Our 2010 Sustainable Volunteer Partnerships

Thanks go out to our volunteers coming from other organizations.  Groups can send one or more volunteers to help out with gate and kitchen duties for example.  The festival will do its best to try to promote your group and help you connect with other like-minded organizations.  Your group can bring a display and info to the festival.  We will mention your org between sets from the stage.

Our 2010 Partners

The Cob Oven Primer

Our cob oven from the ground up.

Foundation

What holds up the oven is fairly important.  We will be using urbanite as the base for the oven.
Urbanite is recycled concrete.  Our urbanite foundation is made up of three huge concrete slabs.  The first slab is 15” thick and is about 9 feet long by 4 feet wide.
This slab will be placed atop of large square timbers (6"x6"x9’).  On top of that we have placed two 55” square slabs.

Oven Deck

This is what we bake on.  The dome of the oven will sit atop the oven deck.  We use fire brick for this purpose.  These brick are place atop the foundation.
Fire brick is typically used in high heat applications like wood stoves.  Nice and flat too.
This will be the starting point of our group build.

The Dome

Sand+water
The dome is what holds our heat in our oven.  Building the dome begins with creating a form made from wet sand.  We make our dome and coat it with wet newspaper so as to keep the dome from drying and crumbling I suppose.

Sand+Clay+water
We mix sand and clay and begin to snake it up and around the dome covering the sand dome as we go.  We push each new piece into the previous and try to create another uniform dome.  This dome is called the ‘thermal layer’ and acts to soak up the heat from the fire and later radiate it back to our food.  This layer may be 4” - 8” thick.

Cob = Soil+Clay+Straw+water
We mix soil, clay and shredded straw (nature’s rebar) and make yet another dome.  This layer may be 6” - 8” thick.

Opening the Door

After letting the dome set somewhat we cut the opening for the door.  After the door has been cut we pull the sand out from underneath the inner clay+sand layer.  An oven is born.

The Fire

Put in some small wood and start a small fire to initiate the drying process.

The Roof

The oven needs a roof.  If left to the elements it would eventually crumble back to the earth.
Remember those timbers we put under the foundation . . . we’ll be revisiting these when it comes time to build the roof.

So, that is the process. Here is the catch.  The mixing.  This is the work.  But it is good work.  We mix the clay and sand and the cob with our feet.  We also use tarps . . . you’ll see.
Get ready to jump in and up and down a bit . . . we provide the music!  It does get slippery and oozy . . . be ready to engage with nature.
This is a simplified primer. You will be sure to learn many trade secrets and delve deeper into such matters as the gathering and preparing of materials.
We will be lead by oven master Gino Cacciotti -  NBIO.
There will be a few skilled oven builders on hand as well to help teach and guide and work beside.

The photos above are from a recent oven build in Iron Bridge.

Our cob oven workshop details:
Saturday May 29th at 11:00am—Sunday May 30th at 11:00am
Featuring live music by Petunia and more.
Pass the hat for musicians especially for Petunia who is visiting from B.C.
NO cost camping.  Bring your own gear though.
Some food will be provided - Dinner Saturday (falafels) and pancakes on Sunday morning.
Bring some snacks to share or snarf.
Might be some bugs to deal with - come prepared.