I love smoke-firing. I love the unpredictability of it.
What I didn't love was having to get the The Boss to fire up the forge and the fact we could only do things small enough to fit in a baked bean can.
So when our friendly, neighbourhood flytippers dumped a barbecue, himself was sent straight out to fetch it home. It was a little wonky but 5 minutes with an angle grinder chopped all the legs down to the same height, and wedged in the soft sandy soil of the riverbank, it was just fine.
And so, we got started on very small pit-firing.
First in was a stack of kindling, laid as flat as possible and the grid put back
On top of this went a layer of wood shavings and assorted 'organics' from the duck and goose shed
While The Boss was busily building pyres, I was adding various things to the bisque pots
There are 2 tin cans of beads, packed in more shavings. Sulphur powder was added to one, Bordeaux mixtures (copper sulphate and lime) to another. Wetted fine seaweed was draped over one terracotta bowl and dried seaweed wrapped around another. The larger bowl was filled with seaweed and wrapped in foil - an impromptu saggar. One white saucer was left plain.
A few pyromaniac moments later and the kindling started. The idea is that the shaving smoulder, rather than burning, with the assorted organics creating different colours.
We left it to smoulder...
