pizza party.  2011

Below is a chronicle of the making process for my retained heat baking hearth.  I built it a few years ago and it's look and role in my life has continued to change.  Lately, I have enjoyed baking thin crust pizza.  One stoke of wood (aprox. five gallons) easily gives enough heat for six pizzas, though I am just as happy making just four.  The scale of the oven is suited to making ten inch pizzas, baked two at a time.  Bake time is just a couple of minutes. 

Enjoy.

After we selected our site, we went about making a stand...

On top, we formed a brick base and went about constructing an earthen former from local topsoil...

Newspaper went on our former, and then came our first layer of cob...

It is important that the consistency of the cob is correct so that it maintains it's shape and density when the earth former is removed.  After our shape had come together, we dug out the soil former and...

We lit a small fire to get our first layer heated up and drying.  The straw and sand allows the cob to wick moisture easily.  My first oven was built having only a single wall of dense cob which is completely adequate for a starter oven.  However, I wanted to build this one with a tough inner liner and insulative second layer as this oven was to be more permanent.

As the second layer goes on, the oven starts to take on it's finished shape.

These ovens are low-tech enterprises that can be very satisfying for good people.

Staci with loaves and pizza pies.