Anuran: I think thermite lights with a spark or blasting cap. For a masonry oven in siman tav samech alef the accepted hechsher is that ‘ the coal go on its entire surface” taken to mean the whole baking floor. I found this much easier than cleaning the GE and some fun as well. The arch in my little oven would be over 1000f at the stage where I had enough coals to cover the floor. My floor was yellow firebrick about 17″ wide and about 48″ long, 14″ high walls and a shallow arch of red brick, and a second coat of brick on the outside and a hump of cement to seal my poor arch job. It stood on a table of three inch angle iron and a cement pad. I am sorry I didn’t take it apart and move it to EY with me. If you are a “stick it on the wall” baker, you should ask what the do to kasher the walls because in reality you cant fill the entire void with charcoal. Maybe try to build a clay or adobe tanduri and keep it for matza, but I found the matzo oven heated and with the fire swept out made the best chometz sourdough bread ( in about twenty minutes). If you go for the big rig, the one we did was supported on a base of seven courses of soda crates, 7×7 (crates) had walls hemmed in by standard blocks pinned with steel into a slab, so the wall were less high that the length of a block and the top of the pinned blocks held the outer edges of the arch. It had a low flat arch, and fire brick floor and sides. The beauty of this was it really held its heat, and with tossing some wood on at say, dayenu, at motzee matza you can go out and whip up some hot matzos. Its a great way to add some hitlahavut to the seder and also a good way to do two or three full size whole wheat pizzas.
Menu