How to Provide the Fuel of Hoffman Kiln
 

Some Hoffmann kilns were fuelled by gas, but mostly the fuel was coal. The ceiling of a ring oven contained many rows of openings – covered with air-tight metal caps-which were known as “feed holes”. Experienced “stokers” dropped a small and precisely dosed amount of crushed coal through the holes above the chamber that was fired, using a small coal shovel.

They formed a team with the “setters”, who built the stacks of unfired green bricks inside the chambers. These stacks were positioned so that they contained flues and channels to ensure even baking. Right underneath each feed hole the bricks were arranged to form “fireplaces”, in which the fuel could be burnt. These were hollow shafts built of bricks, with occasional projecting bricks to prevent all the fuel from falling directly to the bottom.

Once the stacks were built, the chamber was closed by a door or a temporary brick wall, not to be opened again before unloading the bricks several weeks later. It was not necessary to enter the chambers to light the fire: once a room was preheated enough by the hot gases of the chambers next to it, the temperature inside was high enough to spontaneously combust the coal that was dropped through the feed holes.

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