Impressive bespoke brick oven HP8
Bespoke brick oven and outdoor kitchen, Little Chalfont Buckinghamshire
We had an enquiry in 2011 asking us to develop a plan for a large outdoor kitchen and hand-built bespoke brick oven with prep surfaces to go in the extensive garden of a new-build house in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire.
The new house was styled in an Arts & Crafts manner using nice mellow Michelmersh red bricks and tiles so we picked up details from the build to use in the outdoor kitchen. The client, a co-director of a large multi national, was adamant he wanted a completely bespoke build, all hand-made to go with the garden he had commissioned from a local garden design company.
Working with local landscaper Rob Donaldson from Garden Craft Landscapes, we put together a plan around which he could do the landscaping and new planting and give the client a bespoke build of a true hand built 120cm diameter brick wood-fired oven enclosed by hand made brick walls and wings with reclaimed red tile details.
Litag is a clay aggregate expanded with heat to form a cellular high load bearing insulating material. Similar to foam glass, it is easily available in large volumes at reasonable cost at Mike Wye in Devon, who specialises in sustainable building materials.
The final build used steel Kadai set in diamond sawn York stone worktops from our preferred supplier Bingley Stone, up lighters behind and plenty of storage. We later retrofitted an LPG paella burner and lava stone into one of the Kadai so the client could heat up food very quickly and rustle up breakfast on his weekends off.
We quite often include a sink and tap in our outdoor kitchen builds but getting water to this part of the garden, a long way from the main house was very difficult. Bear in mind that water pipes have to be buried 600mm ( 2 ft) underground to prevent freezing and the potential to sever a pipe when digging so please plan your siting to minimise excavations as it adds considerably to the cost.
Bespoke brick oven-staying over
Builds like this are very time consuming and require us to stay over locally for a couple of weeks so as to minimise lost time through commuting. When building a bespoke brick oven, every brick has to be cut by hand and laid carefully using a bricks natural suction to hold it in place, even when it is almost vertical. An oven made from firebrick has a mass roughly 100-105mm thick ( i.e. a half brick thick) so slightly thicker than our French modular ovens that are 80mm thick.
The higher mass means a longer heat up time and more fuel but gives a natural radiant heat that penetrates food completely giving excellent baking properties. Bread and anything roast works very well as do slow cooked dishes baked on residual heat overnight.
Bespoke brick oven- a note on oven size
We had initially advised the client that a 1m diameter oven would be more suitable for home use, as it has less mass and heats up much faster than a 1.2m oven. Unfortunately we were overruled and he insisted on having a much larger oven to make it more impressive looking.
While we agree it does look impressive, the oven even with all the insulation round it, does use a lot of wood to fire! If you go down this route please consider having a oven built no more than 1m or even smaller as most home cooks don’t really need the space and cooking several pizzas at a time takes a lot of skill to pull off without burning them.
bespoke brick wood-fired oven
A large outdoor kitchen project with hand built bespoke brick oven with brick wings and kadai grills
Service Type: design and build
Price: 20000-25000
Currency: GBP
Bespoke brick oven and outdoor kitchen, Little Chalfont Buckinghamshire We had an enquiry in 2011 asking us to develop a plan for a large outdoor kitchen and hand-built bespoke brick oven with prep surfaces to go in the extensive garden of a new-build house in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire. The new house was styled in an […]