The Perfect Oven! Is it black or white, high or low in mass?

[wrekinwanderer]

Hard to imagine improving on them, even with rocket stove tech. !!

I know Donkey, our modern gas oven does a great job of heating the yurt - it's just we've got the rocket stove for that!

I'm certainly not thinking of improving upon the Chambers - I mean it's brilliant, why it hasn't continued beats me, well I know why, but that's worthy of a rant or three! What I am thinking of doing is running a Chambers style oven on wood. And for me, that means a rocket- hurrah! I just hope the other half understands - got a house to build...

Ah Hitchiker

not Chambers stove

- you got me all excited!


So, back to the Chambers - it looks like the rectangular gas burner sits underneath a cast iron plate hung from the sides of the oven.









These sit at the base of the oven - note the flapper? damper at the back that shuts off the oven when the gas is turned off.






I don't see any reason why this cast iron plate couldn't be added to a normal oven and then rockwool insulated between the metal skins of the oven.

Tim Barker said he had smokeback problems with closing off the exit damper, but if the input damper was closed and the flow diverted elsewhere, like to a water heater.....

Certainly Matthew Walker uses his damper to control temperature in his beautiful rocket stove barbie cum patio heater to great effect. Not sure if it's in this video showing his simple temperature control - but they are all brilliant!...

[edwardb]

The answer to what makes the perfect oven depends on what you want to cook in it. Some things need humidity, others dry radiant heat. Traditional bread ovens were humidified when the fire was mopped out before the bread went in. It all had to be done very quickly so as to lose as little heat as possible.

[wrekinwanderer]

depends on what you want to cook in it

True, true. Pizza, roast, carrot cake, flapjacks, meringues. All are so yummy with such different demands...

However, these different needs can be met by, as I see it, either good temperature control or good organisation. Check out the links below for examples to the best of what the rocket world has to offer. Pretty darn good it is too!


Matthew Walker's

can bake at a broad range of temperatures with good control while the fire burns

(http://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/1364/treat-mud-oven-bell)

Whilst Donkey's

oven works in reverse to the traditional wood fired, pizza ovens.. Here, the heat builds AS you cook, with foods that cook at cooler temperatures going in first and higher temperature cooking happening later

(http://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/1301/all-adobe-mud-cookstoves-ovens)

Tim Barker's non-mass oven means that "he can be cooking in the oven in as little as 10 mins from start up" (http://permaculturenews.org/2012/10/16/rocket-oven-a-permanent-wall-mounted-kitchen-oven/)

And we're still waiting to hear reports back from Robert's bell oven (http://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/977/tube-rocket-bell-oven)

For me, of little organisation, it's a combination of quick heat up time, controllable temperature with maximum storage potential. Still not 100% sure on where to go with my build though! Cast iron oven on barrel or in bell? Perhaps on barrel with baffle to control temperature. Then it can be well insulated to retain heat like the Chambers ovens. If the gases come into the oven, then I'm sure the heat will be faster and more evenly distributed throughout the oven. But would it work well with the heat just blasting the bottom of the oven, with perhaps a narrow kiln shelf inside the oven to give some protection. Hmmm, got to finish the south wall of the barn and the the east first floor wall and may have an opportunity to play and report back!

Mike

[Orange]

do you notice the difference in taste between black and white oven pizza?