760°C

 As I started firing the oven it was difficult to raise he temperature and to keep it constant. It was a very stressful time! At first I thought I built the roof to high, or that the walls were perhaps to thin. Then I visited Ile De Pain bakery in Knysna. They have a large wood-fired oven, and there I got a few ideas.  I started playing with ventilation, choking the fire to allow it to burn slower and longer, thus enabling the bricks to absorb more heat that way. I then started firing the oven.

Over 3 days I slowly raised the temperature to 450°C. I found that a lot of heat was escaping through the roof. I allowed the oven to cool completely and built a third layer of  bricks over the existing roof. I first had to wet the roof to get the cob mixture to bind with the existing dry cob. I left the roof to dry and slowly fired her up again. This time I raised the temperature to 760°C.  It surely was very exciting and the sense of achievement was well worth the effort. The oven kept the temperature very well, 12 hours later the temperature was 400°C, 16 hours later I baked a sample batch of bread at 250°C for 30 minutes.  Well, the oven is fired and definitely hard enough by now - time to bake some bread or invite some friends for a pizza. While the oven was dying, I spent time on deciding on the breads I want to produce, sizes and weight. I have made a French country bread which was rustic in appearance and texture, and with a rich strong flavour.

1,000 clay bricks

While I waited for my cement to harden, I bought normal clay bricks from Langkloof brick yard. I worked on roughly 1,000 brickes for the oven, including the base. I also started collecting clay from a farm in the area, building sand and cutting grass. The clay had to be worked with the feet to achieve the perfect consistency! I then mixed the sand and grass to the clay and stomped this mixture thoroughly.

In my first oven, I mixed one part clay with one part sand and half a part grass. Considering that the oven worked very well and I had experienced no cracking, I was not going to deviate from that recipe.

It was hard work to mix everything together and be certain it was mixed well - this is a crucial step! I added water until the clay had the consistency of building sement.

When I was certain the cement was hard (after about two weeks of keeping the cement base wet!) I lay the first layer of clay bricks on top af the clay mix or mortar. I decided on a small narrow chimney to maximize the size of the inside of the oven. I designed the oven so that the chimney would be choked when the door is closed, thus creating a sealed oven for baking. The fire would be burnt out and the oven cleaned before bread is put into the oven. When making pizza or baked vegetables, for example, the door would be kept open with a fire right in the back of the oven.

After the first layer, a base layer of clay brick was added on top of the cement base. Now, it was just a question of building the wall to the desired height. Each brick was dipped in water before building and was kept wet during the whole process. It took a full day to build the walls up to 650mm (including the base layer).

A rustic introduction

Well, to be honest, I was about to jump into this 'blog'-thing head first until my well-studied and wise daughter insisted I introduce myself properly. So, here goes! My name is Charl Roux, and I live in the Tsitsikamma (which is a Khoi word for 'place of abundant water'), close to the sea. Pictured below is the view from my front door (as well as my bed - mmm!). My hands-on relationship with food started when I built my first clay oven a few years ago, serving fresh bread, meat, cheese(which I was produsing on the farm from my own goats), olives and other tapas from the farm. Next, I plan on building a clay oven and crafting breads, foods and desserts in the oven. Firstly, I will concentrate on perfecting comercial white and brown breads as well as a few artisan breads, such as rye, ciabatta, and potato sour dough. In this blog, which will document this ongoing journey, I will show you how to build an oven and share recipes as I test, try, serve and enjoy them. Hopefully, you will get to see a glimpse of my life, including my family, friends, surroundings and ideas as time passes.

When this is established, I want to start serving food straight out of the oven once a week - every Sunday - and as bookings pick up I will work towards firing the oven for two days a week. Eventually, I hope to turn it into a fully-functioning restaurant. I believe that time will mould my plans and - considering that I am quite flexible - I will grow with them. So, welcome to my journey - I hope you have as much fun as I know I am. Put on your seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy, bumpy ride!