| --First of all, you do not want to use traditional bricks in a ceramic cooker. They are prone to cracking when exposed to high heat and this cracking can be rather violent. There are also suggestions floating around that a wet brick can explode if heated. We can't say for sure if this is true or not. Informal polls yield mixed results and web searches were inconclusive. We lean towards saying that they will not explode. Perhaps the most persuasive argument came from the person who asked the question, "Do you see exploding bricks in a house fire?" We also found reports on the web of exploding rocks in campfires if the rocks came from a river. But all we found were admonitions against using wet rocks. We found no actual factual information on the topic. In the long run, we usually adopt the "better safe than sorry" approach, so if you are going to use bricks, use fire bricks. However, we can't say that bad things will happen with ordinary bricks.
But why would you want to use any bricks? Well, they can be used to provide a barrier between the hot fire and the food for indirect cooking. Also, they can add ceramic mass to the cooker to help even out temperatures. Finally, they are a safe material to use in propping up grates in order to make raised grates if you don't wish to go to the trouble of using stainless steel washers, nuts and bolts. |
ARTICLES