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//-->Log Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 1 of 9Log Cabin ChroniclesJane Goyette tending her 25-loaf wood-fired bread ovenat Hogwallow Farm in Fool's Hollow, QuebecHow To Builda Wood-Fired Oven& Start a Home BakeryBeing a Tried & True Methodof Dealing With the Realityof Getting Together our Daily Bread(and Having Some Extra Loaves to Sell)BY JOHN MAHONEY, EDITOR, LOG CABIN CHRONICLESDuring the years we did subsistence farming we were constantly facedwith the necessity of earning some cash money on a more-or-less regularbasis, and we tried to do things at home, at our own pace, that wouldbring it in.Making a tasty, nutritious, self-liquidating product with simple tools, thatsold for a fair price and returned a modest profit complemented our farm-based apple cider business that we conduct in the fall. Baking andcidering, we concluded, were personally satisfying, socially useful, life-nurturing processes -- a matter of right livelihood. Both used smallamounts of energy and provided, to our way of thinking, healthyalternatives to chemically bleached ya-ya bread and heavily-sugared "fruitdrinks."Log Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 2 of 9Our bread oven bakes with a slow,steady release of energy stored in aheat sink, which is then entrapped inthe dome. We fired the oven withsoftwood slabs from the now defunctvillage sawmill -- they were relativelycheap, dried quickly, and burned hotand fast for a quick release of energy.Yeast breads, rolls, cookies, pizzas,turkeys, and beans were baked in pans and crocks. Sourdough breadswent directly on the hot oven bricks and were sprayed several times withclean water that converted instantly to steam -- the secret to fantasticbread crusts. Read on...We built the oven of local fieldstone and blue clay, sand, gravel, and dryswale grass. The metal door arch is a discarded tractor tire rim from aFord 8N (many thanks to Tony Kemp of Boynton, Quebec).Like all major projects at Hogwallow Farm, the bread oven began with alarge, hand dug hole. Our sons, Sean, Keith, Kevin and Denis dug mostof the hole. Indeed, they would tell you that they dug most of the holes,most of the time, here at Hogwallow Farm.We dug a drainage ditch out from the lowest corner of the base hole toprevent any damage by frost heaves. The base hole and the drainageditch were filled with large stones, then increasingly smaller ones,beginning with the size of your fist.Coarse gravel was shoveled on and leveled. Around the perimeter, justbelow ground level, we then poured a layer of cement, several inchesthick, on which we set the base stones of the oven.When the cement hardened we had a low,square crib of stones embedded in a roughslab floating on a drained rock bed. Fromhere we went straight up, one stone afteranother, around the perimeter until wereached waist level. As the walls got higher,we started to fill the cavity -- first with fist-sized stones, then smaller ones on down tocoarse gravel. About knee level we startedfilling with sand.Log Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 3 of 9This fill -- stones, gravel, sand -- became the heart of the heat sink,the place where the energy released form the burning softwood slabsis stored. As we added the sand and gravel to the stone base wecompacted it by methodically walking over the surface.Once the cribbing was waist high, we placed two layers of brick onthe sand, taking care to level them. The clay walls of the dome wouldbe placed directly on the bricks. The bottom layer is of bricks madeof hard cement salvaged from a fireplace; the oven floor is of usedrefractory firebricks recycled from the kiln of the ceramic artist KentBenson, also of Boynton.The metal door frame, a 24-inchdiameter tractor tire rim, wassuspended with baler twine in a bed ofcement in front of the bricks; we tookcare to plumb it. The recessed mid-section of the arched rim holds theheavy clay/sand/swale grass mixturesecurely. The two-inch thick planked"door" -- actually, it's a plug -- fitssnugly into the inside lip of the rim tohold in the heat when baking. It is hinged for easy inspection andspraying. We prop it shut with a metal rod while baking.Meanwhile, as the cement around the rim cured, we prepared theblue clay we had dug from the Tomifobia River Valley. A SherbrookeUniversity geologist reckoned the clay, some of it stratified with veryfine sand, was deposited around 12,000 years ago.After digging the clay, we laid it out to cure on sheets of used tinroofing. We chopped it into small pieces with a spade to speed thedrying and curing process. Then we used two antique bathtubs and aworn-out metal maple sugar pan to soak the small dried chunks ofclay which we covered with clean water.As the clay softened, we worked through it with our hands to removeany pieces of organic material. Once the clay had softened to asmooth homogenous mass we drained off the surplus water and let itstiffen a bit before using it. It has to be stiff enough to hold its shapeonce mixed with find sand and dry grass and kneaded into "loaves."We mixed thirty percent fine sand by volume with the clay, andadded dry swale grass -- a tough, fibrous, flat-bladed grass thatgrows on damp land -- as a binder. It worked best cut into six to eightLog Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 4 of 9inch pieces. We used enough in each batch -- two sand, six or moreof clay -- to help give form to each clay "loaf." This was done in athird bathtub, using hands and feet most vigorously.The sand was worked thoroughly