Our semi-finished oven with thermal mass, insulation, doorway and chimney
Taking a look inside the doorway and the bottom of the chimney
Moving through the doorway arch towards the oven
Inside the pizza oven!
External finishing
The helicopter view
Our first ‘drying out’ fire
Lighting our first fire
The chimney works!
Looking good
Thermal layers
Great thermal layering – cold air is sucked in below the hot exhaust
We used bricks carved from sandstone for the doorway arch.
Base walls of the doorway
Strengthening the arch and support for the chimney
This took some discussion
Pizza oven doorway in progress: added abutments
Starting the arch and strengthening the abutments
Arch in progress
Carving our own bricks
Brick carving
Kept under wraps!
The semi-finished pizza oven
Here it is: our Pizza Oven build. There are lots of resources online.
As we know to our cost absolutely critical is the the clay sand mix ratio. It must be 2 sand to 1 clay! And it can take nearly an hour to mix a batch.
Thermal mass layer over sand former
We used sawdust for the insulation.
The insulation layer starting to cover the thermal mass layer
The insulation layer
The insulation layer
Adding a retaining wall
Completing the insulation layer
One of the school children chose smoked chicken for their birthday lunch so here we go – an introduction to hot smoking chicken. Of course being a Montessori school they had to do it for themselves starting with collecting the firewood and preparing the chicken!
Preparing the chicken
And with much inspiration from Mr Lamb and his River Cottage Handbook No 13 Curing & Smoking….
Lighting the smoker
After the cure was washed off
Into the tumble drier smoking chamber!
Puffing away
Et voila! Poulet fume!
Here is a pilot version from the weekend:
Smoked chicken breast
My small sample with Swedish potatoes and paprika from Nyamaropa
Pre-boiled in vinegar water then deep fried!
Our first try at good crisps
They just didn’t last very long
3 left
Being an engineer there weren’t so many measurements except TEMPERATURE!
Kitchen Thermometer
Each was half Huletts soft brown sugar (i.e. the cheap stuff that is everywhere here) and half runny brown honey, splash of water and a bit of yellow baking margarine.
From the left 120°, 140°, 150°
From the left 120° (soft ball), 140°, 150° (hard crack + more flavour!)
120° (soft ball close to toffee in the mouth),
120° (soft ball – close to toffee in the mouth),
140° and 150° (hard crack – underneath)
Here’s one I made earlier! The goats milk cherry fudge.
The complete line up with soft ball, hard crack, cherry fudge and butterscotch on right
Eastern Highlander 