Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I was thinking the same thing.

The barrel dome is easier to build,
with the firebricks being butted flash, there are only wedge shaped gaps along the longitudinal plane to be filed up by the refractory mortar.
More on this page, if you have time for it.
There’s a lot of good tech. info but scattered all over the site and not easy to find.

And a pic of few AP radishes just pulled out for the dinner salad.

Truth be told, I ended up at the Forno site after trying to compile enough info on the Traditional Oven site... I was intrigued and even bought their pics/plans cd, but the info was not complete enough for me to tackle and the site was a bear to search for clues... Very happy with my Pompeii style (igloo), but the half barrel would be easier to build knowing what I know now.

I'm sure both are very good, though the FB site swears the round ovens cook more evenly than square/rectangle (half barrel) designs... I do not have first hand experience.

Steve, do you find that the corners/angles lead to some unevenness in cooking? (Would never know in slow cook scenarios, but maybe in breadmaking... Dunno...)

Just learning to use mine, but this past weekend was another impressive use of the oven.

Friday afternoon, burned 2 armloads of wood then pushed coals to left side of oven.

Friday evening cooked a dozen pizzas then sealed the door.

Saturday afternoon baked 11 dozen cookies (4- 30 minute cycles with three cookie sheets each time), then cooked steaks. Afterward, sealed the door.

Sunday early a.m. I put in a pot of beans and a pot with a roast in it. (Temp was still 375 - 400º) Sealed it up when finished. After lunch baked some apple halves. When finished sealed it up. Temp was still 300º internal. Was going to make muffins, but rain kept the missus inside while I was called in to work.

Monday afternoon temps were still in the upper 200s.

Tuesday morning the temps were finally into the slow cook range of 150º.

All on two armloads of wood!! Impressive.

CB

Steve,

Just looked at your Flickr account. Wow! Beautiful build. Very nicely done, sir!

CB

Nice oven whats the floor tiles ![/quote]

Floor tiles are Terra cotta 300 x 300mm x 25mm thick, very nice base to cook pizza directly on, especially after pre firing oven for a few hours, gives a cooked pizza with nice crispy base in less than 2 mins[/quote]
Thanks Interesting dident think they would stand the heat[/quote]

No problems with heat, outer tiles are glued solid, inner tiles I pulled up prior to glue drying then once cured placed back in, bedded but not solid to allow for expansion.
Has worked a treat and believe me when I fire it up I fire it up.
On average over 5 years oven is lit once a fortnight, still looks the same as when new.

Nice one. Love the tile idea. Where in particular did you source them and your firebricks.[/quote]

The wife found tiles, not sure where but will ask when I get home next week, but they weren't cheap.
Bricks are solid pressed house bricks not fire bricks, however they have a high silica content and are fired at temps a lot higher than normal house bricks, so very stable.

WFO thread! Awesome! Currently building one myself hope to be finished by end of Sept. into Oct!

Nothing of that sort, but again, I didn’t use it that much, and the proximity of my neighbour’s house and his clothesline
doesn’t make it a daily event proposition.

While the round dome pizza oven is more known, the barrel type was the traditional bread oven
in the Central Europe countryside.

Vlado is a very knowledgeable man of WFO, in theory and practice
but his website and the written documentation part of his package doesn’t do him justice at all.

The wide variety of knowledge in this forum amazes me some days......

I have an interest in ovens also, but I have kept out of this because we sell a DIY kit. We went on holidays in Perth a few years back and bought one. I'll leave it at that though.

I have seen Steve's oven and its very impressive.

This is ours in the backyard. We fired it up for the Last Melbourne get together.