into the clay, then the swale grasswas kneaded in. As a binder, its function was to keep the clay fromcracking apart as it dried and shrank.The clay loaves were kneaded on a clean piece of plywood (wediscovered it is important to keep the plywood damp and scrapedclean of bits of drying clay).The loaves were then molded together over and around a skeletonmade of a four-inch board "spine" and some supple saplings. Thewooden form was burned out during the first firing.Our oven interior is roughly horseshoe-shaped, and holds up totwenty-five 1.5 pound sourdough loaves at a time.This is the way we built the skeletal formthat gave the oven its shape:We affixed a4-inch board across the door opening, thenscrewed on another 4-inch board, centered atright angles. To this center board, a thumb-sizedsapling was secured, bent to the desired domeprofile, then hooked under rim edge at the insidetop. Upright and diagonal center braces werescrewed in place.A 3/4" flexible plastichose was used todefine the innerperimeter.This was removedafter the first layer ofclay was laid up.More vertical saplingswere lashed at the top,and horizontal saplingsadded at midlevel andnear the top.Log Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 5 of 9Clay loaves weremolded aroundperimeter and workedtogether into a solidclay ring, insuring thatthe loaves extendedand locked into the tirerim cavity.Next, we filled the base with three inches of damp sand. Eventually thedome was filled with damp sand. This retarded drying so the clay wouldn'tcrack too much. The inside of the rim was sealed so the sand wouldn't runout. We used two cardboard panels that were removed after a ten-daycuring period so the sand could be shoveled out.Another layer of loaves was then added, making sure the inside andoutside surfaces were molded smooth, and the inside filled with sand. Ittook six days to build the dome. At the end of each day we covered theclay with a large sheet of plastic film to prevent premature drying. After wecapped the dome with clay, the plastic film was left on for a week. Duringthis period I added clay to the top and refined the form by adding claywherever needed.Several times a day we removed the plastic and, with wet hands,smoothed the outside of the dome. Once the plastic sheet waspermanently removed small cracks appeared as the surface started todry. We filled these with wet clay.After ten days we removed the cardboard in the door frame and carefullyshoveled out the sand and brushed it gently from the interior surface ofthe dome, which at this point was still moist. As drying continued, theoutside surface kept cracking and we continued to fill these cracks withwet clay.The first firings were small to avoid drying the dome too quickly and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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//-->Log Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 1 of 9Log Cabin ChroniclesJane Goyette tending her 25-loaf wood-fired bread ovenat Hogwallow Farm in Fool's Hollow, QuebecHow To Builda Wood-Fired Oven& Start a Home BakeryBeing a Tried & True Methodof Dealing With the Realityof Getting Together our Daily Bread(and Having Some Extra Loaves to Sell)BY JOHN MAHONEY, EDITOR, LOG CABIN CHRONICLESDuring the years we did subsistence farming we were constantly facedwith the necessity of earning some cash money on a more-or-less regularbasis, and we tried to do things at home, at our own pace, that wouldbring it in.Making a tasty, nutritious, self-liquidating product with simple tools, thatsold for a fair price and returned a modest profit complemented our farm-based apple cider business that we conduct in the fall. Baking andcidering, we concluded, were personally satisfying, socially useful, life-nurturing processes -- a matter of right livelihood. Both used smallamounts of energy and provided, to our way of thinking, healthyalternatives to chemically bleached ya-ya bread and heavily-sugared "fruitdrinks."Log Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 2 of 9Our bread oven bakes with a slow,steady release of energy stored in aheat sink, which is then entrapped inthe dome. We fired the oven withsoftwood slabs from the now defunctvillage sawmill -- they were relativelycheap, dried quickly, and burned hotand fast for a quick release of energy.Yeast breads, rolls, cookies, pizzas,turkeys, and beans were baked in pans and crocks. Sourdough breadswent directly on the hot oven bricks and were sprayed several times withclean water that converted instantly to steam -- the secret to fantasticbread crusts. Read on...We built the oven of local fieldstone and blue clay, sand, gravel, and dryswale grass. The metal door arch is a discarded tractor tire rim from aFord 8N (many thanks to Tony Kemp of Boynton, Quebec).Like all major projects at Hogwallow Farm, the bread oven began with alarge, hand dug hole. Our sons, Sean, Keith, Kevin and Denis dug mostof the hole. Indeed, they would tell you that they dug most of the holes,most of the time, here at Hogwallow Farm.We dug a drainage ditch out from the lowest corner of the base hole toprevent any damage by frost heaves. The base hole and the drainageditch were filled with large stones, then increasingly smaller ones,beginning with the size of your fist.Coarse gravel was shoveled on and leveled. Around the perimeter, justbelow ground level, we then poured a layer of cement, several inchesthick, on which we set the base stones of the oven.When the cement hardened we had a low,square crib of stones embedded in a roughslab floating on a drained rock