Tandoori Oven

I am interested in building a tandoori oven.
I have never used one, and I need to know if the interior can be made of metal or refractory cement, instead of clay.
I know a few commercial models use steel, but most of them are lined with clay
I've seen one made of refractory cement, but that maker never made naan on his.
I'm leaning towards clay inside a steel shell, fired in place.
This clay in particular:
https://www.dickblick.com/products/standard-clay-company-239-raku-clay/

Making naan is the foremost goal, but I plan to also make pizza and loaves of bread and of course skewers .
I'm aiming to build one big enough to cook a whole turkey.
I also hope to set a (removable) stainless steel mixing bowl into the top, so I can approximate a Korean gamasot.
Tandoori ovens are remarkably like a Tlud charcoal making stove, and I  intend try making charcoal in mine.


I plan on insulating the oven.
Perlite,or vermiculite are normally what is used.
I might use stone wool.
Ceramic fiber insulation, if used , will not be in the flame path and will be sequestered.
I might even use a mud/sawdust mix.

I think the firebox could be made of something quite different than the oven proper.
It doesn't need to be a good surface to slap naan onto!
I'm eager to try firing the oven with different fuels, but charcoal/ wood will be king.



Rebecca, I am certain you have first hand experience with naan making, so I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
In particular, how deep does the oven really need to be, in your opinion?
I'm a long limbed galoot, with some fire resistance, but the thought of putting my hand full extension into an ear than oven gives me pause...

Hi William!
I don't have extensive experience with tandoor. Our school did install one once, because we had a cook who used to work at his uncle's tandoor bakery making naan.

We purchased a liner and built it in. It was like a big terracotta pot. I'll paste a photo found online below.

The tandoors I've seen, you put the round of rested dough on a big wad of cloth and slap it onto the wall of the oven. When it's ready, you use a pointy hooked iron bar to snag it off the wall and bring it up. I don't know if other materials would have that perfect quality of holding the dough safely up and releasing it easily to the pointy tool. From my baking experience, it seems like cast iron might behave similarly.

Thank you so much for weighing in Rebecca!
After watching some naan making in action I think only the top part of the oven is used, plus there's a special mitt for conveying the bread to the oven wall.
Most homemade versions use terra cotta pots as the inner wall, which somewhat constrains the size.
Together, this makes me think a dedicated tandoori oven might be best.
This would be a nice focused project that I could drag my son into, since he's the one who suggested I focus on naan making oven.
We can still fire it with things like a Tlud or sawdust stove.



That said, I am not done thinking about a larger combo version.
Instead of filling in a shell, I'm now imagining packing clay onto or slathering refractory over a sacrificial form.
The form would be pallet wood and two bike rims of unequal size, put together to form a truncated cone.
Basically an upside down peach basket, if you can picture that.
Wrapped in foil to cover any gaps, I think it would work as a form that can be burned out on the first firing.
We could use a metal shell on the outside, or we could use a form.
This could be great time to try slipformed cob or masonry.

The firebox geometry on these stoves are very basic compared to the rocket stoves we often see here on Permies.
Rather than fight that, it occured to me that we could use a metal lid with a feed tube and flue to turn them into pocket rockets.
This could add a cleaner more efficient burn to an already great design.
Pocket rockets are notorious for shedding a lot of heat, but we are aiming to build an  refractory thermal mass around a vaguely barrel shape firebox , and then insulating that mass.