Product Description

The ultimate project for the DIY cook and baker: an oven in your own back yard. Pizza cooks faster and is more tender, bread crusts as it's never crusted before. The anticipation prompted by the smoking chimney is indescribable, the results without peer. This little book tells how to build a outdoor brick oven from scratch, with working drawings; and how to restore an existing oven if your house is so lucky to possess one. There is guidance in firing and running the oven, and some recipes for good measure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50709 in Books
• Published on: 1996-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 113 pages

From the Publisher
The ultimate project from the DIY cook and baker: an oven in your own back yard. Pizza cooks faster and is more tender, bread crusts as it's never crusted before. The anticipation prompted by the smoking chimney is indescribable, the results without peer. This little book tells how to build and outdoor brick oven from scratch, with working drawings; and how to restore an existing oven if your house is so lucky to have one. There is guidance in firing and running the oven, and a recipe for good measure.

Table of Contents: Introduction 1. Construction 2. Running the oven 3. Restoration 4. Recipe Bibliography

Customer Reviews

a good supplement to The Bread Builders
If you're interested in building a wood-fired oven for baking, this is a good supplement to Alan Scott's essential "The Bread Builders". Provides very interesting historical background, amusing anecdotes and a set of plans which are aimed a bit more squarely at the amateur builder than Alan's plans. I'm building an oven now using plans interpolated between the two. If you're going to tackle a project like this, get a good book on masonry techniques too, or better yet, a video. (Amazon, care to provide some suggestions?)

Not so helpful
The book gives one set of plans without much discussion on how to modify them. I was hoping for more theory and explaination about size, height, chimney placement etc.

In British fashion, the author uses more words than necessary to explain himself (think Dickens).

Overall, not a complete waste of time, but less helpful than the title would lead you to believe.

Comprehensive history of wood fired ovens.
Although the book is a bit wordy, it gives the reader comprehensive history, information and instructions on how to build a wood-fired oven. The author is English and tends to refer primarily on British ovens and on baking bread. I bought the book to build an Italian style pizza oven, however the book mentions pizza only a few times. The plans on how to build a wood-fired oven are helpful and I am glad that such a book exists.