Building a Wood-fired Masonry Oven

To give the oven a nice appearance, we chose to use a rock facing for the top section, and stucco for the foundation section. Here you see the first section of the rock facing being set in place. The soffits will later be closed completely to prevent critter invasion (we made sure all the Inspectors were out before we sealed it up).

Outside rockwork being hosed off to remove excess mortar.

Looks pretty snazzy, huh? All the soffits were closed to prevent animal invasion of the space above and around the oven.

The baker decided that a shelf in front of the oven would be a very handy thing to have, as it would provide a place to rest pans going into and coming out of the oven. The designer came up with the notion of constructing the shelf from poured and polished concrete, which has become very popular for kitchen countertops. In this application, concrete is virtually indestructible, and also is heat-proof. To support the poured concrete shelf, a stainless steel rod was embedded in four places into the masonry of the oven just below the level of the hearth. The installed concrete shelf sitting on the rods would then end up being level with the hearth. In the image to the left you can see the rod on place, and the mudding being applied for the rock facing. The rod serves double duty as a towel bar or drying rack.

The door pictured here is only a temporary, constructed of light-weight sheet steel front, back and sides. It is insulated with Fiberfrax® to retain heat in the oven.

Rock facing on oven front inside the bakery. In the image at right you can see the polished concrete shelf, with its four supporting stainless steel rods. The long-wise rod across the front is handy for hanging a towel or clipping a light, or for drying the linen couches after the doughs are transferred into the oven.

A sheet steel insert was placed in the door opening, into which the finished steel door will fit. The steel insert buffers the distance from the brick in the oven, tying together the additional build-up of the wall and rock facing, sealing the oven's opening edges, and, with insulation behind, acting as a thermal barrier between the oven and final rock facing.