Way easier than building a wood fired oven (which I have done also). The template for the tandoor oven came from an article written by Robin Overall in the NZ "The Shed" magazine Dec 2008/Jan 2009. Great thing about constructing a tandoor oven is you don't have to make any structures (a base, the oven), just put a number of components together (steel drum, terra-cotta tub, bricks, firebricks, sand, vermiculite are the main components). The internal components are all 'floating' to allow for heat expansion, so there's no mucking around with fire mortar to fix things in place. Just finished rendering the first coat mortar on exterior of drum today and have lit several small charcoal fires to temper the internal oven lining. I can already see the heat generation is much more efficient compared to a wood oven. Now I'm thinking Nan, Rotis, tanoori charcoal grilled chicken, hang roasting pork, lamb - hey maybe even a charcoal roast duck. R.I.P the Wood Fired Oven :)
mark_g,
Mar 10, 1:36am
Photos please.
midnight42,
Mar 10, 5:13pm
looks great
purplegoanna,
Mar 10, 5:52pm
well done nev, you rock.finished my wood fired oven and have been looking for another hobby.looks like youve just given me the answer.mmmmm imagine the juicy tandoor chicken its going to produce.Q: did you leave the drum on or just use it as a mould! the pot did you use for the upper level! sitting on the bricks! so no bricks in the upper level!
mark_g,
Mar 11, 12:36am
Pretty cool. Doesn't take up a lot of real estate either. Definately an option worth considering for outdoor cooking. mmmm tandoori mmmm
nchun,
Mar 11, 2:55am
Hi folks! The drum is left on, its used as a template to build up the oven and becomes the outer shell of the tandoor (before mortar coats). Top and bottom are cut out. The first bottom layer of bricks are normal bricks and packed with a dry sand/cement mix. The second layer of bricks are firebricks and form the base for the charcoal fire to sit on. These are packed with dry sand. The 3rd layer of firebricks are set soldier (on end) and these become the sides of the fireplace and for the inverted teracotta tub to sit on. Soldier bricked are packed with vermiculite. The space between the terracotta tub and steel drum are packed with vermiculite, leaving a 10cm space at the top for a layer of packing mortar to the level of the drum. A length of fiberglass rope (I used 25mm diameter x 2m) is placed between the tub and drum to act as an expansion gasket. Yes it definitely takes up less room than a wood oven, heaps less. My neighbor suggests we can also try doing a hang or umu style pit cook up in it, which would be quite easy to do when you think about it :)
howgoodisit,
Mar 11, 7:43am
Where do you put the pizza & where do you bake your bread! 98% of the time i'm firing my oven is for pizza or bread.
I bet i can put together one of my DIY kits in 1/2 the time it will take you to build this :P
nchun,
Mar 11, 3:41pm
Hmmm, let me see - 2 hours feeding the wood oven with half a cube of wood to heat the bricks. Another hour to get the temperature right for the bread because the temp is 450 degrees and bread bakes at 240. Mate, we'll have finished our tandoor chicken, lamb and vege skewers with nan and rotis - sipping cardamon spiced yoghurt lassies with fresh mint leaves while you are still sweating away chopping a tree down and burning your loaf of bread :) He he!
purplegoanna,
Mar 11, 7:44pm
yip ive seen a awesome fireput built along the saem principles as yr tandoor.just need to actually own our property before i start building anything that cant be moved.lol
mm12345,
Mar 11, 8:10pm
I wonder how Ecan treats this!You aren't allowed a wood or charcoal burning pizza oven in Chch, but you are allowed a BBQ, or hangi.A brazier is a very strict no-no. I'm not sure if you would get away with using a charcoal BBQ to cook pizza, a brazier to heat rocks for a hangi, or a pizza oven to cook sausages.There is no category for tandoor ovens at all.It seems that time has come for Ecan to put resources into (yet another) investigation on the environmental impact of this thing you've made, and - for our own good of course - make another wise determination on what we're not allowed to do.
howgoodisit,
Mar 12, 8:32pm
Im pretty sure they would class this as a brazier. it looks pretty similar to one just thicker walls.
howgoodisit,
Mar 12, 8:40pm
I think you must be doing it wrong. only need a few bits of wood to heat my ovens. i fire mine and then go make dough etc. by the time the dough has risen the oven is ready.
If you want fast food. just go get take aways.
Oh and by the way. im not vegetarian but we dont really eat meat, so to rely on something that mainly is for cooking meat its not really good for us.
Although i do think these things are pretty cool. used to get nan cooked in one heaps at the indian take away place, i would not go and write off wood fired ovens as this is like comparing apples with oranges if you know what i mean.
If you have personally not had good experience with wood fired ovens and have problems with burning your bread all i can say is "A good tradesman never blames his tools" : P There is an art to cooking with fire and it takes time to learn these skills.
barbiegirls,
Mar 13, 3:53am
Fire ban!
purplegoanna,
Mar 17, 9:14pm
ive had a cube of wood plain old macro and fired my oven about 15 times and still have 1/2 a cube left.im suprised how little mine uses and ive still got to add the final mosaic layer
nchun,
Apr 22, 2:18pm
Ah, a bit tongue in cheek re my comment how much wood you need to feed a wood fired oven. I suppose how much wood you need to get the oven hot depends on the oven cavity size (assuming everyones thermal insulation is good). But I do notice the tandoor gets up to a very hot cooking temperature a lot faster with way less fuel. Cheers!
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