Firing without a kiln

How to pit fire pottery

Dig a hole, bury your pots in sawdust and wood, light it, and let smoke and mineral vapor decide how they come out. It is the oldest way to fire clay and it is still the only way to get these colors. Here is the whole process, the parts that go wrong, and the videos worth watching before you strike a match.

  • Temperature Roughly 1,200 to 1,800 F
  • Time 4 to 8 hours, then cool overnight
  • Before the pit Bisque to cone 05, no glaze
  • The result Porous, decorative, never food safe
Jump to a section
What pit firing actually is The honest part Before you light anything Making pots that survive Burnishing and terra sigillata Bisque firing first Building and loading the pit What makes what color Fire day, hour by hour Cooling, cleaning and sealing Four ways to do this The phone checklists When it goes wrong Questions we get asked
A potter crouches beside an open pit fire on a sandy shore, raking glowing coals around clay pots while finished blackened vessels and foil wrapped bundles sit waiting nearby

Everything we know about pit firing, in full. Switch to Nutshell if you just need enough to get a fire going this weekend.

Why this is a page and not a playlist

Watch it, then read it. Both, in that order.

So every section here does the same thing twice. The words tell you what to do and why it matters. The video shows you what it looks like when somebody who has done it a hundred times does it.

Watching somebody pit fire is the fastest way to understand it. It is also the fastest way to forget it. Video moves at the presenter's pace, not yours, and the moment you look away to grab a shovel the thing you needed has already scrolled past. Twenty minutes later you can picture the fire perfectly and you cannot remember how deep the hole was.

Reading is slower and it sticks better. You set the pace, you stop where you are confused, you go back a line without hunting for a timestamp. Lists in particular survive contact with a real workday, because you can hold a phone in a dirty hand, look at one line, put the phone down and go do it.

Neither one on its own is enough. Text without a demonstration leaves you guessing what "packed loosely" means. A demonstration without text leaves you with a feeling instead of a plan.

Video is the fastest way to understand pit firing and the fastest way to forget it. Reading sticks because you set the pace. So each section pairs a list you can work from with a demonstration.

There is a lot on this page. If you want it shorter, the toggle above cuts it down to the parts you need to actually run a firing, and it remembers your choice on every other page on this site.

The mental model

You are not glazing. You are letting fire paint.

A pit fire is cooler than a bisque firing. That single fact explains almost everything else about it.

In a glaze firing you choose the color. You dip the pot, you write the number down, and the kiln does what it did last time. A pit fire does not work like that. You choose the conditions and the fire chooses the color, and it will choose differently for two identical pots sitting six inches apart.

In a glaze firing you choose the color. Here you choose the conditions and the fire chooses the color, differently for two identical pots six inches apart.

Two things are happening in there. Carbon from the smoke drives into the surface of the clay and turns it grey, charcoal and deep black wherever combustible material is pressed against the pot. At the same time, mineral salts and metal oxides in the fuel vaporize and drift, and where that vapor lands on hot porous clay it deposits color: pinks, oranges, rust reds, coppery flashes, sometimes a smoky violet.

Carbon from the smoke blackens the clay wherever fuel touches it. Mineral salts and oxides in that fuel vaporize and land as color: pinks, oranges, rust reds, coppery flashes.

Now the temperature. A pit fire runs somewhere around 1,200 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, and even that is uneven across the pit. A bisque firing here goes to cone 05, about 1,888 degrees. A glaze firing goes to cone 5½, just over 2,180 degrees. So the pit is the coolest firing in the whole process.

That is why nothing melts, why no glass forms, why the pot stays porous, and why the color sits on the surface as a deposit rather than being locked into a layer of glass. It is also why a pit fired pot is beautiful and fragile at the same time.

A pit runs about 1,200 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Bisque here is cone 05 and glaze is cone 5½, so the pit is the coolest firing in the whole process. Nothing melts, no glass forms, and the color sits on the surface instead of inside it.

