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About Your TutorYour tutor Alan Watt, has since 2003, conducted numerous workshops throughout NSW and Victoria resulting in many participants building their own ovens to suit their particular needs. His interest and expertise in building his own, and subsequently friends' wood-fired ovens, comes from long experience in building kilns, many of which were wood-fired. As a professional ceramic artist and teacher he has established a knowledge and understanding of refractory structures and design as well as heat retention and management. Transfer from kiln structure to oven structure has been a simple and natural shift. Formally, as Head of Ceramic Department, National Institute of the Arts, ANU, Alan supervised the construction of many student built kilns. As an exercise in removing the mysteries of wood firing and a reliance on expensive commercial refractory materials he would set the students the task of building a high temperature kiln from common material available on site. With only clay, sand, sawdust and a few bricks available the students were able to construct a kiln capable of firing stoneware and porcelain at 1300 deg Centigrade.
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In recent times the popularity of having a outdoor wood fired oven has increased enormously offering an alternative or adjunct to the traditional barbeque. As Australian tastes are gradually changing to include Mediterranean and other foreign cuisines there has been a shift to include a variety of dishes to supplement the traditional sausage and chop as part of the outdoor eating menu. Pizza, focaccia and other flat breads; roasted vegetables such as eggplant, fennel and capsicum [often in association with cheeses and shaved cured meats] are becoming common as wood fired ovens are included in outdoor entertaining areas.
While there is a range of commercial wood fired ovens available on the market [often in kit form] there is still the attraction for the D.I.Y. enthusiast to create a distinctive, individual and site specific oven of their own. Often what is daunting about such a project is neither the cost nor the physical labour but having some knowledge of how and what to build to make a successful wood fired oven. Alan will show you how to build a simple wood-fired oven, using the same materials for about the same cost - virtually nothing. Of course that's not to forget that he will also be explaining and demonstrating how to build a wood-fired oven using the most sophisticated refractory materials. If you can remember the smell of freshly baked bread that emitted from the local baker's shop and have a desire to return to the delights of food baked in a traditional way then why not build your own wood-fired oven. The wood fired oven workshops are designed to show you how.
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