Mobile Bake Oven Video

We are very pleased to have a new video to post about our mobile bake ovens.

Please check the link below and see our You Tube channel.

http://youtu.be/gHbGWU4i64E

Enjoy.

October/November Project Update

It's been a busy fall. In addition to building masonry heaters in Benson, VT and another in Burlington, we have been working on a commercial oven in Shelburne, VT, shown here. This oven core is 5' x 5' interior, and meant to be multi-purpose. The restaurant/bakery owner has in mind a flexible operation that will bake bread, pizzas, and bagels.

There is a new brewery going in the same building, so the two enterprises aim to be solid bedfellows.

This was an oven size we had not built to date. The five by five square hearth with 19" vault at center feels very versatile and we will be excited to get some feedback from the owner down the road. Another new aspect to the project was the harness. Typically we have parts pre-fabricated and assemble the harness around the core on-site using nuts, bolts, and threaded rod. With this install we had our steel pre-cut and then used a mig welder on site to weld the components together. It went very smooth, and solved a few limitations of the old system. We are happy with the result and hope to be able to work this way in the future.

Big thanks to Jeremiah and Carsten for continually big efforts and long days.

Vibes: T-Rock Inspirations

In these times nothing can seem more combustible than the Earth itself. Here's some music from the band Midnite. It both informs and inspires on a daily basis, helping each one to navigate the pathways at hand.

We feel that by building masonry heaters and wood fired bake ovens we help people and communities stay local with food production, heating needs, and resource use. By doing so we are able to support the unlocking of the future.

Della Fattoria Tribute: Guerlain and Church

Respect due to the masonic field marshals that made the Operation at Della Fattoria come together in grand style, Antoine Guerlain and Jeremiah Church.

These guys worked tirelessly and built two large ovens to perfection in short order.

The top photo shows the nimble fingers of Antoine, emerging from the ash drop, crawling up from the underworld beneath the hearth. True to the style and word of King Diamond.

The middle photo displays

Jeremiah holding ground in

Dog Town. This was an oven

he had built some years

previous on the coast,

near the town of Bolinas, CA.

At bottom we have Antoine in repose,

resting against the front face of one of the

oven cores, enjoying the night.

Thanks guys.

Progress: Operations at Della Fattoria

Images arrived today from the current project. Very exciting to see the progress of these beautiful side by side 6' x 9' ovens! Here you see side walls and back walls complete and castable lintels in place. Sub hearth bricks are in, ready to receive the larger 2-1/2" thick 12" x 12" and 12" x 24" clipper tiles. Beautiful setting on the Webber Ranch.

Massive props to the masons on site:

-Church, Jeremiah

-Homstead, Carsten

-Guerlain, Antoine

I'm headed out tomorrow. Can't wait to get in on the action.

Della Fattoria: Petaluma, CA

Just wanted to provide an update here on a current project. It's been exciting times. We have been in Petaluma, California since 9/8 building two new ovens for one of the long time foundational wood fired bakeries on the West Coast, Della Fattoria. This bakery is featured in the Alan Scott book, The Bread Builders. This is a high production bakery- 365 days per year, 1000 loaves per day.

We were contacted by Della Fattoria in just June of this year. Things went into motion right away as they had some concerns over the structural integrity of their existing wood fired brick ovens, and felt the need to plan around getting new ovens built rather than to have an "oven meltdown" one day and completely see their operation fall into chaos. We quickly went into design mode, re-amping the shape of our 6' x 9' hearth oven to allow for greater seismic resistance and enhanced harnessing. We planned for two side by side 6' x 9' hearth black ovens to fit to the original foundation built by Alan Scott. The attached image here is the drawing for the cores that we designed for the project- note the rugged harnessing including the steel angles in the four corners that will tie to strapping tied into the poured concrete foundation.

The project has been run on site by Antoine Guerlain, and with assistance from masons Jeremiah Church and Carsten Homstead. As of today, 9/28/11, they have progressed through the hearths, side walls, back walls, cast lintels and most of the vaulting. Things have come together very well and the support from the Webber family has been tremendous. We'll finish the cores, insulate the ovens, build up the steel stud and cement board walls, connect the chimneys and leave the oven facade to Yunker Webber, who is planning on building a stainless steel oven front.

Many thanks to Della Fattoria and the Webber family for this opportunity.

Dan's Brick Oven Bread

Last spring we had the pleasure of building an oven for Dan Greenspan in southern New Hampshire. Dan had been a working professional bass player for some twenty years, but was a little burnt out and ready for something new. So he followed his passion for bread baking and has now completed an addition to his home to include a bakery space and oven (pictured). Dan bakes a flemish style bread called desem.

We were contacted by Dan mid winter 2011 and ready to build in mid spring. Antoine Guerlain completed most of the oven build, with Dan helping to get the foundation built and me eventually showing up for a few days. We choose a 4 x 6 interior hearth dimensioned oven, with 6-3/4 mass and plenty of insulation. We left the face of the oven set in rough 4" solid concrete block, ready to receive tile whenever Dan "gets around to it". Dan had picked up an amazing cast iron, forged steel, and brass riveted door at a second hand store some years previous- it had no pre-determined use at the time he bought it. We were able to make a frame for it and employ it as the ash box door for the oven. Also we used some additional space in the foundation for a "proofing room". Dan has been tweaking this little nook, but says it's service-able. That's on the lower left in the picture. The table slides in and out of the passage through the oven foundation.

It's been really nice to get to know Dan and his wife Mili (world class singer!) and be a witness to his excitement as he dials in his new operation. According to Dan, the new oven is "well behaved". I'll take that for positive feedback anyday!