Wood fired oven, design, tips and tricks ?

Having read some good posts on Bread baking recently a couple of questions come to mind that we have been pondering for a while.

We want to build an experimental wood fired oven primarily for baking bread. The sort of design that we like the look of is the pizza style with the open front, dome shaped interior. We have some scrap land that the farmers do not want and are building a weekender on it. There is an abundance of fallen timber. The thought of cooking breads and pizzas in such an oven has always made us drool at the thought.

Are there any suggestions for design or lessons that you may have learnt ?

Is the fire traditionally lit in the baking chamber of these ovens or can it be heated efficiently from underneath ?

If you have afire in the oven do you have to remove it to bake bread or can you leave some of the fire in there ?

Can you cook conventional bread in a pizza oven ?

Getting hungry just typing this one ! javascript: x()

[ July 26, 2001: Message edited by: ribbony ]

[ July 28, 2001: Message edited by: ribbony ]

[kokopuffs]

Although I forget the title of his book, Tom Jaine has written one that has instructions on building a baker's oven.

[KyleW]

I would also recommend The Bread Builders by Daniel Wing & Alan Scott. The book has extensive information on building masonry ovens.

[Kimmie]

You might try the following links:

The brick oven page

Don't miss
The Bread Lady as well.

[ August 03, 2001: Message edited by: Kimmie ]

Like the step by step pictures in the "The Bread Lady" link. That is a good site !

Thanks everyone for the info.

[Svadhisthana]

I have another source for you:
Bernars Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads also has a chapter on building your own bread oven.