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Bagman

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I cleared about a acre of back country. Downs slope from a camping area. Been busy since... putting in a elevated fire pit and raised hearth. Built a base and enclosure for a Cob oven. Wanted to use this as a combination demo site and test kitchen for original receipts. Backbreaking work and it makes you ponder how hard it was to scratch out a life from raw land....

Hats off to the original settlers, who had to improve their 5 acres in five years.
 
Are you planning a TV show? With the beautiful back drop you described, success is assured. Good luck.....Fred
 
Wanted to use this as a combination demo site and test kitchen for original receipts. Backbreaking work and it makes you ponder how hard it was to scratch out a life from raw land.
Click to expand...

You have gained a useful experience. SINCE you are thinking of making a wood fired oven, you might want to consider making a wood fired, clay stove. You might want to look at some basic Plans for Clay Cookstoves. Otherwise feeding the fires will be more hard work. And again, since you're going to make a clay oven, you can use the same materials to also make a stove with a couple of burners adjacent.

:idunno:

LD
 
I have seen a few modern designed out door kitchens. And I mean more than the classic bick BBQ that folks built in the back yard in the 1940's and 1950's. The first nice one I saw was in a back yard in Arlington VA. The brick oven and pit BBQ took up one wall of a picnic pavilion that had three or four picnic tables in it. One I really liked was designed in the 1950's by the famous furniture maker George Nakashima. It had a covered raised fire pit for cooking. The cover was like a peaked roof in two parts with one overhanging the other so smoke and heat could escape between the two, but rain could not fall on the fire pit. And then a friend took me to the Indian Steps Museum along the Susquehanna River just North of the Maryland line. They have an outdoor kitchen from about 1910 that was designed to cook for and feed hundreds. There are many features that I could not figure out. Floor level narrow pyramid shaped fire boxes with small chimneys, wood fired ovens, a few pit type BBQ alcoves at waist high level, etc. Just the cooking area is about 40 ft long. It has renewed my interest in building my own outdoor kitchen.

I had a red neck fire pit made of old cinder blocks and put my rendezvous fire set on it so we could roast a beef round on the spit and hang a pot of beans over the fire.

Your raised pit is awesome. Just the timber frame joinery is an art.
 
Different angle showing the firepit and elevated hearth. This was before I finished the timber frame on the other end.

Still much to do.





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Bagman - I built a cob oven and covered it much like you did. What I found was that in a windy rainstorm too much water blew onto my oven and started eroding the mud away. I ended up having to put sides on it. Something to be aware of.
 
I plan on keeping it covered when not in use.

Wonder if it could be parged with a thin layer of colored plaster as a final coat?
 
Bagman said:
Wonder if it could be parged with a thin layer of colored plaster as a final coat?
Click to expand...
It would probably crack and pop off with weather changes....Even stucco has a chicken wire backing for support and added strength....I've used fiberglass bonding cement for a exterior parge but even that isn't guaranteed and is difficult to use on vertical surfaces....
I've never done anything with cob and am in no way an expert.....
 
Yes, best to keep it covered. Folks back in time, that had open, cob/clay ovens often baked every day, and those that have them the same way today often do as well, or every other day, or they live in the desert with very little chance of dew. If you fire it up every third or fourth day or longer between firings, after several days of moisture or heavy dews....you might find a moisture problem and damage as a result.

LD
 
How about constructing 4 removable side panels for when it's not in use....
Also, linseed oil is often used as an exterior masonry protectant...."might work" :idunno:
 
A water tight coating is not a good idea. It will encourage cracking. The oven needs to breath as is absorbs moisture from the air between uses and looses it with each fire. You can cover it with a tarp but I found that that encourage mice to move in......
 
rwolfe said:
A water tight coating is not a good idea. It will encourage cracking. The oven needs to breath as is absorbs moisture from the air between uses and looses it with each fire. You can cover it with a tarp but I found that that encourage mice to move in......
Click to expand...
Hadn't considered that... :thumbsup:
 

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