Wood Fired Pizza Oven [stage 4]

So it's finally time to fire up the oven and see if it works! That is to see if it will hold it's heat, cook pizza and some bread in the stored heat afterwards.

Mmmmmm! Pizzas cooking away nicely... The recipe for the base came from a great bread book called 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice' which has some fantastic incites in to bread and it's making plus some of the best recipes I have tried (not that I have tried a lot before the oven was made!)

Charles is certainly happy at the helm of the oven... handles a peel like a pro! and just like Charles... they're big and they're cheesy!!!

So the final conclusion... a great success! There will be many pizzas cooked in this little beauty and a few parties too I would say! interestingly the oven is still toasty warm 48 hours later!

There are a couple of things we would do differently next time. it was a learning curve and we did make mistakes, but hey! it works and that's all that really matters when you have a mouthful of good pizza!!!

Wood Fired Pizza Oven [stage 3]

More hard work, a weekend with a bricksaw (luckily it was sunny so the solar panels helped reduce the energy use. The saw was required to cut the angles on the bricks so that the dome took shape without too much refractory mortar required.

Then layer by layer, brick by brick, the dome takes shape!

With the brickwork finished and the chimney in place... Hmmm! can almost smell those pizzas already!

Charles made a fairly solid door for the front out of some of the hard wood we had left over from the Guest room build. lined inside with a sheet of thin steel to keep the heat in and to protect the door.

The insulation layer of vermiculite is then spread over the brickwork, this in retrospect, should have been replaced by a fibreglass insulation blanket which would have allowed for the expansion of the chamber more than the vermiculite does.

Then a render coat over the top and the oven is ready for a small fire to test the brickwork and then a raging fire to get some food cooked!!! looking forward to it!

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?

MORE CHOOKS TO THE CLAN

Our little feral chicken (Cheryl) that arrived and made the hen house home had recently turned broody, so Charles decided to stick a few eggs under her to incubate. The eggs are probably from the 2 Australorps rather than the 2 older Plymouth Rock hens.

The result has been 3 Cicks that are now bigger than she is... she has been the perfect mother and even though they spent the first few weeks inside with us (getting attached to Charles and cheeping away most of the night!) they still bonded with her as soon as we returned them to the pen.

They are now a lot bigger and are starting to stand up for themselves and joining the pecking order but theyare still feeling their way as the older birds attack them when food is about (they have speed on their side for now!)

Russell attacks them too, he hasn't taken any other interest in them yet. and we are not sure yet if any of them are little roosters... but worse case scenario is a Sunday roast!!!

Mmmm! Tastes like chicken!

The Xmas 2010 Project (cont.)

Still plenty of work to be done! Rendering the concrete so that it all looks uniform and neat.

The leftover road base we had from the Pise construction of the Chookhouse was put to good use as the foundation of the floor and once again machines came to our rescue, making life so much easier (adds to our carbon foot print but I will plant several trees just for the CO2 we have produced).

The stack of pavers we got dirt cheap (and the seconds paving slabs) have been put to use and looks great even though its not finished yet... but then anything would have looked better than what we had.

We did have to buy timber for the frame and new corrugated iron for the roof but that actually made it go up a lot faster as it was all straight and easier to use.

Well that's most of the hard work done... all that remains now is to build the BBQ and the Wood-Fired Oven under the new roof over the next few weeks (time allowing) and Party!!!

But till then we will just sit back and relax with a home brew! and for the record just because you don't see me working, doesn't mean I don't work up a sweat and deserve a beer too!!!

And it all comes with the Black Chook Seal of Approval!