Wood Fired Pizza Oven [stage 2]

Cleaning up after pouring the Vermiculite! (see I told you I did some work too!)

Bricks are then laid out to get the angles and amount of bricks needed for the bottom layers.

A few bricks were laid out to get the doorway and chimney area worked out before everything is set in place.

We used firebricks on the floor of the oven, but in retrospect we should have used the same solid fired clay bricks that we used on the rest of the oven... better thermal mass!

The oven is taking shape! more tomorrow!

Wood Fired Pizza Oven [stage 1]

One of those things that I have always wanted... A wood fired pizza oven (and big enough to cook a meal not just pizzas as well as a few loaves of bread in.)

So, we have decided to build a BBQ and Pizza Oven in the new outdoor area we built over Xmas and here is the story of that build!

Started with a good solid foundation to support the weight of a lot of bricks, concrete and of course pizza dough! We laid out the bricks and worked out the best arrangement for both the oven and the BBQ (a later project) before mortaring all the walls permanently.

we then poured a solid slab of concrete over the top which is to become the base for the entire oven (this was seriously reinforced and just to make sure we added an extra column of bricks in the middle) 'Belts and Braces' as Charles likes to call it.

Next step is the vermiculite layer which will act as an insulation layer to prevent heat loss through the oven floor.

More photos and the rest of the story to follow!

The Rooster is dead, Long live the Rooster!!!

Sad news as a f##king fox has taken poor Russell (our handsome Rooster) and B1 (our best layer). We have seen a fox about early in the morning up the road, but the one night Charles forgets to lock the gate and Russell decides to go for a walk past the shed and an opportune fox grabs him and at about 5 Kgs I hope he put up a good fight... Charles found a pile of feathers a few days later, so we know it was a fox and not him just running away from home chasing more hens!

Then a couple of days later B1 goes missing in the middle of the afternoon, so we have penned them up for awhile (no free ranging) till we think the fox has gone elsewhere before we let them roam again during the day.

Good news tho' as it appears that one of the new chicks is a rooster, so son of Russell will live on! we know this to be true because he's constantly humping B2 and one of his sisters.

The rooster is dead, long live the Rooster!

Name to be decided... any suggestions?