Building a Tandoor!

A friend and fellow Indian food fanatic had an idea to make a homemade tandoor. Here's our little project...


Core items, an inverted terracotta pot, and a metal trashcan.


Lay out firebrick, and trace bottom of trashcan. Cut slightly inside the lines for a snug fit.


Not bad for my first time cutting masonry.


Now that the floor is cut, make a ring with the firebricks, to rest the teracotta pot on:


Leave a gap to create a hole for ash maintenance and airflow.


D@mn, that stuff makes a big mess...


Insert the terracotta pot, after cutting the bottom off, then fill in the gap with river rock to stabilize the structure and add thermal mass.








Coating of coconut oil to season the teracotta:



Going to burn about 20 lbs of hardwood lump charcoal to season the terracotta and allow any off-gassing to complete:


If weather cooperates, dinner later: tandoori chicken and Salmon, veg kebob, naan, maybe a few other things....

That's awesome!! Waiting for dinner with anticipation!

So freaking cool.

FOR THE WIN.

Holy ****. I think we have some extra fire brick at the restaurant. That is badass

this is great! thanks for sharing

A test Naan....


Turned out pretty well...but it seems that Naan is finicky.....going to take a bit of work to have a consistent product.





Coals are getting quite hot....




Tandoori chicken is crisping up nicely....


Nice bit of blotchy char, chicken is quite moist and tender.


Fire is nice and hot now.

Damn cool.

lus1: Sweet!!! Awesome project ... thx for putting this together! Inspiring ... maybe now I'll get off my a$$ and put that kebab grill together!

Just brilliant!!

Freaking cool too :thumbsup:

What did you cut the firebrick with? Jigsaw?

rahimlee54 said:

What did you cut the firebrick with? Jigsaw?

Click to expand...

Skillsaw with diamond blade....cut those bricks like butter. I was surprised how easy that was.

this is all kinds of awesomeness!!

^ What he said...very cool :doublethumbsup:

wow. that oven must be at 800f!!

Really cool.

That's very cool! Makes me think of Heston Blumenthal, who also built his own tandoori oven.

Great project! How long did it take you to make it?

ptolemy said:

wow. that oven must be at 800f!!

Click to expand...

I wish I still had a laser temp to find out.

apathetic said:

Great project! How long did it take you to make it?

Click to expand...

Took about 2 hours to shop for the materials, and about 3 hours to build. Really not bad.

So half a day overall to get it setup... not bad at all!
Thanks again for sharing

I have been trying to figure out if you can design a dome to go on top to use for pizza. Two birds with one stone kind of deal. Especially since there are vids on youtube with these going well into the 800 F temps.

rahimlee54 said:

I have been trying to figure out if you can design a dome to go on top to use for pizza. Two birds with one stone kind of deal. Especially since there are vids on youtube with these going well into the 800 F temps.

Click to expand...

There are specialized rods with steel plates for doing pizzas in them. So that's already been solved

http://www.tandoorliving.com.au/Tandoor-tandoori-pizza-oven.html

Looks great!

I'm totally going to make this. I just saw this post and I thought it looks amazing. If anyone has made this yet could you answer a few questions?

1. How are the fire bricks secured to the floor and sides of the metal trash can?
2. Are the rocks a special type, or could I go and just buy a bag at the local home depot or Lowes?
3. What size of trash can and Terra cotta pot did the OP use?
4. Lastly, is this tandor oven mobile? Is it easy to pick up and place in a shed when not in use?

Thanks in advance!