This might be an interesting project

[Ilya]

This might be an interesting project for my backyard

[Kira]

And also... no, it is NOT a catnip mouse under the guest bed.

[varisco]

When will it be pizza day so I can mark it on my calendar. Pizza made outdoors sounds really yummy.

[rayl]

It's a fun weekend project if you invite your friends over to help. I've helped friends build them. Depends on how much they know what they're doing, an oven or bench can take either a few hours or a couple of days. Fun also to incorporate stones or marbles, broken pottery or mosaic bits into the top for a design. HOWEVER, cob is mud and if you live somewhere rainy, you're going to want to roof it somehow. Build it on your patio if you have a little tin roof, or in a corner of your yard where you have shelter, else you'll spend a lot of time running out to cover it with a tarp when it rains or snows.

[cuccio]

Check out Dances with loaves.biz I had some involvement in building that one and its prototype. The pizzas are good, but her bread is the bomb

[ranger]

Wow, that looks like a great project. I likey, I likey alot. I printed the directions if I am ever a landlubber again... or maybe at my mermaids place (wink).

[Marlee]

Where do you build the fire, in the block base? How do you build the dome part? How do you get it to keep it's shape? What keeps the whole thing form cracking as it dries? How soon can you use it?

[yuhasz]

The fire is built in the main chamber and then swept out when you cook, the heat for cooking is retained in the walls and floor. The one pictured in iwt's link looks like it was built with blocks, but my families were built around a sand form that was removed once the dome was set enough. It is built with cob, that is a clay straw mix, the straw gives it strength and body that the clay alone does not have. You do need to control the amount of water in the clay, That also helps to prevent cracking, some does happen on the outer surface, we just went back over it with clay to make it look nice. you can start firing it as soon as it is set enough to remove the sand form inside, but you can not start cooking because you can not build a hot enough fire till it really dries. So that is a day to set and remove the inner form, and a week of small fires. When used for a pizza oven, we do not remove the fire, just brush it to one side, cook a few pizzas, then move the fire to the other side to heat it backup and use the side the fire was on till it cools to much. If you fire it for about 4 hours, and 1/2 hour to soak, you can get about 5 hours cooking time out of it if you plan your cooking in the correct order.

[zollars]

I am still confused about how to construct the dome, how do you get it all round without caving in the top and insureing you have enough thickness to insulate the walls?

[Orelie]

We started with a dome shaped sand mold on a marble slab, then we tool fist sized balls of cob and worked them into a ring at the base, you have to work them together so there is not a week place. They you add another ring of balls, working them into each other and the ring below, you work your way up like that, each ring gets a little smaller. Is that clear enough? The written language is a bit of a mystery to me. I can get you a pizza demo if you would like.

[morawski]

I'll supply the beer bottles.

[froese]

That sounds like fun if I ever move somewhere that isn't so hellishly hot I want an outdoor kitchen. I would love to live in San Diego one day, but I think it will be a long time before we can afford to live there.

[geesaman]

Seems like it would be good to have an outdoor kitchen when you live somewhere hot. To not heat up the house with cooking.

[guggenheim]

Portland is big on cob structures. Many are built during the annual Village Building Converence held city-wide each spring. vbc.cityrepair.org.