Gas Fire Pit

Project 1: Rock + Bowl + Flame ( 31 DIY Projects for Busy Gals)

31 minute project

You'll need:

Sakrete Quickset Concrete
a bunch of rocks (perhaps dug up from your yard)
a plastic bowl
a large canned good
chafing dish gel fuel pack
PAM cooking spray
newspaper
plastic tub for mixing concrete
stick to stir concrete

You are going to create one of these
(which, FYI, Restoration Hardware doesn't sale anymore,
hence why we are making our own)

In pictures:

For the readers:
1. Measure out your concrete. I just filled my plastic bowl/mold with dry mix.
2. Dump mix in plastic mixing bin.

3. Add water; stir with stick.
Start with a puddle in the middle of dry mix.  Not too soupy, not too chunky
3b. Spray PAM all over your mold and canned good.

4. Pour concrete into mold.
4b. I poured halfway, then placed my large canned good in the center and continued filling around the can.
4c. After about 6 minutes, I rotated my can, wiggled side to side and popped it out.
PAM is awesome.

5. At the 17 minute mark, Cover top of mold with stack of newspaper.
Flip it over carefully; concrete form will slip right out.
Because...well, PAM is awesome.

6. and 7. Carefully and pleasingly place loose rocks along rim of concrete form.
8. and 9. Drop fire gel pack in center hole; light with long match and enjoy.



ROCK BOWL FLAME

Outdoor Oven

Tinkering Lab

Getting my geek on

Monday, July 9, 2012

Portable Pizza Oven

I've been wanting to make a wood fired pizza oven for a while, but haven't had the space to put it. Then I came across this "portable" design (GardenFork.tv) that can be taken down and put away or (relatively) easily relocated when needed.

The original design comes from the book Bread, Earth, & Fire by Stuart Silverstein. The author recommends making an insulated base with a mix of 6 parts perlite, 1 part Portland cement, and enough water to make a rough batter. It took 2-1/2 bags of perlite (2 yards each) to get a 2-1/2 inch base of the cement mix. The base weighs more than I thought it would, but it's still much lighter than straight concrete; about 100 lbs. Two people can easily carry it. It's also fairly brittle and "chalky," so care needs to be taken when laying the bricks.

There was a bit of a learning curve to figuring out how hot to get the fire and how to turn the pizza. But once I figured out that I need to just make it really freaking hot, the pizza cooks pretty fast. Less than 5 minutes total. This works out really well when there's a large crowd to feed. You can cook a pizza in the same time it takes to assemble the toppings. So one person can be building their pizza while one is cooking. No backlog of pizzas waiting to go in.

As for portability, well...you just take it apart and reassemble it somewhere else. Everything is dry stacked. No mortar. I plan to take this on a campout in a few weeks, so we'll see how well that goes...



Outdoor Oven