Kneading Conference Images

The 2010 Kneading Conference is over, and it certainly was a wonderful experience for me, and I'm sure, for a lot of other people as well. In the earth oven workshop that I led, we constructed three earth ovens on Thursday, and we were baking flat breads and pizzas on the same day. Actually, we didn't have the pizza ingredients until Friday, so on Friday we made the pizzas, but on Thursday we made pitas.

Hi energy

Shrink wrapped

Father Paul with his shrink wrapped oven. Ready to travel.

Little Sis

 RUNNINGMUSIC: Homage New Orleans

 

Little Sis

“Let me first introduce myself.

My real name is Debbie LeGrande but here at

Rivers End, I'm known as Little Sis.

My parents are of french Creole and cajun decent.

Most people think that I'm Native American because of

my dark skin and jet black hair.

I'm only twelve years old but I've been baking bread for

three years now.

When I was eight years old, my mother fell off a tractor

when it hit a bump.

The tractor started going in circles and my mom tried

to get out of the way but the plows cut off her legs.

She was in the hospital for three months and I had to take

over the bread baking for our family.

I have three older brothers who do all the kneading for me.

I bake six loaves a day. (Basic white bread)

My dad made a special bread board that my mom can

hook on to her wheel chair.

We sit together at night and knead some dough for the

next days bread.

last month we all loaded up in both our pickups and took

a drive to New Orleans.

This was not a pleasant drive because it's mostly a hundred

miles over dirt roads.

The food in New Orleans was so good it almost brought

tears to my eyes. (Almost)

The bread was so good that it did bring tears to my mamas eyes.

It was the first time that any of us had ever tasted Sourdough.

We wanted desperately to make this bread at home so we went

to a health food store and bought 50lb. bags of whole wheat, rye

and Cajun, unbleached white flour.

We also got a few packets of "Mojo Sourdough Starter"

As soon as we got home we started a starter right away.

We used one cup of whole wheat and one cup of well water.

And the "Mojo Starter" of course.

After 12 hours, we saw little bubbles and noticed a fruity smell.

It smelled like peaches and apples.

We added another cup of whole wheat and well water and waited.

On day two, there were a lot more bubbles and the same fruity smell.

Day three the starter was climbing out the gallon jar and still had a

fruity smell to it.

We used a cup of the starter to make some bread and put the rest

in the fridg.

The bread came out really good …”

 from Bread Earth and Fire (soon to be published)

Pizza Making Video

Check out the pizza making video from Wildwoodovens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxAsLfKozR8
I particularly like the rolling pin used.

Moor Street Community Garden

Thanks to Ellen Paul,  Mary Dunn and many others, we officially opened the Moor Street Community Garden in Waterville, Maine with brick oven pizza for all. The oven shown was put together with 100 red bricks and some angle iron. It took 30 minutes to assemble.

Arroyos

Note the three arroyos etched right into the dome. This was caused by rain running off the corrugated roofing. The lesson, of course, is to thoroughly protect your earth oven from the elements. 

Probably I'll add a roof extension in the back.

Kneading Conference

Hi
I'll be leading a workshop on earth oven construction at the Kneading Conference in Skowhegan, Maine. July 29-30. Come join us, and check out the website.
http://www.kneadingconference.com/

workshop 2009

Portable Oven

Today I made a dry stacked, portable brick oven that can be quickly assembled. It sits on simple saw horses, and it's constructed with 92 red bricks. The oven will be used at the grand opening of the Moor St. community garden in Waterville, Maine on Sunday, July 18 and on subsequent events. Free pizza, drinks and deserts. Everyone is welcome. Come at noon.

French Pizza Oven

While recently in France I noticed this neat oven insert that will really crisp the bottom of your pizza, fast. Such a simple device, I wish I had thought of it myself.
You simply place the insert over a pile of fiery coals and place your pizza on top. Next time, I'll try to get a photo of the pizza resting on top.

The Nature Of Mud

Doing a simple "snake test" should be enough to determine if you're actually working with clay because that's what you need to build an earth oven. But that's just the beginning. You then need to mix sand with clay. Generally the proportion is two or three parts sand to one part clay. There are some who have built ovens using clay exclusively, but it hasn't worked for me. I have found that if you use too much clay, then your oven might develop some pretty severe cracks. If you use too much sand, then your oven could fall apart (had it happen).
What you want is for your clay/sand mixture to fuse together and then it is applied around and over your sand form in a consistency that's neither too wet nor too dry. If it's too wet, let you'll get lots of unacceptable slumping. If it's too dry, then it won't hold together.
You can look at all the videos, read all the books, search the internet, but nothing will work better then to have some help from someone who has had some experience building earth ovens. 

Earth Oven Insulation

 Both hold their shape when dry

When insulating the domes of earth ovens, I have used a mixture of 6 parts perlite to 1 part clay slip, and I have also used a mixture of 6 parts perlite to 1 part Portland cement. The less clay or cement you use the better, because they both reduce the insulation value of the perlite, but unless you take extraordinary measures, you need some sort of binder to hold the perlite in place.

 Only the perlite with cement holds its shape when wet

An important thing to consider is moisture. Perlite bound with cement holds together when wet, but perlite bound with clay slip does not.