Post Mortem - Brick Oven 2.0

While the photo makes the brick oven look really cool and all, unfortunately the results of the first firing were not nearly as good as I had expected or hoped for.

The biggest issue remains the temperature, which I suppose I should not be too surprised about considering everything I have read on the topic of building a brick oven. When the fire is at full tilt, the flames consume a good portion of the inside so the overall temperature hits a reasonable level (over 350 degrees) and provide some direct scorching for anything near the fire. The problem is that at this height of burning there is a good deal of smoke and soot, and ultimately as soon as the fire settles down to a lower burn or embers, the overall temperature drops to between 200-250 degrees. While this temperature would be adequate (if not ideal) for slow roasting things like pork or beef brisket, the reality is that this type of slow roasting can be done just as well utilizing a charcoal/coal smoker which is considerably easier to deal with.

The other issue was caused by my decision to lower the height of the walls by one brick layer. In the previous version I split the typical size chunks of wood which are roughly 4-5″ in diameter into thinner pieces. Part of the reason for the larger footprint of v2.0 was to avoid having to do this, although what I failed to factor in was the fact that a good bed of coals would be a 3-4″ inches tall/deep. Add a 5″ chunk of wood on top of this with a ceiling height of 7″ and… well… you do the math.

In some ways v2.0 feels like a step backward, and the reailty that building a brick oven on the cheap doesn’t usually provide great results is creeping in. I suspect there will not be v2.1, and I’m now pondering whether or not this venture is going to go more “professional”. The temptation of this:

may simply be too strong not to………..