On pit-firing pottery

This one is not mainly my craft or my knowledge, but I find the principle cool enough that I wanted to share - and some of the pottery fire was mine. The main content of this craft is from our pottery group and the main activity was driven by D. Beginning of November, pottery was pit-fired.

This firing focussed on small items and it also contained all the dodgy items that probably contained air bubbles and wouldn't survive a firing anyhow. There were two loads of items: small things that were fired in a cast-iron pot and larger items that were fired seperately.

The process started by digging a 50cm deep pit, big enough for a fire and some space around it. In this pit D lit a fire and created a bed of glowing embers before placing the cast-iron pot in the middle of the embers. The vessels were then placed around the fire and slowly moved closer, allowing them to heat slowly.


I wasn't around for this part, so this is only how I understand the process to go: Then the fire was slowly built up around the pottery and the then closed iron pot, until the potterly glowed red. Then the entire pit is filled up with earth, cutting the oxygen supply and lowing the content to cool slowly. A week later, the pit was opened up.

Sadly our pots all broke, but the small items in the cast iron pot survived and came out great.

Another befriended potter once told me, that small items can also be wrapped in aluminium foil and carefully placed in the glowing coal of a barbeque. I'll have to try this at some point.

It seems to me that the main challenge is heating up slowly while still maintaining enough heat for the fire to burn.

Formalities:

• Materials: wood, kindling, earth
• Tools: spade, fire liter, cast iron pot with lid
• Time: 6 hrs plus at least a day of cooling time