Earthen Ovens Are Thousands Of Years Old And Perfect For Off-Grid Cooking

How To Build A Homemade Outdoor Oven

This will cover one of options of building an outdoor oven, but there are a variety of methods you can use. I believe this is the easiest:

Build A Base:

You’ll need something at a comfortable height to cook from. I’d recommend something about 3 feet off the ground. This can be built from anything you want. You can build your base out of cob, rocks, cord wood and cob. Even though it shouldn’t get too hot, I would recommend against using concrete. Concrete can explode if it gets really hot. Stick with natural materials and you’ll be fine. Once you build the base, add a layer of brick to make the bottom of your oven. You can use fire bricks for this or even normal red bricks you buy from the home improvement store.

Creating A Sand Mound:

Decide how big you want the inside of your oven to be. Keep in mind, most cast iron, backing dishes, and dutch ovens are 9”- 12”. For this reason I would suggest keeping your door at least 12” wide. Another consideration is that height ratio compared to the “door” of the oven. The top of the entrance (door) should be 60% as high as the top of the oven. If you’re oven is going to be 24” tall, your entrance should have a height of 15 inches or so. It’s not exact. Just make sure it’s more than 60% and not more than 65%. This will allow the heat to circulate inside the stove properly. Once you know the inside dimensions, build it out of damp sand. Just as if you were a kid building a sand castle.

Paper Machete:

Rap the sand mound in some damp paper. The type of paper isn’t important. You could even use recycled newspaper.

Making The Material To Build The Oven:

You’ll be building your oven with two layers of cob. The first layer won’t have the straw added. You’ll need to mix two parts sand to one part clay. Make a large batch with enough cob for both layers. This is mostly an educated guess because it will depend on the size of oven you decide to build. I know my mechanical engineering friends out there will have this calculated before they start. The rest of us can give it our best. You can make more if you need it.

Building The Shape Of The Outdoor Oven:

Take half of your cob and begin to cover the sand mound with about 3” of cob. Make the base a little less than 3” because the damp cob will sag and make the base bigger anyway. Once you do this, scrap the outside with a fork or something else to score the surface. This will give the next layer something to grab onto.Now take the next batch of cob and add a little extra water too it. Don’t go overboard. You just need it a little extra damp so the straw doesn’t dry out your cob. Now mix your straw into your cob. This is more like a traditional cob mixture. Build a second layer onto your form and smooth out the surface the best you can. Later on, after you’re done curing it, you can add a plaster coating or maybe even a tadelakt plaster. That would give it a really nice looking surface.

Curing Process:

Once you’ve finished building everything listed above, you’ll need to let it dry for two or three days. Then you can start pulling some of your sand out. Don’t take it all out. You want to let the earthen oven cure slowly. Give it another couple days and take the rest of the sand out. You’ll need to use your own judgement as you do. If the cob still feels too damp and it starts to sink in, give it another day or two. There’s no hurry. Once you have all the sand out, give it one to two weeks to dry out. Once all that happens, you should have about two full weeks of drying out your oven. Light a few small fires inside each day for three days. You need to help slowly drive the moisture out of the walls to reduce cracking. After three days of small fires, give it a full fire. Build up a nice size fire in your oven and let it burn. You can even start to cook your first meal. After this, your oven should be usable any time you want. If cracks were during the curing process, mix some sand and clay and fill in your cracks. You’re done. You now have an earthen oven that will make your neighbors jealous.

Things To Cook In An Outdoor Oven Besides Pizza

These are great ovens for cooking almost anything, but bread, pizza, and meats will cook amazingly. It is almost impossible to cook a pizza correctly without a large oven. Hearths and other earth bases absorb heat and cook your pizza from every angle. The cheese will bubble and caramel to a beautiful brown. The crust will get crispy and delicious. As a whole, anything you cook will take on a slightly smokey flavor.

You can use earthen ovens as a slow cooker. Take your choice of meat, some root vegetables, add garlic and onion, some broth and put the lid on. Toss this into the earthen oven and let it go. In about 4-6 hours you’ll have an amazing stew or roast to feed your family.

Bread is another item that does awesome in these type ovens. Just like the pizza, the heat circulating around the break will help make it crispy and delicious. Until modern ovens, most of our ancestors would of had the bread prepared in a similar oven. A sourdough bread can be made in a traditional style by capturing your own natural yeast. If you want, here’s an article of our’s on Natural Yeast Collection.

Cost Associated With Building Outdoor Ovens

It is almost free to build one of these ovens. All you need is sand, clay, and straw. You may need to buy some of these materials if your soil doesn’t have enough naturally present in it. You can test your dirt and see what you’ll need. Whatever it is, all three materials are really cheap. You can find straw at a local feed store. The sand can be bought at most home improvement box stores. The clay can be found at local shops that sell rock and other aggregate. You shouldn’t need to spend more than $10-15 for any of those materials.

The History Of Horno Ovens

A horno oven is just another example of an earthen oven. They are built using a specialty adobe block. They got their start in Spain and slowly worked their way around the world as Spain was colonizing the globe. Everywhere Spain went, the local people would adopt these ovens as a way to prepare food. They have a ton of history and are beautiful. In the United States, horno ovens are associated with adobe houses and mission style churches.