Adobe Oven
An oven made from clay
Here are some simple but effective designs to enable you to make an outdoor oven suitable for baking bread and pastries.
(This oven relies on an abundance of clay soil being readily available)
This oven is manufactured from clay, and some stick formers.
The oven was designed to be used out-doors and will provide baking facilities for a small
group's daily needs.
It is created in two parts, the fire pit area and then the oven area.
The structure is straightforward and incorporates a wooden frame as a former which will
burn out leaving the fire pit first and adobe oven secondly, ready to use.
The chimney can be made from an adobe mix and fire dried.
Building the oven
Using pliable twigs or strong grasses, make a structure that resembles the shape of the
pictures above. Make an adobe mix from soil with a good amount of clay mixed in. If you
have cement available, so much the better. Plaster the mix all over the outside of the
frame to a uniform depth of about 2 inches. You can check the depth by pushing a match
stick through the wall. Smooth off the outside of the wall with a damp trowel or similar
tool.
Allow the structure to dry a little. Place wood and kindling inside the oven and light.
Keep the fire going by adding more wood - but slowly, you don't want to blow the oven
apart through having a furnace. You just want to "cook" the clay with a hot, but
not fierce heat.
When the oven is fully dried and the stick formers have been burned out you can use the
oven and bake bread.
Some experimentation may be needed depending on the quality of the clay in the soil.
Cement paving slabs have successfully been used for the oven floor if the clay is weak or
of poor quality.