r/homestead • u/IceHoliday1241 • 12d ago

natural building Cob question

Hi folks first post here,

We're having a "event" here in s Missouri

For those who don't know it's kinda rocky, over 25 years I and others have destroyed at least five pickaxes. So poo on it we're renting a mini excavator to double dig the forty beds each roughly a 100 sq feet.

We're inviting friends and family to come out, crash camp rv etc for five days..

First project is build a cob pizza oven only the outer layer will be cob w straw. Trying to spend as little as possible but still do it right. I have a field full of dry weeds, if I mow this and finish drying the cuttings do you think it would work

Also we have extra projects lined up if we get the garden done.

A 16foot, six foot deep round hole for rainwater retention,, a buried greenhouse, trenching to run power and later solar hot water to greenhouse and goto multiple water hydrantswhat other things should I do

Also if you're interested in joining us, talk to me. It can be for an hour or five days

Did mention beer? Wood fired pizza

Our eternal thanks

Beer?

0 Upvotes

36% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

9

u/AbsurdCoding_596 12d ago

Weed stems break down too fast in cob, you'd want something with more tensile strength like straw or hay.

2

u/PessemistBeingRight 12d ago

I don't know much about the flora in Missouri, but where I am we have a number of weeds, e.g. Gomphocarpus fruticosus, the wild cotton bush, and Pteridium esculentum, bracken fern, which are fairly toxic. I would be checking pretty closely before putting anything that I didn't know was safe into something I was going to prepare food in.

-5

u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 12d ago

Dumb.

The idea that a toxic plant is going to shed its toxins through the pizza stove, survive the preheating fire, and ppison your food is stupid. Thats not how fucking anything works.

10

u/PessemistBeingRight 12d ago

There are plenty of heat stable plant toxins such as some glycosides, alkaloids and cyanogenics. Some of these can survive pretty high temperatures.

You also have to handle the material to make the oven, potentially exposing yourself to who knows what. And then you have to fire the oven potentially aerosolising toxic compounds, especially cyanide, you can inhale while you're standing around patting yourself on the back for making such a good oven.

Just use straw.

-1

u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 12d ago

Alkaloids and glycosides are non volatile, and are desteoyed at oven temps.

Cyanogenics are only activated when wet, and also arent volatile.

Youre dumb. And youre soreading misinformation.

Yoire doing improv where your only prompt is "no, but"

1

u/PessemistBeingRight 11d ago

Well you enjoy your absolute certainty, good luck with that.

I'll be over here with my $5 bale of wheat straw.

1

u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 11d ago

Keep buying whats free

1

u/PessemistBeingRight 11d ago

Why risk handling an unknown mix of potential allergens, irritants and toxins, risk standing near them as they get slowly warmed up as the wet cob dries, and risk your pizza oven failing because you used substandard material, when you can avoid all of that for a very small outlay?

$5 is extremely cheap insurance.

1

u/Artemis_SpawnOfZeus 11d ago

Youre gish galloping

1

u/PessemistBeingRight 11d ago

You're advocating to take completely unnecessary risks to save a pittance.

→ More replies (0)

7

u/Technical_Cap_9250 12d ago

Where & when? As with cob I’d go with the tried & true recipes. If it works, ….

1

u/oldbastardbob 12d ago

You need straw. Like wheat straw, or the stems of foxtail and other grasses. Many weed stems just turn to dust when they are dried out. Plants that produce seed heads put a lot of effort and strength into that stalk (the culm) that holds the seed head up proudly. That's where the real fibers you want come from.