184. Beginners Guide to Pitfire Pottery (Free Online Intro Course)
Mikkel deMib - Pottery Tips

Read this before you fall in love

The parts nobody puts in the reel

None of this is a reason to skip pit firing. It is a reason to go in knowing what you are getting, so the first firing feels like a result instead of a failure.

  • Not food safe, ever. Porous, unglazed, coated in carbon. Decorative only.

  • The color can rub off. It is a deposit, not glass. Seal it before it goes on a shelf.

  • You will break pots. Fire ten, expect eight. Not your favorite piece.

  • It is not food safe and it never will be. A pit fired pot is porous, unglazed, and coated in carbon and mineral residue. No eating, no drinking, no holding water. Put a glass or plastic liner inside if you want to use it as a vase.

  • The color can rub off. It is a deposit on the surface, not glass fused into it. Handle a fresh pit fired pot with clean dry hands and seal it before it goes anywhere near a shelf people touch.

  • You will break pots. Losing a couple of pieces out of ten is normal on early firings, and losing more than that is normal on a first one. Fire more than you think you need and do not put your favorite thing in the first pit you ever dig.

  • You do not get to choose the result. You can load the odds. You cannot place a color. Anybody promising repeatable pit fire results is selling something.

  • It takes a whole day and most of it is waiting. Loading is slow, the burn is hours, and the cool down runs overnight. This is not an afternoon project you squeeze in after work.

  • We do not pit fire at the studio. There is no pit at The Clay Hole and there is not going to be one. What we do run is raku, outdoors in Alpine, about six times a year, and that scratches a similar itch with a lot more supervision. Everything on this page is written for a firing you go and do somewhere else.

We do not pit fire at the studio. There is no pit at The Clay Hole. We do run raku outdoors in Alpine about six times a year. This page is for a firing you do somewhere else.

Step one

Most pit fire failures happen at the wheel

A pit fire heats unevenly and fast. Anything in the pot that wants to move at a different rate than the rest of the pot is a crack waiting for a reason. Almost every loss traces back to a decision made weeks earlier, while the clay was still soft.

How To Pit Fire Greenware Pottery (Without Breaking Any)
Andy Ward’s Ancient Pottery
  • Groggy clay, not porcelain. Grog and sand let the wall flex instead of splitting. Ask at the counter which of our bodies has the most tooth.
  • Even walls, around a quarter inch. Even matters more than thin. A heavy base under a papery rim is two pots as far as the fire is concerned.
  • Round beats angular. Curves spread stress. Sharp corners collect it and hand the crack a starting point.
  • No handles, spouts or fine detail. Anything attached is a seam, and seams fail first.
  • Start small and make extras. Fist to cantaloupe. Fire ten, expect eight.
  • No glaze at all. It needs cone 5½ to melt, so in a pit it just sits there as a crust and blocks the smoke.
  • Bone dry means bone dry. Press the base to your cheek. Cool to the touch means there is still water in it.

  1. Pick a clay with grog or sand in it

    Grog is pre-fired clay ground up and mixed back in, and it does for a pot what rebar does for concrete. It opens the body, gives moisture somewhere to go, and lets the wall flex a little instead of splitting. A smooth porcelain in a pit fire is a coin flip. A visibly speckled or sandy stoneware is a much better bet. Ask at the counter which of our bodies carries the most grog.

  2. Keep the walls even, around a quarter inch

    Even matters more than thin. A pot with a heavy base and a papery rim is two pots as far as the fire is concerned, and they will try to expand at different speeds. Trim the foot properly and check the wall thickness with your fingers before it dries.

  3. Round beats angular, every time

    Curves spread stress around the form. Sharp corners collect it in one place and hand the crack a starting point. Round bellied vessels, closed forms and simple bowls are the classic pit fire shapes for a reason, and it is not only that they look good in the ash.

  4. Leave the handles and the fine detail off

    Anything attached is a seam, and a seam is where thermal stress goes to work. Thin rims, delicate spouts, applied feet and pulled handles all fail at a much higher rate than the body they are stuck to. If you want a handled mug, make it and glaze it. A pit is not the place.

