In loving memory of Kenis D. Keathley 6/4/81 - 3/27/22 Loving father, husband, brother, friend and firewood hoarder Rest in peace, Dexterday

Firing Up The Oven Today....

Discussion in 'The Smokehouse' started by tractorman44, Apr 30, 2016.

  1. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    My brother and I disassembled and rebuilt this old limestone oven that was originally built by our Great Grandfather sometime between 1870 and 1880. We redesigned it from the original size to where we have enough limestone left to build a second one at my house. Originally it was monstrously HUGE measuring in excess of 7 feet in length, 6 feet in width and 5 or 6 courses high without the dome.

    It also had a 6 foot wide x 18 foot tall chimney and we believe originally he built it to fire harden the clay molded brick he used to build the two story full brick house on the old farm. Being the father of 15 healthy kids kept the old boy busy providing food and our old granny (it was said) would bake 16 full loaves of bread at the same time on a weekly basis within the 7 foot x 4 foot cooking surface.

    This is a picture prior to even the first firing once our makeshift stonesetting was completed. We took several weeks firing at 200 degrees for the first day, then 250 for the second day and incrementally increasing oven temps to cure the moisture from all the mortar and stone slowly. IIRC, we fired for two weeks before we let it get up to 1,000 degrees. Rapid increases of temperature would create cracks due to the expansion of steam vapor within the materials. We still got one or two, but nothing too bad.

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    The dimensions of our cooksurface is 36" x 48" on the interior. The top of the dome is close to 7 feet from the ground, and it sports a 6 foot front to rear dimension and a 5 foot exterior width. The dome is fully firebrick lined and the walls are near a foot thick. The base is filled with meramec sand and the cook surface is 12" x 18" firebricks.

    This was not an attempt to build a modern styled pizza oven, it was fully intended to pay tribute to our Great grandfathers hard work and to kinda let the younger generations try to understand the hardships our ancestors endured daily. No thermostats, no temperature indications just bake by feel and taste....and alter the routine if not satisfied.

    On this oven, the fire is totally removed after being brought up to temperature, and the baking is done totally by the heat contained within the mass of the oven base, walls and dome. We build a tiny fire three days before bake day and maintain it around the clock to slowly and totally saturate the stone with heat. Sounds like its a hard task, but it is not at all. There is no flue, just a one brick opening that we re-insert at night to contain the fire and heat with in the dome.

    I have plenty of pictures documenting the tear down, removal and rebuild if anyone is interested. And today, I will try to take some pictures of it in action and some of the products that come out of it. A lot of the family (probably 20 or more) will be here for todays bake and to see my sister thats come home for a visit from Alaska.

    I gotta go grab the peel....pizza and bread, calzones, zucchini and baked potatos await......amongst other sundries.
     
  2. papadave

    papadave

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    Are you freakin' kidding me?
    Get those posted ASAP!
    Where's Jon fishingpol , and all the others with these outdoor ovens?
     
  3. lukem

    lukem

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  4. fishingpol

    fishingpol

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    Oh wow tractorman:eek:. That is a beauty. I'll have all sorts of questions for you. Is it a beehive or an arch inside dome? Second question is will it get a roof over it? I'm curious about the weather proofing on it. Post up what ever your cooking.

    Each oven has its' own personality. Some wood works better that others. Wind direction, timing to put food in. A lot of learning in a good way and kieeps you in burning right through the year. Food and family enjoying it is a plus.

    Also a great story behind it. A nice way to pay tribute.
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2016
  5. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    Papadave, I'll start posting some pics and the description to go with them but it will probably drag out for a little while. Hopefully you won't get too bored with the accompanying drivel.....sometimes its said I'm a bit long winded.

    lukem, for a twist on your popcorn... put a little fresh lard in the skillet, toss in a moderate amount of sugar, add the fresh homegrown and handshelled kernels, put the skillet lid on and pop a little kettle corn to enhance your viewing pleasure.... Of course, if missing some of the ingredients you may have to butcher a pig first to have some lard to render and plant a garden to grow a little popcorn. Or, just go get some JiffyPop.......

    fishingpol, I'll try to answer any question you may have, but we knew very little about which we were building when we built it. We definately learned a lot during the build and more since. We learn something new with each firing...a LOT of somethings.

    These pics were taken as the oven was completed and prior to the first curing fire. Before it was ever put in use the pavilion it is next to was extended with bar joists and metal roofing to cover it fully for protection from the elements, so its never been rained or snowed on yet as we kept it tarped for the duration of the roof build.

    As the upcoming pics will show, it is an arched dome. A very simple design, probably somewhat inefficient as compared to modern ovens but convenience and efficiency was not the intended purpose at all. I would love to have a smaller modern one and probably will someday for the convenience...

