Noah is a working baker, builder, and farmer who has built and used earthen ovens, a classic Alan Scott oven, and now a very fancy Spanish Llopis oven. Here he provides very clear and detailed data on the differences in fuel consumption and food production between earth and (massive) brick. In short, he explains exactly why an Alan Scott oven may not be the best option for a home- or small-scale baker. Elbers owns and runs The Orchard Hill Bakery in New Hampshire. He participates in the brickoven group on yahoogroups, which is where this comment came from, but as you can see from his . . .

In the space of two days, I got two emails from people asking the exact same question. So here’s clarification, which I’ll have to include in the next printing! Thanks to those who wrote... “Typical dome height” is 16” (p. 51). Some pizza ovens are lower because they’re used exclusively for pizza, which means they can have a low door without losing the 63% ratio of dome to door height — and they don’t have to worry about getting a turkey through the door. The previous edition didn’t specify an ideal height, and in fact, a high domed . . .

Here's a new commercial oven at Gathering Together Farm, a small farm/CSA restaurant in Philomath, Oregon, with cooks JC and Lisa posing with tools. This is a super-insulated design, with an external basket frame covered w/clay-slip-soaked burlap and insulating (sawdust-clay) plaster. When dry, the open cavity was filled w/loose perlite for insulation. The thermal layer is the standard clay/sand mix, covered with a cardboard expansion gap/thermal break (see the oven-fuel-firing-times-and-insulation post), and a layer of sawdust-clay insulation. Then about a 6" space, and the final covered . . .