Thursday, March 22, 2012

Bread Dead

A long time ago I think I posted this video, but since I've been thinking about it recently, I thought I'd post it again.
I once read about a Buddhist meditation where you were asked to contemplate your own demise and visualize the decomposition of your body. Well, that's very serious stuff and I wasn't quite ready for that, so instead I thought I'd start with a loaf of bread. Bread, of course!



The idea was to take a fresh loaf and leave it unattended by the front door. Not a good idea. The first few days were fine, but soon the bread attracted some very nasty flies, and when I opened the door, the flies would come into the house. It only got worse.
The bread began to smell like carrion, and the mail carrier refused to deliver the mail. Finally, my wife made it quite clear. The bread goes or she goes.
The bread went, but (hee hee) not very far. I took it out to my section of the garden. No animal would touch it, so there it stayed, decaying into oblivion for over a year. You can see the video here.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Firing The Mini Oven

Anything less than a 22" interior circular diameter I'll refer to as a mini oven.
The mini oven is a great oven for workshops because they can be constructed quickly, and the oven builders can then stuff them into their cars and take them home.



 Because they're so small it's difficult, yeah really difficult, to fire them to a baking temperature.

 

One solution I have found is to cut a small hole in the back, and this makes it much easier to start a fire.


Once the fire is going, you can then block the hole with a stone.



No, it's not airtight, but it hardly matters because the mini oven is best for flat breads and pizzas.

I just finished this prototype mini oven for some workshops, and I was able to get the floor temperature to 700ºF. Perfect for pizzas. Just make sure your firewood is absolutely dry. If it's not, then you're better off firing up the electric Hotpoint indoors.