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Location: Quest for Ovens / Oven Sources
 

Oven Sources

There are basically two ways to acquire an oven.

  1. Build it yourself.
  2. Buy it from an oven builder.

Build It Yourself

If you decide to build it yourself, you have to decide if you are going to build a brick oven or a clay oven.

You have to decide if you are going to take a class on oven building or not.

You have to decide where you are going to get your plans for building your oven.

Classes on Oven Building

I’m going to focus on classes near the Twin Cities (St. Paul/Minneapolis). If you know of any oven-building classes, I’m always happy to link to them. Just send me an e-mail, and I will add the class to this list.

Brick Ovens – North House Folk School

In Minnesota, we are blessed to have the North House Folk School where they have classes on building brick ovens.

The good news is they have multiple classes a year. The bad news is that the classes fill up quickly, the tutition is about $400 for the four days, and you have to travel to and stay up north to take the class.

That’s a major investment in time and money, but so is building a brick oven.

Cob Ovens

For building clay (or cob) ovens, we have fewer resources.

There was a class at Gale Woods Farm in their own folk school for building cob ovens in the summer of 2008, and another in 2009. There does not appear to be one in 2010 (at least in the summer).

I am especially interested in cob oven classes, so if you find any locally, please let me know.

Stacked-brick Ovens

For building stacked-brick ovens, there was a class at Silverwood Park in Saint Anthony on Saturday, March 20, 2010, from 9am to 3pm.

There will be another class on Sept. 11, 2010. Registration will be limited to 10 people. Registration will open on the web site of Silverwood Park about August 4, 2010.

There was a class at the French Hill Folk School, part of the Borner Farm Project in Prescott, Wisconsin, on June 12, 2010.

Another class will be held on August 14, 2010, also at Borner Farm. You can register here.

If you are interested in hosting a class on stacked-brick ovens, send me an e-mail, and we can see if we have any compatible dates available. (You will be responsible for supplying the bricks with which to build one or more ovens; I have neither the bricks nor the means to transport them.)

Books on Oven Building

For books on oven building, the two main resources seem to be The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens and Build Your Own Earth Oven : A Low-Cost, Wood-Fired Mud Oven; Simple Sourdough Bread; Perfect Loaves (one for brick and one for clay ovens).

Internet Resources for Oven Building

Each of the books has a related web site.

There are a myriad of other sites; look at the Oven Links page for more information.

Buy It From An Oven Builder

There are a few Minnesota sources for buying ovens.

Note that these are companies that I am aware of, but not a customer of. I have no experience buying or using their products, and therefore I cannot make any statements about the cost or quality of the ovens any of them supply.

These companies sell many things besides ovens, so don’t be surprised if you have to look around (or call around) to get information on the kinds and prices of ovens.

Prebuilt Ovens

You can get prebuilt ovens from:

Ovens Built by Major Companies

You can get ovens built for you from:

Outdoor Environments oven

Photo of Outdoor Environments oven used with permission.

Ovens Built at North House Folk School

They sometimes auction off the oven cores built by their classes.

You might be able to get a partially built oven from North House Folk School but you will have to pay to have it delivered to wherever you want it to go, plus build a base for it and then the oven insulation and exterior.

Ovens Built by Individuals

You should also note that sometimes people have hired individual masons to execute the plans for ovens acquired through the internet. I don’t have the names of those masons. (But if you do, you could let me know, and I’ll share.)

Ovens Built by Me

I have built stacked-brick ovens as part of my classes and my own experiments. If you think that this kind of oven will meet your needs, and you can’t wait to take one of my classes, I can build it for you. Note that these ovens are temporary, in the sense that they are not made with mortared brick.

I consider this to be an advantage because you can easily move them if they are in the wrong place, and you can make them bigger or smaller if they are the wrong size.

These ovens are faster to build than mortared brick ovens and even cob ovens. They are also cheaper than more traditional brick ovens by a significant amount.

If you are interested in seeing how a stacked-brick oven might meet your need for a wood-fired oven, send me an e-mail.