About Georgiabrickoven

Margarita-ville Sign

Georgia Brick Oven is being built by Chris and Vaughn, a wife and husband team. For some time, Chris has been reading and learning about bread ovens.  FYI, Chris is the “chief architect” of the project and is the one doing all the blog writing.

I’ve been so immersed for so long in brick bread ovens, that I forgot that lots of people might not know what I am talking about.  Brick or clay ovens were traditionally built by hand “back in the day” as a way to bake bread, or indeed anything that you can bake in today’s ovens (turkey, potatoes, cakes, pies, roast beef etc.). The ovens are fired by burning wood for a couple of hours inside the oven chamber. Once the wood has reduced to embers, they are spread over the oven floor to heat it evenly. When the embers are almost all ash, the ash is swept out of the oven and the floor is mopped with damp rags. At that point, the oven is too hot to bake bread (from 500 to 900 degrees F), but it’s perfect for super quick pizza baking. After the oven cools to about 500 degrees F, the bread can go in – right on the oven floor. That’s what is meant by “hearth baked” breads or pizza. They bake directly on the oven floor or hearth.

The oven is equipped with a door (made of either water soaked wood or iron & often insulated) that holds the heat and traps the steam that the bread loaves give off as they start to bake. This steam gives the bread a wonderful crust that bakers strive for.

So, how did I get started?  I bought a book – Build Your Own Earth Oven by Kiko Denzer and found a wonderful website www.traditionaloven.com  that are my inspirations. The book is a great guide for building a low cost oven. The website is the home of Rado Hand who lives and works in Australia.  His site and DVD with tons of pictures and advice is directly responsible for my decision to build our oven. Before I started this project, I called and asked Kiko if a woman could build an oven and he said “it depends on the woman”. I felt that I was such a woman, and so I’ve gone full steam ahead.

That’s not to say that Vaughn hasn’t been a lot of help. I couldn’t have poured the concrete without him. However, if you don’t have a husband, don’t let that stop you. Hire some help for the harder parts or get a couple more willing women to help. As a bit of background, I’m 59 and overweight.  I do have a degree in Architectural Technology and worked as a project engineer for 30+ years, so I can do the math and know about construction techniques. If you believe in yourself, it’s do-able for lots of people, both male and female. Take it in small steps and you’ll do just fine.

Just so you can see the type of oven I’m building, I’m posting a picture from Rado’s website. My oven will be smaller and the brick won’t be painted, but you get the idea.

I’m sure some will ask “how much did it cost to build”. As Rado encourages, I’ve scavanged as much material as I could. For instance, we had all the brick I’ll need left over from building our house 16 years ago. Vaughn had neatly stacked it at the back of our property for just such a project (little did he know at the time!). That will be a huge savings. So far, I’ve estimated that it will cost me about $800 to build the oven. Yes, it can be done more or less expensively depending on size and material costs, but I’m getting

Rado Hand

a lot of satisfaction for less than $1000. At the end of the project, I’ll post a spreadsheet showing all the costs. Who knows, maybe I’ll come in under budget!