Alan Scott (2 March 1936 – 26 January 2009) was a blacksmith and baking traditionalist who designed and built brick ovens and coauthored a book promoting their use for cooking breads and pizza.^[1] He built ovens in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and started the Ovencrafters company.^[2]

Life

Scott was born in Toorak in Victoria, Australia on 2 March 1936. He graduated from Dookie Agricultural College,^[3] and afterwards went to work for a fertilizer company.^[1] Leaving his job at 25,^[3] Scott traveled throughout Australia, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Denmark—all hitchhiking. Eventually, he settled in Denmark and opened a jewelry store.^[1]

Scott emigrated to the United States from Australia in the mid-1960s, where he opened a smithy in Northern California. When a friend, Laurel Robertson, commissioned him to forge handles for a brick oven she intended to build, Scott became interested in the oven itself. He redesigned the oven to better retain heat.^[1] Scott soon became an expert in the construction and use of brick ovens. In 1999, he published The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens with his apprentice Daniel Wing.^[1][4] The Bread Builders contained a treatise on the history and science of bread making, and gave detailed specifications for how to build a brick oven.^[1] The book eventually sold over 25,000 copies.^[5]

Returning to Australia in 2004, Scott opened a practice in Oatlands.^[3] He also became involved in the effort to recommence operations at the Callington Mill.^[3] Scott's interest in the project stemmed in part from the desirable properties of slowly stone-ground flour, which include the wheat's germ oil being ground into the flour and the retention of nutrients due to low milling temperatures.^[3]

Scott died on 26 January 2009 in Tasmania of congestive heart failure. His company, Ovencrafters, is now run by his children. The company designs and builds custom brick ovens,^[1] and has designed and created numerous ovens for clients throughout the United States, as well as in other countries, including Canada and Australia.^[6]

Advocacy

Scott spent much of his time conducting workshops and overseeing the building of community ovens, which he believed brought communities together.^[2][5] He further lectured on and encouraged small-scale industry, environmental stewardship, community connectivity and spiritual consideration.^[2] His business, Ovencrafters, pushed for "policy with principles, commerce with morality, wealth with work, and science with humanity".^[2]