This log was started as a journal of our garden and music activities. We have our garden in southern Kyushu, where the winters are mild and good for growing brassicas, and the summers hot and humid, especially following the rainy season.
In the garden, i have built a wood-burning pizza oven, photo on the left of the oven near the end of construction and beginning to be used, where I cook pizza, bake breads, croissant, cakes, and generally cook everything an anything possible in an oven. The oven was a lot of work and time to build, but it is paying for itself now through reduced gas bills and also provides pizzas and breads simply unattainable by means of an ordinary gas or electric oven. A photo of the oven is attached, i will place some photos of the garden as and when i can.
We also organise occasional house concerts, featuring improvised and jazz music, and soon some classical musics. The money we raise from tickets is given to the musicians, and we have the pleasure of the music and their company, usually for some days.
There are three of us in Braeside Cottage, Hannah our child, my wife and myself.
Hi, I found your blog through reading the 'gardening in Japan' email.
ReplyDeleteNice looking oven. You said it was a lot of work. I've been thinking about building one in my garden this summer. Was it an expensive project?
Cheers
Dan
Hello Dan,
ReplyDeleteThis depends on what you call expensive. It is difficult to know exactly, precisely how much it cost because i bought things stage by stage. Also, i needed to buy tools that many people have to hand; e.g., disc grinder for cutting bricks. I would roughly estimate somewhere around 120,000 yen, maybe 10 or 20,000 more. The biggest expense was in the fire bricks, which cost around 60,000 with refractory cement. So if that is expensive for an oven that you can use to bake everything and anything in, starting with the best pizza i ihave ever amde, and going on through breads, and finishing with slow overnight cooking, then it is expensive. But, if you buy a gas oven or an electric oven, it will set you back at least half of the price.
You can of course use cheaper bricks than firebrick for the inside of the oven, using hard fired pavers. They are cheaper than the 200 - 250 yen a brick firebricks, about 120 for the best, or more for imported ones. So you can almost half the cost of the firebrick element.
Contact me by email if you want to know more. (I hope this is the best way to reply to you.)
that's an awesome oven! excellent work!
ReplyDelete