During the Lilies War in 1999, Mikhail and I constructed a bread oven on site as an experiment. Using technologies that are compatible with medieval techniques and modern State Park issues, we constructed an oven of steel, brick and mud. The result was a week of fresh, hot bread and a lot of salivating visitors.

 

	A steel frame covered in chicken wire was first placed on a bed of patio bricks. Then the small square patio bricks were placed against the outer surface of the frame. Mud and clay from the lake were used for mortar and an extra layer on the outer surface for thermal benefits.
The process of applying the mud/clay mix on the oven was a lengthy one, requiring many pounds of clay and drying time between the applications. Here Mikhail is demonstrating the day-long process...
	Once the oven was completed "mudded", a fire was started inside to help dry the mortar. We had lots of help and many interested bystanders.

We found for this particular oven that it required about an hour of stoking a fire inside the single chamber in order to bring the temperature up to around 500 degrees F. Then the fire was swept out and the bread placed inside and a door placed in front of the opening. By the time the door was closed, the oven had dropped to about 350 degrees F. The bread took about 20 minutes to bake, leaving a nice heavy crust on the outside and a soft inside to the loaves.

It was also discovered that if a small amount of embers were banked in the back of the oven, more prolonged cooking could take place or a second batch of bread could be baked, however, the second batch did take longer as the heat of the oven would decrease with the opening of the door and the removing and the replacing of the bread.

For Lilies War 2000, we will have 2 ovens on site. This time we have constructed them of concrete to save time in the assembly process. By covering this structure with mud and clay, we will achieve the same aesthetic and termal properties while cutting our set up time drastically. The thought process for using materials that would not have been used in the middle ages in order to achieve a medieval looking result are this: bread ovens were typically built as permanent structures and were built as communal ovens. The authentic materials used were primarily clay, stone and sod. Due to our restrictions regarding permanent structures on the Lilies site, we needed to find a solution that would allow a permanent looking structure that could be taken down after the War and leave no lasting mark on the grounds. We also determined that we wanted to spend more time baking than building this year.

	This year the ovens were poured concrete mixed with perlite over a steel frame. The logic was to have ready to use ovens once we dug the sod, laid the floor down and gave the ovens a coating of mud from the lake. Notice that this year we had nifty wooden doors too! This was the work of Mikhail, Tatjana and Faolan. The ovens worked great! and we can still use them since they are still intact.
Here's Tatjana expressing her annoyance at the fire smoke that kept finding its way to her eyes. This also illustrates the firepit and grates that we used for our cooking during Lilies. The tripod, grate and most of the cooking utensils were forged by Mikhail

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