subject to vandalism :-( Ours is right outside the back of
the house so I can cook what I like, when I like. But I don't use it in the
cold and damp months - yet. It's more about my comfort than efficiency
though! I'm getting old.

No I'm not - I've GOT old!

Mary

> It looks a bit like the one hehttp://www.stovemaster.com/html_en/home.html
>
> It is the same arrangement of firebox and oven although the facing is
> different and the shape is not quite the same. The documentation that came
> with it claims that it can bake bread and pizza.
>

hmmm
interesting link http://www.stovemaster.com/html_en/home.html but no
further information on this site that I can find about how that oven
works. Its placing directly above fire is curious, partly because
examples I have seen in old farmhouses normally have it to side and
also it implies even if this oven does need fire inside oven, it must
be very subject to how hot the fire underneath is running (so how do
you get really low heat in oven when you want that?)

of course it is possible to have some kind of complicated internal
ducting passing heat from firebox into oven. There is a certain once
quite popular design of french baker's oven that had a firebox under
the oven mouth but you can see here http://www.myplot.org/oven/ortiz.jpg
(just) from plan in Joe Ortiz book (or page 119, diagram 8 in Wing/
Scott book) it has a 'Flame director' or 'Gueulard' which the baker
had to move/rotate around to get the oven evenly heated, and which
then folds into oven floor when heating completed (a friend has one in
her kitchen - ex bakery/water mill)

an even more complicated design on page 119 diagram 6 Wing/Scott
includes a rotating oven floor! obviously partly for ease of access to
loaves but presumably also so one can even out the heat

if there is some kind of ducting or under hearth airways in your oven
Jayne (sorry for previous mis-spelling) how does one regulate the
temperature short of manipulating the size of one's fire (and waiting
for whole ensemble to lose retained heat if low temperature is
required)?

v. curious

incidentally in my researches just came across this rather nice page
of Roumanian ovens http://www.istrianet.org/istria/arch...o-esterno1.htm
plus ca change! An old guy on my allotments brought up on Cyprus told
me his grandmothers oven there and its method of use are exactly the
same as mine.

the most unique and strange oven design I ever came across had a one
person bandstand on top of it (unfortunately I wasn't carrying camera
at the time).

yours
andy f

On 26 Feb 2007 06:27:16 -0800, atty wrote:

>> It looks a bit like the one hehttp://www.stovemaster.com/html_en/home.html
>>
>> It is the same arrangement of firebox and oven although the facing is
>> different and the shape is not quite the same. The documentation that came
>> with it claims that it can bake bread and pizza.
>>
>
> hmmm
> interesting link http://www.stovemaster.com/html_en/home.html but no
> further information on this site that I can find about how that oven
> works.

Did you try the "design system" link? It doesn't give much detail but
there is a bit on the principles involved.
http://www.stovemaster.com/html_en/designsystem.html

>Its placing directly above fire is curious, partly because
> examples I have seen in old farmhouses normally have it to side and
> also it implies even if this oven does need fire inside oven, it must
> be very subject to how hot the fire underneath is running (so how do
> you get really low heat in oven when you want that?)

According to the instructions, we don't bake bread until the fire has gone
out. There is supposed to be enough retained heat in the oven for baking
then (which I find easy to believe considering how well it heats the
house.) It is supposed to be too hot for bread while the fire is still
going.

You get low heat by waiting for it. The fire is lit only twice a day and
burns itself out in a couple of hours. The oven is hottest while there are
still glowing embers in the firebox (Well, it is hotter while there are
full flames, but you can't bake anything then.) The oven gets gradually
cooler over time and you put in the food when the oven reaches the right
temperature for it.

> of course it is possible to have some kind of complicated internal
> ducting passing heat from firebox into oven. There is a certain once
> quite popular design of french baker's oven that had a firebox under
> the oven mouth but you can see here http://www.myplot.org/oven/ortiz.jpg
> (just) from plan in Joe Ortiz book (or page 119, diagram 8 in Wing/
> Scott book) it has a 'Flame director' or 'Gueulard' which the baker
> had to move/rotate around to get the oven evenly heated, and which
> then folds into oven floor when heating completed (a friend has one in
> her kitchen - ex bakery/water mill)

It does have a lot of internal ducting although it doesn't look like the
one you've lnked to.

> an even more complicated design on page 119 diagram 6 Wing/Scott
> includes a rotating oven floor! obviously partly for ease of access to
> loaves but presumably also so one can even out the heat
>
> if there is some kind of ducting or under hearth airways in your oven
> Jayne (sorry for previous mis-spelling) how does one regulate the
> temperature short of manipulating the size of one's fire (and waiting
> for whole ensemble to lose retained heat if low temperature is
> required)?

As I understand it, we don't regulate the temperature. We bake when the
oven is ready for it. We plan the meals largely based on what the garden
has produced, so this feels like just the next step.

> v. curious
>
> incidentally in my researches just came across this rather nice page
> of Roumanian ovens http://www.istrianet.org/istria/arch...o-esterno1.htm
> plus ca change! An old guy on my allotments brought up on Cyprus told
> me his grandmothers oven there and its method of use are exactly the
> same as mine.
>
> the most unique and strange oven design I ever came across had a one
> person bandstand on top of it (unfortunately I wasn't carrying camera
> at the time).

We are considering setting up a solar oven for our summer baking when we
won't be using our masonry heater. Right now, with the snow coming down,
that seems very far away.

--
Jayne