  5. Start small, and make more than you need

    Fist sized up to about a cantaloupe is the sweet spot for a first firing. Small pieces heat evenly and you can fit a lot of them in one pit, which matters because some of them are not coming back. Fire ten, expect eight.

  6. No glaze. None.

    Our glazes are formulated to melt at cone 5½. A pit fire never gets close, so glaze does not melt, it does not seal, and it does not go glossy. What it does do is sit there as a chalky crust, block the smoke and vapor from reaching the clay, and ruin the only effect you came for.

  7. Bone dry means bone dry

    Press the base against your cheek. If it feels cool, there is still water in there, and water in a fast fire turns to steam and takes the pot with it. Cool to the touch means wait longer. A week on a shelf is not too much for a thick piece.

Step two

The shine is decided long before the fire

This is the single biggest difference between a pit fired pot that looks like art and one that looks like something that fell in a campfire. A polished surface takes color. A rough surface takes soot.

There is no glaze here, so the surface of the clay is the finished surface. Two techniques do the work, and most people use both.

  • Burnishing. Rub the pot with a smooth stone or the back of a spoon, between leather hard and bone dry, in small overlapping circles. Twenty minutes for a mug.
  • Terra sigillata. A slip of the finest clay particles, brushed on in three to five thin coats over a sanded bone dry pot, buffed between coats.

Burnishing

Burnishing is rubbing the clay until it shines. A smooth river stone, the back of a spoon, or a scrap of a plastic grocery bag all work. You are not polishing so much as compressing: the pressure lays the flat clay particles down parallel to each other, and a surface of aligned particles reflects light instead of scattering it.

Do it when the pot is between leather hard and bone dry, and work in small overlapping circles. If the clay is too wet you drag it. If it is fully dry it will not move at all, and a light mist of water lets you back in. It is slow. A mug sized pot is twenty minutes of real work.

Terra sigillata

Terra sigillata is a slip made of only the very finest clay particles, and it gives you most of a burnished shine for a fraction of the elbow grease. You brush it on in thin coats and buff each one. It is the standard prep for pit and saggar work.

A terra sigillata recipe that works. Fill a one liter bottle three quarters full of water. Add 250 grams of ball clay and shake it hard. Add about a teaspoon of sodium silicate and shake again. Let it stand for an hour or more. The mix separates into three layers, and the middle one is what you want. Siphon or carefully pour it off, leaving the heavy sediment behind, and store it in a sealed container.

To use it: sand the bone dry pot smooth, wipe the dust off with a barely damp sponge, then brush on three to five thin coats with a soft mop brush, buffing each coat with a soft plastic bag or a chamois before the next one goes on.

Burnishing Pottery with Terra Sigillata
Travis Thomason Pottery
How to Mix and Apply Terra Sigillata for Burnishing Pottery | Sumi von Dassow
Ceramic Arts Network

Step three

Bisque first, unless you have a reason not to

Bisque firing at The Clay Hole is free, and it goes to cone 05. That is a perfectly good starting point for a pit fire, so you can prep here and fire wherever you are going.

Bisque firing drives off the chemically bound water still locked inside the clay. Once that is gone the pot is stable, and it can take the shock of a fast open fire far better than raw greenware can. It is the single cheapest thing you can do to cut your breakage rate.

There is a trade off, and it is worth understanding. The hotter you bisque, the tighter and less porous the clay gets, and a tight surface takes less color from the fire. Potters who pit fire seriously often bisque low, somewhere between cone 018 and cone 06, specifically to keep the pot thirsty. Cone 05 is a little tighter than that and it still works well, so this is a refinement rather than a requirement.

You can pit fire raw greenware, and plenty of people do. It is how the technique was done for thousands of years and it gives you the deepest blacks, because there is more organic material left in the clay to burn. It also breaks far more often. If you go that route, warm the pots for an hour beside a small fire before they go anywhere near the pit, turning them as you go, and accept a higher loss rate as the price of admission.

Step four

What a loaded pit actually looks like

A pit fire is a layer cake you are about to set on fire. Everything below is stacked bottom to top, in the order you build it.

