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Location: Quest for Ovens / Portable Oven Classes
 

Portable Brick Oven Classes with David S. Cargo

Learn how to build a portable stacked-brick oven from award-winning baker, David S. Cargo, at several convenient locations.

David S. Cargo standing on an oven

This is an image from the Sept. 11, 2010 class at Silverwood Park. I stand on the finished oven to show how strong it is.

2011 Classes

This was the class schedule for 2011. All classes are on Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Date Location
05/07/11 Tunnel Mill (full)
05/14/11 Tunnel Mill (full)
06/11/11 French Hill Folk School
06/25/11 Driftless Folk School (full)
08/13/11 French Hill Folk School
09/10/11 Silverwood Park (full)
09/17/11 Minn. Guild of Metalsmiths
10/08/11 Driftless Folk School

2012 Classes

Classes are usually on Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.

Date Location Status
04/14/12 Staten Island cancelled
04/15/12 Staten Island (Sunday class) cancelled
04/28/12 Silverwood Park full
05/05/12 Tunnel Mill full
06/16/12 Borner Farm Project open

I was invited to teach my oven-building class in New York City, but not enough interest was generated in time.

I had a good oven-building class at Tunnel Mill on 05/05/2012.

There may be other oven-building classes in 2012, but there is nothing else firm yet.

I was informed by the supervisor of Silverwood Park that they would no longer host my class.

Tunnel Mill has no more available dates in 2012, so the next class there would be in 2013.

Class Description

Here is the brief description of the class:

Build and Bake in a Portable Brick Oven—Join David S. Cargo to learn how to build a portable stacked-brick oven. After the oven is built, it will be fired up while students learn how to make dough for flatbreads, pizza, and bread. Bake all these in the brick oven and then eat them.

You will leave with knowledge of building stacked brick ovens, plans for three different sizes of ovens, and practice in baking in these ovens.

Class runs 9am-5pm with a 1-hour break starting a noon for students to have lunch. (Lunch is typically not provided in the class registration fee. Different venues might have facilities available for people to buy lunch or people might have to travel somewhere to buy lunch or bring it with them.)

The longer description of the class is more interesting

These portable brick ovens are portable because they can be moved once they have been built. They are built from stacked bricks that are not mortared together. If you need to move the oven, you can just move the bricks and restack them to rebuild the oven at its new location.

You can build a small oven by yourself in about an hour. You can go from bare ground to cooking pizza in about 4 hours. Class discussion covers some of the differences between these portable brick ovens and more familiar designs such as Alan Scott ovens, Forno Bravo Pompeii ovens, and cob ovens such as those made popular by Kiko Denzer.

The class covers siting the oven, preparing the ground for the oven, and then the practical techniques for construction. Every student gets a handout with plans for three different sizes of ovens, their bills of materials, and recipes for use with the oven.

In the class we build two ovens. The first one is built to demonstrate the techniques and how to read the plans that show how the ovens go together. After it’s built, it’s fired for three to four hours to get it up to baking temperature.

The second oven is built, torn down, and rebuilt by different teams of students so that they can practice the construction techniques.

While the fire is heating the oven up, David demonstrates how to make the doughs for pizza and bread, for naan, and for pita bread.

Later in the afternoon, the doughs are formed into the proper shapes for baking, and some dough is formed for a loaf of bread. Finally, the pita bread, naan, and pizzas are baked (and eaten) and then the loaf of bread goes into the oven.

Students who have taken the class and completed evaluations have said how much they enjoyed the class. They learned to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of stacked-brick ovens compared to more well-known Alan Scott, Pompeii, and cob oven designs. People who had been intimidated by the other construction techniques expressed amazement at how quick and easy it is to build a portable oven.

(This class includes elements of other classes that I teach, including Bread Without Fear, Feast of Flatbreads, and No-Knead Breads. Their descriptions are here.)

Class Format

The process of building the oven is hands-on for all of the students.

Because the oven is too small to bake all the dough that could be made by all the students in the class, the baking portion of the class is demonstration and tasting.

Locations and Registration Information

Note that some of these are for past events, kept for completeness.

Class Fees

Class fees for the classes at each location are set by that location.

Class Evaluations

The students taking the oven-building class have been impressed by how quickly and simply an oven can be built.

This is a report from the first class at French Hill Folk School on June 16, 2010.

A few students have volunteered that class tuition could be higher, since what was taught was so valuable. That were interesting comments, but I haven’t changed prices yet.

Class E-Mail List

An e-mail list for people interested in recipes, updates on class schedules, and questions and answers is available. Sign up by sending e-mail to escargo@skypoint.com.

Hosting a Class of Your Own

If you want to host this class, the requirements for hosting are available here (might be more up to date) or here.

If you already have the considerable amount of fire brick required, then hosting the class might make sense. Also, if you like the design for the oven, hosting the class might be one way to help pay for it. (Since the ovens are frequently built and rebuilt, you can host the class multiple times and eventually pay for all the fire brick, provided of course that enough people attend over time.)

I’m willing to travel to teach the class, but the further way from the Twin Cities, the more I need to earn to cover my travel expenses. That might mean that the fees you have to charge for the class will need to be higher or that the minimum number of students for teaching the class has to increase.

We can negotiate.

About the Instructor

David S. Cargo is one of the founding members of the Saint Paul Bread Club, a former baker at Trotter’s Cafe and Bakery and the St. Agnes Baking Company, and a featured baker in Kim Ode’s cookbook, Baking with the Saint Paul Bread Club: Recipes, Tips, and Stories.

two small ovens

This is an image from the first oven class at French Hill Folk School in 2010, showing two ovens side by side.