Daniel Ray

Yes, you can. My wife has a vigorous sourdough starter and she likes to bake in the oven, but when she is away or too busy, I just whip it up in the bread machine. Choose the longest setting, if possible, for the rise. It makes pretty consistent loaves for me this way. If it isn't getting a good enough rise, try through a small amount of bread yeast in too if available. It will get an extra rise from the yeast, but still carry the sourdough flavor.

I was just thinking as I watched this that this might be another huge benefit of the new shorty designs, you don't need the gap for any mass placed on top of the barrel. With the exhaust exiting horizontally from the riser, the temps will never get too hot on the steel. I love the look of the cob hat and the extra mass is great, but I like to keep the removable lids--though the only times I've removed the lid is to show people what the inside looks like and once to get an unfortunate bird out that had flown down the chimney and made it through 20+ feet of horizontal pipe to the barrel.

Great video as always.

What an undertaking! The closest thing it reminds me of is the Sivananda Lodge in Quebec. It is featured in the book "serious straw bale" by Michel Bergeron and Paul Lacinski, though they did not do a basement, but it is colossal as well at 8,000 square feel I think. He didn't do round timber, but modified post and beam with squared beams. You might look into the build and see if you can't track down more info on it.

sthat wattle and daub on the walls?

Yes, we did a pallet cob as made popular by Miguel Elliott (sir cobsalot). I did a similar build for our outdoor composting toilet and I really enjoyed the process, so went for it again. People seem to enjoy the method.

In the scenery of spring,
nothing is better, nothing worse;
The flowering branches are
of themselves, some short, some long.

-Ryokan (often known as a requote by Alan Watts)

Thought I would share some photos of this years build. We have been building a cob sauna on the property and it is nearly there. Currently I'm working on the roof and will then be putting in 6" batch RMH (shorty) for the heat source. We did a majority of the cob during a 4 day cob workshop where we had 6 people working together to build the walls. Hope somone enjoys! It has been a fun one.

I recommend it as a van spot! I got to stay there for a few nights and it was great views!

I'm going to give my 2 cents on this and hopefully it will revive this post and we will get some more comments.

The plunge style door should work for this as long as the air intake specifications stay the same.

As for framing, I've never done any sort of metal bracing on my stoves and just use refractory cement for the core build and wrapped in cob.

Love seeing this. I offer a dorodango class at the library every year and it is a huge hit!

Hi everyone, we have a number of workshops now open for registration on our website. Visit https://www.spiritwoodnaturalbuilding.com/workshops to check out the details!