Cross section of a loaded pit fire 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
  1. The hole. Eighteen to twenty four inches deep, ten inches deeper than your tallest pot, three feet across. Bare earth walls.
  2. Sand or old ash. An inch or two on the floor.
  3. Sawdust bed. Two to three inches, clean and untreated. Anything it touches comes out black.
  4. Colorants. Scattered through the sawdust, never piled. Respirator on.
  5. The pots. Set into the bed, a couple of inches apart, wide forms on their sides.
  6. Organics. Peels, seaweed, straw, dung, wire. Touching the pot, not near it.
  7. Kindling, then wood. Stacked above ground level. It collapses in as it burns.
  8. A sheet of metal. Not at the start. Slid over once the flames drop to coals.
  1. The hole. Eighteen to twenty four inches deep, and at least ten inches deeper than your tallest pot. Three feet across is plenty for a first firing. Bare earth walls are fine and simpler than lining it with stone, which can crack or spall and take your pots with it.
  2. A base of sand or old ash. An inch or two at the very bottom. It levels the floor and stops pots sitting straight on cold damp soil.
  3. The sawdust bed. Two to three inches of clean untreated sawdust or fine wood shavings. This is your slow burning fuel and your carbon source, and anywhere a pot touches it will come out black.
  4. Colorants scattered through the bed. Copper carbonate, salt and iron oxide go in now, sprinkled into the sawdust rather than piled anywhere. Wear a respirator while you handle the powders.
  5. The pots, nestled and not touching. Set them into the sawdust rather than on it. Leave a couple of inches between pieces so vapor can move, and lay wider forms on their sides so the inside gets some of the atmosphere too.
  6. Organics packed around each piece. Dried banana peels, seaweed, straw, dry cow dung, copper wire, steel wool. This is where most of your color comes from, so put it in contact with the pot, not near it.
  7. Kindling, then bigger wood over the top. Small dry sticks first, then split wood stacked across the opening like a campfire. Build it up above ground level. It will collapse into the pit as it burns and that is the point.
  8. A sheet of metal to smother it. Not on at the start. Once the flames drop to coals you slide it partly over the pit to choke the oxygen, hold the smoke against the pots and slow the cool down. Roofing tin or an old kiln shelf both work.
3 Tips For PIT FIRING POTTERY, Demonstration Pot Firing at Steam Pump Ranch
Andy Ward’s Ancient Pottery

Step five

What makes what color

Treat every one of these as a tendency, not a promise. The same material in the same pit will read differently on the hot side than it does on the cool side.

Anything touching sawdust turns black. Copper carbonate gives reds, pinks and green flashes. Salt gives oranges and yellows. Red iron oxide gives warm browns. Dried banana peels give pink. None of it is predictable, so scatter a few different things rather than betting the pit on one.

MaterialWhat it tends to give youHow to use it
Sawdust and fine shavingsDeep black and soft grey carbon wherever it touches the clayA two to three inch bed at the bottom, plus handfuls packed around each pot
Copper carbonateReds, pinks, coppery flashes, sometimes a surprising greenSprinkled through the sawdust, or brushed on as a thin wash before loading
Table salt or rock saltOranges, yellows and warm blushesScattered into the bed, or soak string or burlap in salt water and wrap the pot
Red iron oxideWarm browns, rust and soft ochreA thin wash brushed straight onto the pot, or dusted into the sawdust
Dried banana peelsPinks and oranges, from the potassium in the skinDry them first, then lay them flat against the surface of the pot
Seaweed and kelpSmoky blues, violets and linear trailsDrape or wrap it around the pot, dried, so it holds its shape
Copper wireSharp linear marks in red and green where the wire satWound loosely around the form, not pulled tight
Steel woolDark rust halos and speckled edgesSmall pinches tucked against the pot, used sparingly
Dry cow or horse dungA long even smolder and the deepest blacks in the pitBroken into patties and packed over and around the pots
Miracle-Gro and similar fertilizersMixed pastels, because they carry copper, potassium and salts alreadyA light dusting only. More is not better and it can go muddy fast

One warning worth repeating. Copper carbonate, iron oxide and the rest are fine dry powders, and breathing them is bad for you in a way you will not notice on the day. Wear a fitted respirator while you are handling and scattering them, keep the bag closed when you are not using it, and wash your hands before you touch your face.

