the cob oven

i’d originally planned for the cob oven to be the first thing i built here. it did not turn out to be so. instead it will be the last, at least for this year.

it’s built using the standard clay mud, sand, and straw trifecta as the base ingredients. its structural design is taken from videos on youtube but primarily the book Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist by Michael Judd. It’s a pretty good book, sometimes inconsistent with itself, but overall gives a good overview of various ecological gardening and constructions.

I give a special shout out to Wilbert, a industrious titan without whom i could not have built this and Nitzan, who managed the operation and assured our force with her divine cuisine.

In summary:

0. we prepared the materials; bought some firestones, went stone picking in the forest, emptied a crate of beer

1. for the foundation we did un peu n’importe quoi, dug a bit of a hole and buried some cinder blocks.

2. Then we dry stacked the stones. This took a bit of while to manage, no matter how angular the rocks seemed they never stacked as pleasantly as legos. Despite Marie-Emerence and her boyfriend helping out this still took a greater part of the morning and noon.

We filled the center with rubble, some sand, then a bed of beer bottles (for insulation), bonded by cob pudding. All around a thick layer of straw-ey cob.

Now at this point Nitzan I imagine Nitzan must have been doing some business or making hummous because I do not have any more photos. But once it had dried, we added a layer of the finest sand (white sand), leveled it and laid down the oven bricks ever so smoothly with corners kissing. A dome, serving as a hold while the cob (oven) dried, was made of humid sand. The ratio of dome diameter to height to door height should be 10:7.5:5 to optimise heat flow and air circulation (Judd). Then we added a layer (approx 8 cm) of straight up cob (thermal mass).

Here the oven went on a hiatus for a couple weeks as Will and Nitz left and the rain came. Finally I got to get back out and added a layer of strawey cob (trapped air for insulation) over the thermal mass layer, and the finish layer, cob with cow dung in it to improve its water resistance. The picture brings me thoughts of a us senator’s (anti-) haircut.

the poetry is not lost on me

Finally I shaped it, and emptied out the creature’s mouth (and brushed its teeth) and behold the oven

or rather right before i emptied it

Helas the pizza will have to wait another time

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Before I forget, mortar made of 6 shovels pretty thick mud made from leftover dung-cob of 3 days and 500 g fat free fresh yogurt, 25 kg white sand. Feels relatively soft and wet on tarp, but is extremely creamy. super sticky, xl egg sized ball sticks to hand upside down for a solid half minute. practically sticky to frustration. excellent mortar (hold logs together) but too sticky to make a good plaster finish.