The Oven

Mike investigated the building of a brick oven and discovered they were very complicated to build with a standard arch. With the help of Mike’s brother Bill, a heating and ventilating engineer, they created a more advanced oven with a cantilever top, rather than a conventional arch. It has a unique damper system allowing baking without having to put out the fire. That is not possible with other brick ovens.

We fire the oven in both ends with hard wood for 2 to 3 hours raising the temperature of the bricks to 525 degrees. Then the dampers are closed and bread is baked with only the heat from the bricks. The oven is free standing containing 2128 fire bricks. It is held together with a metal frame at both ends. Additional support is added by ½ inch steel rods that travel the length of the oven. The oven weighs 15,000 lbs and stands 10 inches off the floor on ten legs. It can bake up to 40 loaves of bread at a time.