bed. Fromhere we went straight up, one stone afteranother, around the perimeter until wereached waist level. As the walls got higher,we started to fill the cavity -- first with fist-sized stones, then smaller ones on down tocoarse gravel. About knee level we startedfilling with sand.Log Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 3 of 9This fill -- stones, gravel, sand -- became the heart of the heat sink,the place where the energy released form the burning softwood slabsis stored. As we added the sand and gravel to the stone base wecompacted it by methodically walking over the surface.Once the cribbing was waist high, we placed two layers of brick onthe sand, taking care to level them. The clay walls of the dome wouldbe placed directly on the bricks. The bottom layer is of bricks madeof hard cement salvaged from a fireplace; the oven floor is of usedrefractory firebricks recycled from the kiln of the ceramic artist KentBenson, also of Boynton.The metal door frame, a 24-inchdiameter tractor tire rim, wassuspended with baler twine in a bed ofcement in front of the bricks; we tookcare to plumb it. The recessed mid-section of the arched rim holds theheavy clay/sand/swale grass mixturesecurely. The two-inch thick planked"door" -- actually, it's a plug -- fitssnugly into the inside lip of the rim tohold in the heat when baking. It is hinged for easy inspection andspraying. We prop it shut with a metal rod while baking.Meanwhile, as the cement around the rim cured, we prepared theblue clay we had dug from the Tomifobia River Valley. A SherbrookeUniversity geologist reckoned the clay, some of it stratified with veryfine sand, was deposited around 12,000 years ago.After digging the clay, we laid it out to cure on sheets of used tinroofing. We chopped it into small pieces with a spade to speed thedrying and curing process. Then we used two antique bathtubs and aworn-out metal maple sugar pan to soak the small dried chunks ofclay which we covered with clean water.As the clay softened, we worked through it with our hands to removeany pieces of organic material. Once the clay had softened to asmooth homogenous mass we drained off the surplus water and let itstiffen a bit before using it. It has to be stiff enough to hold its shapeonce mixed with find sand and dry grass and kneaded into "loaves."We mixed thirty percent fine sand by volume with the clay, andadded dry swale grass -- a tough, fibrous, flat-bladed grass thatgrows on damp land -- as a binder. It worked best cut into six to eightLog Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 4 of 9inch pieces. We used enough in each batch -- two sand, six or moreof clay -- to help give form to each clay "loaf." This was done in athird bathtub, using hands and feet most vigorously.The sand was worked thoroughly into the clay, then the swale grasswas kneaded in. As a binder, its function was to keep the clay fromcracking apart as it dried and shrank.The clay loaves were kneaded on a clean piece of plywood (wediscovered it is important to keep the plywood damp and scrapedclean of bits of drying clay).The loaves were then molded together over and around a skeletonmade of a four-inch board "spine" and some supple saplings. Thewooden form was burned out during the first firing.Our oven interior is roughly horseshoe-shaped, and holds up totwenty-five 1.5 pound sourdough loaves at a time.This is the way we built the skeletal formthat gave the oven its shape:We affixed a4-inch board across the door opening, thenscrewed on another 4-inch board, centered atright angles. To this center board, a thumb-sizedsapling was secured, bent to the desired domeprofile, then hooked under rim edge at the insidetop. Upright and diagonal center braces werescrewed in place.A 3/4" flexible plastichose was used todefine the innerperimeter.This was removedafter the first layer ofclay was laid up.More vertical saplingswere lashed at the top,and horizontal saplingsadded at midlevel andnear the top.Log Cabin Chronicles Bread Oven Building PagePage 5 of 9Clay loaves weremolded aroundperimeter and workedtogether into a solidclay ring, insuring thatthe loaves extendedand locked into the tirerim cavity.Next, we filled the base with three inches of damp sand. Eventually thedome was filled with damp sand. This retarded drying so the clay wouldn'tcrack too much. The inside of the rim was sealed so the sand wouldn't runout. We used two cardboard panels that were removed after a ten-daycuring period so the sand could be shoveled out.Another layer of loaves was then added, making sure the inside andoutside surfaces were molded smooth, and the inside filled with sand. Ittook six days to build the dome. At the end of each day we covered theclay with a large sheet of plastic film to prevent premature drying. After wecapped the dome with clay, the plastic film was left on for a week. Duringthis period I added clay to the top and refined the form by adding claywherever needed.Several times a day we removed the plastic and, with wet hands,smoothed the outside of the dome. Once the plastic sheet waspermanently removed small cracks appeared as the surface started todry. We filled these with wet clay.After ten days we removed the cardboard in the door frame and carefullyshoveled out the sand and brushed it gently from the interior surface ofthe dome, which at this point was still moist. As drying continued, theoutside surface kept cracking and we continued to fill these cracks withwet clay.The first firings were small to avoid drying the dome too quickly and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]