posted 18 hours ago
We have finally finished our bread stove/smoker/cooker.
It started as a dry stacked hand made red bricks with massive gaps, no insulation and extremely quick heat loss. We had to bake on the bed of coals to eliminate soggy bottoms. However it served us for a year.
In 2024 I have poured the foundation, built the pedestal, poured perlite concrete and built 4 courses of the firebox. Then I had to focus on other projects.
In spring 2025 I have built the vaulted ceiling of the firebox and finished the smoking chamber.
In summer I have poured clay perlite on the top and welded the frame. Then in late summer the external walls were built. Then we installed the doors and my son has plastered and whitewashed the walls.
The design is an equivalent of a 20 cm BBR, but with a rectangular afterburner : 40x10 cm. It develops double vortes easily, even with the port depth of half a brick (114 mm).
The floor is made of two layers of brick. The top layer is dry stacked in the firebox and the afterburner, so they can be replaced if needed.
The bottom is insulated with 16 cm of perlite concrete and one layer of insulating firebricks.
The sides have loose perlite - 10 cm thick and the top of the firebox clay perlite also 10 cm thick.
The ceiling of the skin is made of adobe pavers set on angle bars.
The chimney is flush with the ceiling, so I can easily protect it when it rains (no protruding object).
We have started it yesterday and since it was dry bone by the summer heat, we went full blast. It roars and burns extremely cleanly - at least for the eye.
We have burned two batches of eucalyptus. I have closed the chimney and then we baked two breads and two casseroles. In the top chamber we cooked 8 liters of potaje in cast iron pot. Yesterday the top chamber was too cold for any bakinbg operation, but in the morning the top was hotter than he bottom after the heat travelled overnight. The purpose of the top is to smoke and to cook stews/soups. I suspect that with continuous firing - at least once per two days, the top will develop pastry baking temperatures.
I have used:
120 l of 20 MPa concrete for the foundation (with 12 mm rebars)
30 adobe pavers and 25 CEB blocks for pedestal
around 220 firebricks for walls and floors
55 wedge #2 brick for vaults
1.5"x1.8" angle bar and 1.5"x1.8" flat bar for the frame
420 red bricks
10 Pacific Clay firebricks for external arches( I cut them into wedges)
12 Pacific Clay splits for the chimney
1.5"x3/16 angle bar for the ceiling
12 adobe pavers for the ceiling
Spanish thin bricks fro the cornice
0.6 mm stainless sheet and M6 stainless screws/nuts for the door brackets
2 Hubos two winged doors (needed to blacken them with linseed oil)
Almost all masonry materials were purchased used or were leftover from other projects.
For the firebrick joints I was using mesh 20 sand and local clay. For the outside bricks - the same local clay but with coarser sand. And for plastering the mortar with straw.
Limewash was prepared from high calcium putty.
There a was of cutting involved, but since I have 3 masonry saws of various sizes and multitude of grinders and diamond tools - it's always a pleasure.
Pedestal.jpg
PerliteAndIFB.JPG
BeforeTheVault.jpg
FirstVault.jpg
fireboxReady1.jpg
SmokingChamber.jpg
CoreReady.jpg
CoreWithFrame.JPG
OutsideWallFinished.JPG
LayingCeilingPavers.JPG
LossePerliteInsulation.JPG
DoorsDryingAfterBlackening.JPG
BracketsAndWool.JPG
BracketsReadyForDoor.JPG
DoorsInstalled.JPG
Limewashed.JPG
PANISNOSTER.JPG
Lefovercuttings.JPG