Whiskey Tasting

Last night we pulled off a whiskey tasting at our house. In all, we had 17 guys attend. We recruited my mom to help with the pizza making (we made 20 pizzas in about 40min) and got a great response.

I invited our friend Benjamin, a spirits extraordinaire, to do the presentation. We tasted 4 Scotches, 2 Irish and 2 Bourbons. I think it was really a great line-up as I enjoyed all of them. We finished the night with a glass of our personal favorite whiskey and a smoke. I raffled off the whiskeys at the end of the night (and actually won 1 of them myself, although I think someone graciously wrote my name on their ticket). I think everyone had a capital time.

Head and the Heart

Last night we went to Phoenix to see The Head and the Heart. They are a really fun, talented band that to our delight, were very good live. We saw them at the Marquee Theater which is similar to the Rialto in that it is a small venue that doesn't have permanent seating.

We arrived earlier than we needed to but were about 15ft from the stage. As more and more people showed up I was reminded how people are incurably rude. They will decide that the 6 sq inches in front of you should be occupied and stand on your toes to do it. I think this utter lack of comfort is also some explanation as to why they drink so much at these types of concerts. When you drink your world gets smaller making you less aware of the space around you (really it is just that the space in your head increases). The viciousness of it all is that not only are drunk people more comfortable standing on your feet but they require more and more room to accommodate their constant need to flail about. By the end of the show we had moved to the back of the theater where we were not only unaccosted but we could actually see better. That and I didn't have to try to contain the urge to tear out nose rings and use them to pierce other body parts. Maybe I'm just too old.

Birthday Spoil

I received some mighty good birthday spoil this week. I wasn't all that excited about my birthday, everyone did a great job of picking gifts. Ryan is attempting to bring me to the dark side with books from Bahnsen on Van Til and theonomy. My mom got me books from Letham on Communion, C.S. Lewis and the illustrated novel, V for Vendetta. She also got me 1 year of online guitar lessons. I am afraid of how little progress I'm likely to make but it should be fun anyway. My mother-in-law found a book called The Most Encouraging Book on Hell Ever which should be interesting. Dana got me a bundle of top shelf cigars, including Oliva V, La Aroma de Cuba and Alec Bradley and my favorite Cognac, Hine. She also got tickets to see The Head and the Heart in Phoenix, which is pretty awesome. She also advised my dad who got me a very nice XO rum from Barbados. These are exciting times indeed! Thank you everyone for the wishes and gifts!

Pizza party

This week we had our first pizza party with some friends. The Kruis and Dunlap families came over and experienced the oven in all it's glory. I started the fire around 3:15pm and we started cooking around 5.45. The wood that I got from a friend of mine (acacia and walnut) burned plenty hot. The pizzas cooked in 3-7min (depending on how much fire I had going in there) and I think everyone enjoyed the process and the food.

After the pizza was cooked we did another round of bread baking. We did 3 artisan loaves and 3 baguettes. They turned out beautifully. I'm still amazed every time I use the oven and it cooks the food and doesn't crumble. I guess it is a testament to the directions I used.

Le oven fin!

When I last updated I was finishing the walls. Here is a shot of the loose vermiculite insulation that covers the top, sides and back of the oven. It is built up a bit higher than shown here. There is also an angle iron that supports the cement board roof I put on in the next picture.

This is me putting the roof on. Fun stuff.

I stuccoed the block. Not the most fun thing I've ever done.

It is finally pizza time. Oven is insulated and the roof is on and we couldn't wait any longer. Our first fire for cooking. I gave it an hour and a half of burn time.

Getting the pizza off of the paddle is a little more complicated than it would seem. It requires more flour/corn starch than I thought at first. Eventually I had it off and cooking.

Initially I was cooking with the coals left over from my initial burn. I hadn't received my temperature gun yet so I think I overestimated the temperature in the oven. I put a piece of wood on and things got going.

The first pizza pie. I made a few mistakes with this first go around. I built the fire and pushed it to the back of the oven almost immediately. I think I should have left it burn in the middle of the oven to get the floor extra hot. I also had pretty thick dough which compounded the problem of low floor heat and left a pizza with half cooked dough and crusty cheese. Still very edible though.

This was the second attempt a few days later. I think it was a 100% improvement in all areas.

This is what she looks like as of today. Mostly painted and we got some torches to mount on the front. We were going for the Spanish Colonial style. Looks pretty good to me.

Yeah, just got even cooler.

Le Oven deux

Back to the oven. I have made a bit of progress in the last few weeks. My original intention of just finishing before it got too hot to work outside was altered when we decided to host our family Easter dinner and involve the oven. Here is the progress to date.

At this point I finished the dome and brought the roof down to the doorway as you can see. The bricks coming out from the door way are to support the outer arch and chimney.

Here is the outer arch completed. I used something called a "soldier arch" which I guess is named because the bricks are arranged standing upright. I also built the walls out from the arch to add support to the arch and chimney.

Here is another picture with the walls built out and the base of the chimney.

Next came the insulation. Around the body of the oven there is a thick layer of aluminum foil. This is a way to keep the 4" of steel reinforced concrete from bonding to the bricks of the oven. As the oven heats the bricks will expand at a slightly different rate to the concrete and the allows "slippage" so the concrete doesn't crack.

Here is another view prior to pouring the concrete. The steel wire is held up off the foil by a couple of inches allowing good bonding by the concrete.

 After the concrete had cured I continued working on the chimney. This was by far the most difficult part of the job. There is basically no instruction of how to build the chimney up over an open area. I spent a bit of time just thinking about what to do and then figured I would just start building. Fortunately I had poured a small concrete slab across the doorway which gave me some extra area to build on. I tried to interweave the bricks until I reached the width of the final chimney and then went straight up. It isn't too pretty but it worked.

 This is just the walls built up. It will house a loose vermiculite insulator.

Today, unable to wait any longer, I built my first fire. I just built a small fire to make sure the smoke goes where it is supposed to and start the series of small fires to make sure everything expands and contracts without cracking.

I have to say, this is pretty awesome. Next time...pizza pictures!

Le Oven

I have decided to post some pictures of the progress on the pizza oven. It has been a massive project consisting almost entirely of skills I do not possess. I don't have a "before" picture but it is built on the site of a large palo verde tree. Basically I poured a 3 sided retaining wall and then filled in the tree well. Here is a picture of that with my 6" slab that is about 6' x 7'.

I had to build a block foundation which the oven sits on top of.

You can see from the above picture the form that is poured for the oven hearth. It is reinforced with 5/8" rebar and separated from the block base by about 1" leaving it "suspended." On top of the hearth is a layer of fire brick laid on 1/4" of clay and sand.

 In front of the fire brick is a row of bull nose red brick to finish the oven face. I have also laid out the bottom layer of oven bricks.

Most recently I have been trying to finish the main body of the oven. So far I only have pictures of the first arch and the rear having been built up. The arch is laid over a wood form and then the form is moved forward for each additional arch. If you could see my face when the form was removed and the arch remained standing you would see a mix of pure joy and surprise.

There is still quite a bit of work to do but these are very exciting times!