The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Quebec bread oven

scootsdad's picture
scootsdad

Quebec bread oven

I am planning to build a Quebec adobe bread oven this spring.  I have the door and am starting with a 4'X6' pedestal about three feet high. I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience with one of these.

 

Thanks!

gavinc's picture
gavinc

I checked out the Quebec adobe bread oven after reading your post. It looks like a fun project and something that will give you an immense amount of satisfaction. My own oven is a Pompeii style brick oven I built in 2005. Fabulous and has given many hours of enjoyment.

The only advice I can give is to make sure your foundation is high enough so you can see into the oven deck from a few feet back without bending over (as you will do this a lot).  Also, consider building a shelter over your oven as weather is not kind over time.

Take plenty of pictures during the build and keep us updated.

Cheers,

Gavin.

jbovenbread's picture
jbovenbread

One caution is that you may wish to consider is the overall size of your oven and the resulting size of the interior oven chamber.

I constructed my masonry oven on about the same exterior dimension (essentially 3 concrete blocks wide and 4 blocks deep) based on the plans outlined in the book "The Bread Builders" but reduced in size by about 30% (in part to try to save some money and time in construction).

This resulted in an oven with an interior space of about 18" by 26".    Unfortunately I have found this to be somewhat smaller than I would really like to have.  At best I can produce 8 loaves (in loaf pans) at one time which is a limitation.  I also am limited in the size of oven available to cook pizza (where you need an active fire at the back of the oven) and also limited by a smaller than ideal door width for a reasonable size pizza peal.

There is also a limitation imposed by the oven size ..... the smaller the oven most often will reflect a reduced  thickness of the oven wall / cladding.  The thinner the wall the faster the heat will drop off when baking bread.