Intend to Build a barrel oven , maybe AS style. Plans?
I've renamed this this thread because I think the previous wasn't topic specific. I've had very helpful comment made. I'm still looking for plans. I hve some questions about how to get around ceramic insulation as much as possible since here in Japan it is costly.
original:
Have Mercy on My Soul! I've reached information overload. I need some help sizing my oven and choosing the design to use.
- Imagine maybe 50 baguette in a day. (I don't want to spend all day doing this, so how many at once?? )
- hand-made brick oven. I'm a reasonable carpenter and design guy.
- I want to be able to roast foods in it, so a decent large door size.
- Not too resource consuming so some balance between size and insulation.. I have space since the whole thing will be joined to a kitchen which I haven't built yet.
- If it can do some pizza that's ok too, but bread is the focus.
Right now I'm favoring a barrel vault which seems viable, good quality and understandable construction principles. this is not final ...
I've also considered doing a dome with refractory. I'm unlikely to try to tackle dome from cut masonry.
I looked at so many things my eyes are rolling in circles. some help in narrowing my decision would be welcome. Since I am building it, ease of construction is of interest.. I'm a carp, not a master mason.. Thanks!
Oven: I recommend a barrel vault with 4.5 inch thickness all the way around, plus about 2 inches of refractory concrete cladding. On top of this, use ceramic fiber blanket (3 inches) for insulation. Underneath the floor, use about 3 inches of ceramic fiber board. I have found this design to be efficient in both heating time and heat retention.
Baguettes: 50 for me would take about 20 minutes to mix, then about 1 hour to shape. Each load would take approximately 20 mins to bake. So while 50 bags isn't terribly time consuming, it is some sort of investment.
size: bigger is better for this. I'd probably want to fit 24 baguettes per round. i I think the basic large Alan Scott oven is plenty big for that: approx 60x72 IIRC? That many baguettes you want at least 50" deep and 36" wide, just to fit them all.
It's also very close to the figures I came up with. I can get ceramic blanket.. I see people put that on and then build a cavity around it .. then roof etc..
The ceramic board may be more difficult to locate. or incredible in cost. is there something I can replace it with. I have space.. with this much masonry, could I not use unbacked fiberglass as insulation? also, once I have that much fire brick and refractory mortar.. (4.5 inches) could I use standard concrete to clad (not at doorway or flue obviously) ?
And yea, making that much bread takes me longer than that. But if I can do it in 3 firings I'm golden for now.
I saw another FRLoaF thread where people were getting AS plans. I couldn't find them online or figure where to get them elsewise.
Thanks!
B