Messing About With Cob - Earth Oven Part 1

 For a long time now I've been saying how much I'd like to build an earth oven. The trouble with saying it lots, that doesn't mean it happens! 

So yesterday each of the children had asked to do something with me (eldest wanted to do green woodwork, middlest wanted to use my pyro pen to burn some pictures onto wood and the youngest wanted to carve some dinosaurs) So I thought maybe we should do something we can all be involved with. 

Wild Camping With My Girls

 For a long time I've been keen to take the girls camping, but something always comes up or gets in the way. That's why I was pleased when a mate mentioned that for his daughters birthday he'd like the girls and me to go "wild" camping with them. 

So no tents. My eldest has been camping before (admittedly in different circumstances as was a huge scout camp!) but not like this, and my younger daughter is yet to sleep outside (bad dad I know). They were both super excited about it though. 

Outdoor Cooking With Scouts

This is from a few weeks ago, before the close down on social gatherings due to Corona Virus. 

It was my week to plan it and I'd said a while ago I fancied doing outdoor cooking.

Dutch Oven Cooking

I managed to do another Bushcraft lesson with the school today. 

This was with Year 1, my younger daughters class. I did a similar lesson in the summer with my eldest.

Restoring My Dutch Oven

After moaning that the school my two daughters go to doesn't do enough outdoor stuff, I ended up volunteering my services to go in and do a session with them one afternoon. 

The teacher who I'm going in to assist wanted to cook up the huge pumpkin that she had got in for halloween a few weeks ago.

Teaching Bushcraft

Over the summer I had an unusual opportunity come my way. 

I talked about this in a previous post where I was preparing to teach my first ever bush craft lesson.

Cob Oven

We were lucky enough to be invited to a friend's for tea the other night.

They cooked some amazing pizza in this cob oven they had built themselves as a family.

That's Not A BBQ!!

When I barbecue I'm somewhat of a purist, I think it should be over hot charcoal (locally sourced of course), so the meat takes on the taste of the smoke. So the thought of buying a gas BBQ has never entered my mind. 

But this was an offer too good to turn down. 

A friend's parents had a gas BBQ that they hadn't used in a few years so they've lent it to us for the summer. 

Like I said I've never used a gas one so I'm a little dubious, but I am looking forward to being able to quickly cook outside without having to plan to light the BBQ half an hour or so before I need it, I'm thinking it'll give me a quick an easy outdoor cooking area for this year and keep me out of the kitchen in the (hopefully) hot summer. It also has a gas hob which I think would be good for stir fries with veggies straight out of the garden. 

What's your opinion on gas BBQ's? 

Do you own one and use it very much? 

Building A Simple Rocket Stove

On Monday night a friend and I decided to experiment with building a really simple rocket stove as we both have ideas to incorporate one into an pizza/bread oven at some point. 

We've both read about rocket stoves, but until you build one and use it you never really cement the knowledge in place.

This one was a simple chimney made out of dry laid bricks. Under the fire was a piece of steel channel so that the air draws under the fire and then through the fuel, creating the rocket affect. 

Channel under the fire

When were first lit the fire we could see that the flames were much higher than our cooking point, meaning that it wasn't at its most efficient, by raising it up another couple of course of bricks it meant the gases were getting burnt as well

Raised up and air control limited so it has to pull the air from under the fire, creating the rocket affect. 

We managed to boil a large kettle of water in no time at all using very little fuel, just a handful of sticks and cardboard really.

Doing this simple experiment  taught us a few things and gave us some things to think about when we're designing our real outdoor cooking areas. Control of fuel and airflow are essential, as is the height of your cooking area. 

A rocket stove would be a great addition to an outdoor cooking area and they don;t take much building, even laid dry like this it would be a useful cooking tool and great in a no power situation (only use outside though!) as it would take less than five minutes to put together.

Who else has made and used a rocket stove? 

Any ideas for improvements?

My Brother's Pizza Oven

If you've read this blog for any length of time you'll know that I come from a practical family. 

My brother has been putting this into practice lately and his latest creation is his beautiful pizza oven!

I'm really impressed with it, he's put so much effort into not only building it but the research side of things as well. 

We've been over three times for pizza now and each time they've been the best tasting pizzas we've ever had. They take a couple of minutes to cook once the pizza is going, with crispy bases and perfectly cooked toppings. You do have to keep your eye on it mind as they burn quickly and there is a bit of technique that's needed to get them in and out cleanly rather than pushing them back into the fire. 

They love making pizza

The girls get really excited about making their own pizzas and then watching them cook. In fact so do I! As well as pizza we've also knocked up batches of garlic butter and made lovely garlic bread and Dave cooked a batch of new potatoes in there as well (possibly the best tasting potatoes I've ever eaten).

Cooking away

All this outdoor cooking has really got me thinking about our outdoor cooking area and what I'd like there once the patio is built. I have to admit that after using my brother's that a pizza oven is pretty high on the list now! 

What would you have in your ideal outdoor cooking area? Who else would like a pizza oven like my brothers?

Outside Progress - Patio

I've been doing my usual of taking on so much work that things here fall to the wayside, but we have managed to do some things lately. 

One thing I managed to organise a few months ago that I haven't posted about was to get the retaining wall in for the patio.

The old wall was crumbling and inadequate and for my plans I want to build something that's going to last and cause me as little maintenance as possible. So I got in my trusty bricklayer, Dill, and he came for a day and put up all the blockwork you see in the picture below. 

I was impressed with how much he managed to lay (as most of those blocks are laid flat), I had made sure that I had put all the blocks ready for him and the sand, cement and mixer were as close as they could be (good tips for keeping costs down when having work down). 

The "ribs" coming out of the wall above serve two purposes; firstly they add strength (pretty important) to hold the soil back, secondly they allow me to break up the front in sections. The middle part is going to be a wide set of steps to make going up and down to the garden easy and then a section either side will be storage under the patio (more on that on Friday's post). 

Hopefully this should make a great outdoor eating place, I have plans for a BBQ and hopefully some form of outside oven and/or smoker. 

What would you have in your ideal outdoor eating space?

Outdoor Cooking

I know that this is the wrong time of year to be talking about this, but with the garden wall nearing completion it's made me think about what I can use this area for. 

Ideally I'd love a nice outdoor cooking area which would include a brick BBQ and some worktop area to prepare and keep food. Whilst I have my brick layer coming on odd days I might get him to put a few brick piers up so I can make this and cut some large slat slabs for a worktop. 

I'm also toying with the idea of building a tandoor, which in essence is a rocket stove. I've got an old chimney pot I can use to be the cooking chimney, I'll just need to build a base with some fire bricks to allow a fire under it then the chimney up the middle with a slab around the top. I might even make a metal plate to fit on top of the chimney so it can be used as a hot plate as well. 

The third and final thing I'd like to build is a pizza oven, although I've no plans of doing that now as it's a big project. I've been looking at different designs and can see that you can roughly choose between a brick one or a clay one, although it seems the clay one needs a roof of some description as you need to keep it covered when it's not in use. 

Who has experience of building an outdoor cooking area and what would you recommend I take into account?

Has anyone else reading this built either a tandoor or a pizza oven, and how successful were they? Any good links I might have missed?