Growing up in New Mexico, Michael Lauher knew about the Pueblo “hornos,”  the traditional beehive ovens, still widely used there.

He learned how to build and use them — skills he brought with him when he moved from Taos to Napa.

Taking the job of education coordinator at Napa’s Connolly Ranch, he discovered an adobe oven on the premises. He’s worked with children in his classes there to fix up the oven, and they use it, often to cook the produce grown in Connolly Ranch gardens.

Interest in these ovens is growing, he said, beyond its traditional homes on pueblos or as educational tools for old traditions. These ovens are turning up in more backyards, serving dual roles: A cozy focus for outdoor gatherings,  and a way to bake all kinds of things.

Four years ago, Tom and Kellie Fuller had one constructed in their backyard in Napa, but the man who built it moved out of town before he had a chance to show them the tricks of baking with it, and so the Fuller family used it primarily as an outdoor fireplace, until they met up with Lauher.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Lauher came to the Fuller’s home with a car full of fresh produce from the Connolly Ranch gardens and gave a neighborhood demonstration on using a beehive oven — and, incidentally, produce a meal.

“They’re really pretty easy to use,” said Lauher, who noted that the Fuller’s oven was a “two chamber” setup where the fire is built in a lower chamber and the food is cooked in the upper one. In a one-chamber oven, the fire is built and when the oven is sufficiently hot, the coals are pushed aside to bake bread, pizzas, casseroles or to roast chicken or beef.

As the oven heated up, he added chips of wood from barrel staves, and rosemary from a nearby bush to add flavor to the smoke. He also kept a pail of water nearby.

“It took about an hour and a half to get the fire hot enough for the pizzas,” he said. When the oven thermometer read 600 degrees, they cooked a dozen pizzas  in “under an hour.” The pizzas vanished within minutes.

As the oven began to cool, Lauher said, it was time to grill vegetables. “About 400 degrees also works for bread or casseroles,” he said. And as it cooled further to about 350 degrees, it was time to put in the dessert —  fresh baked cookies.  

“Ideally,” Lauher added, “then you can put in a pot of soaked beans, and let them cook all night, and you have baked beans for the next day.”

Constructing an adobe oven is relatively easy, said Lauher, who helps build ovens in the community. He said he prefers leading  “community effort” for a project. “A group of six or so can build an oven in a weekend,” he said. It usually takes a day to make a foundation — a good idea to raise the oven and keep from having to bend over to use it. The next day you form the oven, let it dry for week, and you’ve got an outdoor oven.

Ovens can be made of adobe bricks, and then covered over with plaster, or another method is to mold an oven from cob, a mixture of mud, sand and straw, Lauher said. It’s usually built in two layers, and then “you can get fancy with the finish,” he said, “You can paint it. People can add stones or mica, or create mosaics on it.”

The cost for materials, he said, is minimal. “About $30 for a firebrick base, a few dollars for a bag of clay/sand, $5 for a bale of straw.”

Because the fire is contained, Lauher said, “it’s often safer than a Weber (grill).” Nonetheless he advises checking with local building departments before undertaking a project.

Whether or not a permit is required may vary from city to city, said Chris Riley of the Napa County Building Department. Depending on how elaborate the plans are, a permit may be required to build one in the unincorporated parts of the county.  For example, he said, “a plan that calls for piping in propane would definitely require a permit. The unit and concept is relatively safe but we’d like to see the plans. We may be able to make safety suggestions,” even if a permit is not necessary. For those living within city limits, contact the city building departments for specific requirements, Riley said. “It’s primarily the fire and building departments that will be concerned.”

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Dan Kavarian, from the city of Napa building department, said projects may need permits, depending on where the oven will be situated, but all outdoor ovens need to have a spark arrester, a screen shield, on top of the oven.

Without one you could be cited by the fire department, he said. “It’s a good idea to talk to the fire prevention you build anything.”

All in all, it’s a great investment, Tom Fuller said. “The key is to build one and then have a garden right next to it.”

For more information about building an adobe oven, contact Michael Lauher at 224-1894.