    Thanks for the interest guys, and I'll try not to disappoint.
     
  6. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    Within the jungle of wild grape vines and poison ivy lay the remnants of the old oven last used in the 20's or possibly as late as the 30's by accounts of the two remaining uncles of ours, both in their 90's. They were both little boys when my Great grandfather died in '33 at the age of 85. Born in 1848, he married my Great grandmother sometime in the 1860's. They raised 15 kids, one of them my Grandfather, born in 1882.

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    Having the grand misfortune of being allergic to poison ivy, I became the cameraman and my older brother was elected to hack away the vines to unveil the remnants. Behind him is a large oak that fell many decades ago knocking down the huge chimney that was close to 18' tall and close to 6 feet wide at the base. In '94, IIRC, I had the opportunity to salvage all the limestone from the chimney as it lay in perfect pattern across the ground and was easy to retrieve.

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    What you see here is the chimney end of the oven, looking through the firebox. The cook surface was the single slab on top. The dome was possibly clay covered sheets of tin or boughs bent to form an arch then covered with clay. We have no documentation as all the older generation have passed on that would've had firsthand knowledge of its use. As a kid in the 50's I climbed in and over and around the oven dozens of times with my cousins and any evidence of the original dome had been long swept clean by that time. But I sure do remember the stone oven and the chimney quite well.

    Its hard to imagine moving the single slab of stone that measured 5' to 6' in width, 8" in thickness and near 7' in length with a mule, a pair of skids and some pry bars. Using the same tools, he then faced the problem of getting it on top of the sidewalls. We figured a conservative weight would be 2,500 pounds for the one piece of stone.

    I think there's a limit to the size of a post, so I'll add a few pics at a time.
     
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  7. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    Being fresh out of mules in the inventory, we opted for a slightly more modern method of moving heavy objects. I hooked another gooseneck behind my trusty rusty 3500 Dodge to load stone on and the brother took the hoe on another trailer. I wanted him in front, so's I could pull that Power Stroke up the hills with my Cummins...

    Oops, company coming in the door, more later.
     
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  8. Woodwidow

    Woodwidow

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    Enjoying the pics of your project. Looking forward to seeing more as you have the time.

    You mentioned 16 loaves of bread at a time. My hands just ache thinking of the kneading involved.
     
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  9. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    I missed getting pics of removing the large cook surface and the first couple courses of stone on the walls....either that or Photobucket ate them. We had access to a 325 Cat trackhoe that was on site and used that to gingerly remove that huge slab and place on the trailer with nylon chokers.

    We have prybars and dislodge the stone one at a time into the loader bucket and transfer uphill to the waiting trailer.

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    Once all the above ground stone was on the trailer, at least two courses plus a base was dug from beneath the surface. We ended up power washing all the sub-terranean stone before reusing them. I would think because of the location of the oven downhill from the old homes front door, a lot of silt settled against the sides...either that OR he attempted to place the stone base below the frost line.

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    Surprizingly a lot of the handmade lime and sand mortar stuck amazingly well to the stone even though it was mixed in the vicinity of 135 years ago. A lot of it crumbled easily though, which is what we wanted. In this picture we are beginning to dig what remains underground, still not knowing what we'll find.

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    Below grade we dug up a few of the home made fire hardened brick that the old timer molded himself to build the two story house lending credence to the suspicion that this oven was utilized for that task. The red clay as well as the limestone itself was dug on the back ridges on the 330 acre farm land for use in construction.

    We found out later that a local private cemetary whose perimeter is rimmed in similar limestone was mined as well by my great grandfather and sold to the ancestors of the owners of the cemetary. We got that information in a conversation with the decendents of that family. We pass it every trip to town..... kinda cool, huh.
     
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  10. Nitrodave

    Nitrodave

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    Cool story... Keep it going.. I'm intrigued
     
  11. papadave

    papadave

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  12. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    Twenty four foot gooseneck loaded with the majority of the stone. There's still a few remnant parts and pieces left to set in place down the middle.

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    Literally on the last swipe of the hoe bucket checking for small pieces of limestone I found this basalt handmade tool. A young man dating my daughter at the time was an anthropological archeoligist and was exited to inform us that it was what is called a 'hafted hand axe' made of basalt and he would date it at a minimum of 1,000 years old and possibly as old as 4,000 years. He could tell by the style of the groove formed around it for binding to the wooden handle.

    Beings as how this is an axe of sorts, it makes it even more appropriate to be included in the story..... What I figure is the old man probably picked it up while plowing one of the fields and tossed it up against the oven while heading for the barn with the mule. It's probably been sitting there for a hundred years or more just a waiting on me to find it.

