The Young Campaigner

Experimenting With Brick Baking Ovens, Part 2.

by William Chapman

I decided to try out the brick oven yesterday. First, I built a fire inside the oven (this was probably a bad idea. What I should have done was started the fire on the outside and then raked the coals inside the oven).

The chimney worked surprisingly well and almost no smoke left through the other holes.

After about half an hour, parts of the wooden chimney began to catch on fire. Pieces of it crumbled and fell in, but the oven remained standing.

I decided to go ahead and put the bread in before the oven self-destructed, so I used a period recipe for batter bread, a yeastless bread that takes little time to cook. Unfortunately, the recipe called for four eggs, which I put in it, only to realize later that our modern "jumbo-sized" eggs are a lot bigger than 19th century eggs.

I waited about 40 minutes for the bread to be ready. Finally it came out, ugly and spongy. The vast quantity of eggs had given my "bread" the texture of an omelette with a bad attitude. Although it was a fun experience, the bread was totally inedible (it tasted like eggs and had a texture like dryrotted rubber). I think I officially proclaim this experiment a failure for now. I'm not giving up yet, though. I am going to keep trying. Suggestions are welcome.

Experimenting With Brick Baking Ovens, Part 1.

by William Chapman

I had the day off of school today, so I decided to build a brick baking oven of the style that was used in army bakeries and permanent camps during the Civil War. I used old bricks (many of which were 1850s/1860's era), wood, and mud to build the oven, plus an old cooking grate.

The oven is constructed in a circular fashion with two doors, one for feeding the fire and one to access the rack. Both doors are constructed in a post-and-lintel style with a wooden slat holding up the top of the door. The chimney on top is constructed out of sticks crossed in log-cabin style and then covered with about two inches of mud. When the mud dries, I will try the oven out and see if it works.

When I was looking around for designs, I found this description of the construction of a Union army bakery near Savannah, Ga. in 1864. It is a lot more elaborate than my design, but it is still interesting.

"Here's how they build a bake oven in the army: About fifteen or twenty men get a large log or a piece of timber and proceed to the next empty brick house and, with their improvised battering ram bust the corner out of it. The bricks were cleaned as well as possible and carried to the site of the oven. The heavy work was done mostly by the colored camp followers of whome there were thousands everywhere. And willing workers they were, too. When the bricks arrived at the camp six posts were erected in the form of a rectangle, their tops about three feet above ground. A frame of joists was mortised on the tops of these posts, the lumber of which was appropriated from a dwelling nearby. A floor was nailed on top of this with nails that came from the lumber. In the meantime the carperenters had been constructing a number of semi-circular frames. These were erected on the floor of the oven and when covered with thin siding from the house formed a perfect arch. This was then overlaid with bricks laid in mortar of blue clay and water. The ends were then filled in leaving a hole for the door, and one for the chimney for which we commandeered the smoke stack of a nearby tannery. A fire was now built inside the oven and all the interior woodwork burned out. The brick arch held up beautifully." - Corporal Thomas W. Moffatt, 12th Illinois Infantry