Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Anyone out there in Rangerland have any experience with building brick or stone fireplaces or wood ovens?

For my Dragons Wood Inn project, I need to build:

A small cooking fireplace, from brick, for the main room of the inn

A larger community fire pit / cooking fire pit outdoors, from brick and/or stone

A wood-fired bread oven and meat smoker outdoors, likely from brick

A blacksmith forge

I can do the fire pit / large cooking pit, except that I'd like feedback from folks who do rustic or historical reenactment cooking for groups of 20 or more.

There are lots of 'how to' videos and books for the bread oven, but I'd love feedback from someone who had already made one.

Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts or advice, I'm all ears.

Thanks.

I've helped a friend build a temporary bread oven:
.. but nothing bigger. I've cooked on some nice hearths though.


A few thoughts there, if it helps:

1. Hearths changed more than one might think over time, and have some significant regional variations. An 18th c. German farmhouse hearth is fantastic to work on - almost modern in its convenience. But it doesn't have much in common with a Dark Ages firepit, and could conceivably spoil the mood you're going for. If you're wanting to have a "home base" period, it would help to know that.

2. I think if you're medievally inclined, contacting the people at Camlann in WA State, or one of the UK historical sites would be a great move. I've found museum staff - especially the volunteers - get fantastically excited about this kind of topic, and they'll talk your ear off if you let 'em.

3. You've mentioned videos - I assume you've seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m7W8yBUIHY

(Jas. Townsend has a fantastic cooking series. It's colonial North American of course, so not everything will be appropriate: but the techniques are pretty broadly applicable)

From my experience, even thought is seems counter intuitive, DO NOT build a chimney. Make sure to pay attention to the size of your door which should be 2/3 the height of your oven (confirm that, I'm going off memory).

Also see the free ebook, The Bread Ovens of Quebec http://collections.civilization.ca/publ ... rn=5419521, from the Canadian Museum of History.

caedmon wrote:From my experience, even thought is seems counter intuitive, DO NOT build a chimney. Make sure to pay attention to the size of your door which should be 2/3 the height of your oven (confirm that, I'm going off memory).

Also see the free ebook, The Bread Ovens of Quebec http://collections.civilization.ca/publ ... rn=5419521, from the Canadian Museum of History.

I believe you are correct on the door size. James Townsend was the first one to pop into my mind. I'm looking at building one of these one day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0foHjPVbP4

If this is used outside, it MUST be covered or it will wash away.