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    One of the home made red clay bricks was inadvertently broken by the hoe teeth. On the opposite side where the bricks were dug up was, IIRC, three mule shoes were dug up all grown into small tree and ivy roots.
     
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  13. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    The site chosen was dug 18" deep and 1" clean shot rock was compacted to 95% as done normally on construction sites. A few inches of pre-mix with added Portland went on top of the prepared substrate prior to beginning the first course as shown here.

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    Down the center in a trench is a screen wrapped piece of pvc bored full of holes to serve as a drain for the water we planned on shooting in with the meramec sand to fill the base to serve as a heat sink. Shooting sand with a water jet ensures a full filling of cracks and crevices in and around the malaligned stone interior. The old timers filled their bases with anything available to absorb heat to extend the baking times...even empty and/or broken bottles and stone.

    The basic design of an oven of this style was to bake with no fire or coals inside alongside the food being prepared, so the greater the mass of the heat sink, the longer the baking time. However, it will still function perfectly as a modern light weight pizza oven does with or without the coals or fire inside.

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    Up a little higher now, the hearth stone is placed across the front. It was 59" long x 14" wide by 8" or 9" thick. Now let me point out that I'm pulling all these dimensions from a 2 year memory so there may be a slight discrepancy if called to court for a testimony.

    Another point is neither myself nor my brother know even the slightest about what we are doing, so the stonework probably looks goofy to a pro...but what the heck we were just two old guys having a little fun and at the time we were intending to save a little of our heritage that otherwise was to be bulldozed into a ditch as the property developed.

    Don't be too concerned about the sloppy mortar. We used a wire wheel on and angle grinder to dress up the joints once all the stone was set.

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    We took the monstrous slab that was originally the cook surface and removed the thin layers that separated due to freezing and thawing over the years. We then cut the length down to fit crossways on our base. We ended up with a roughly 60"x 36" x 5" fairly nice piece to span the width and to support most of the 12" x 18" firbrick that was to become the new cook surface.
     
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  14. CoachSchaller

    CoachSchaller

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  15. Wise8706

    Wise8706

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    Great story. Subscribed!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  16. Gasifier

    Gasifier

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    :popcorn: Awesome tractorman44! Nice work! Some day I am going to have a wood fired oven near my house. Some day.
     
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  17. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    We swapped ends with the tractor and set it in place with the hoe. Once set and levelled, the choker was removed then the wet mortar tuckpointed again to fill the void. I can imagine our Great grandfather would give us the dickens for being able to move this heavy material so effortlessly by comparison to his monumental manual labors. His mule would probably turn around and give us a swift kick for being so lazy.

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    With the large slab now covering the majority of the base along with the huge hearth stone, it was time to fill the cavity with the meramec sand. We utilized brick and mortar to build a couple piers up under the huge slab to provide additional support just in case it was needed.

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    My brother caught me unawares while shoveling the base full. We ensured all cavities and the uneven interior surfaces were completely full and packed by jetting the sand in with water. The excess, we hoped, would escape via the installed screened drain pipe.

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    Looking in the sand, a couple green bars can be seen... Those are two 1 1/4" grade 60 rebar bent in the shape of an inverted "U" with 6"x6" flanges welded to the ends for supporting the weight of the 12" x 18" firebrick that will not be supported by the huge slab on the rear 2/3rds. The sand and the rebar come up flush with the top of that huge slab for an even transition for laying the 11 (iirc) 12 x 18 cooksurface firebrick.

    And thank all of you for your 'likes' and comments so far !!!
     
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  18. lukem

    lukem

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    Still awesome. Keep em coming.
     
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  19. tractorman44

    tractorman44

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    I did remember right !! It took 11 of the larger firebrick for the cooksurface. Here we just sat them on top to see how much levelling was going to be required on the top of the big stone. A lot was, see how uneven the tops of the bricks are....

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    ...so we cut some shallow grooves with a 9" grinder utilizing a concrete wheel then levelled it down by hand as shown in the picture. Not a single busted knuckle either. Probably because of a good aim swinging the hammer due to splitting wood for decades by hand..... do ya think?

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    Next step, we put a thin layer of cement for levelling....of course it will (probably has already) crack completely up but it doesn't matter because it can't go anywhere or do anything but hold the brick up after everything is done. We hope anyway.
     
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  20. Eric VW

    Eric VW Moderator

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    Great thread, awesome work at both honoring your GGD, and rebuilding for the future generations.
    And fantastic write up.:thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:
    You could consider putting together an "Album." But you've pretty much got that going on right now.
    Outstanding share, tractorman44 :yes::):):)