Ferric chloride shows up in a lot of saggar tutorials and it is genuinely caustic. It eats brushes, corrodes metal tools and burns skin. If you decide to use it, that is a full face shield, chemical gloves and outdoor-only territory, and we would leave it alone until you have a few ordinary firings behind you.

Step six

Fire day, hour by hour

The two rules that matter more than any of the rest: heat it slowly at the start, and cool it slowly at the end. Almost every crack in a pit fire is caused by rushing one of those.

  1. Warm the pots for an hour beside a small fire, turning them. Too hot to hold comfortably before they go in. This saves more pieces than anything else here.
  2. Load the pit in the order from the diagram. Take your time.
  3. Light it at the top, or at one end. Never from underneath, which sends the heat up fast and cracks pots.
  4. Feed it for two hours. Real flame, adding wood as it drops. This is where your temperature comes from.
  5. Let it fall to coals. Stop adding wood. The smoke gets heavy, and heavy smoke is doing the carbon work.
  6. Cover it with metal, leaving a small gap. Starving it of oxygen deepens the blacks and slows the cool down.
  7. Walk away overnight. No peeking. Cold air on a hot pot cracks pieces that survived the whole firing.
  1. The day before

    Get everything dry and in one place

    Wet fuel is the most common reason a pit never gets hot. Sawdust, wood, dung and organics all want to be genuinely dry. Lay out your gloves, tongs, respirator, shovel and water before you are tired.

  2. Hour 0

    Warm the pots

    Build a small fire next to the pit and set the pots around it, turning them every ten minutes or so for at least an hour. They should be too hot to hold comfortably before they go in. This one step will save you more pieces than anything else on this page.

  3. Hour 0 to 1

    Load the pit

    Build it in the order from the diagram above. Take your time here. Loading badly is the difference between a pit that burns evenly and one that roars at one end and sulks at the other.

  4. Hour 1

    Light it at the top, or at one end

    Lighting from the top lets the fire work downward slowly, which is exactly the gentle heat curve you want. Lighting from underneath sends it up fast and cracks pots. Some potters leave a pocket of shredded paper at one end as a starter and let the burn travel.

  5. Hours 1 to 3

    Open flame, and you feed it

    Keep a real fire going for a couple of hours, adding wood as it drops. This is where your temperature comes from. Do not poke at the pots and do not go looking for them.

  6. Hours 3 to 5

    Let it fall to coals

    Stop adding wood and let the flames die back to a glowing bed. The smoke gets thicker and heavier as it goes, and that heavy smoke is doing the carbon work on your pots.

  7. Around hour 5

    Cover it and smother it

    Slide your sheet of metal over most of the pit, leaving a small gap. Starving the fire of oxygen traps the smoke against the pots, deepens the blacks and slows the cool down all at once. Some potters shovel a layer of ash or sand over the coals first for the same reason.

  8. Overnight

    Walk away

    Do not lift the lid to peek. Cold air hitting a hot pot is thermal shock and it will crack pieces that survived everything else. Twelve hours minimum, and next morning is better.

Step seven

Opening it up, and what to do with what comes out

Everything comes out of the ash looking grey and disappointing. Do not judge a single piece until it has been washed and dried. Pots that look ruined at the pit turn into the best thing in the batch about a third of the time.

  1. Wait until it is cold. Not warm. If you can rest a bare hand flat on the ash, you are clear.
  2. Lift, do not drag. Sliding a pot across grit is its first scratch.
  3. Wash with plain water and a soft brush. Most of what looks like damage is loose ash.
  4. Dry it fully, then seal it. Paste wax deepens the color, matte acrylic keeps it as it is. Neither makes it food safe.
  1. Wait until it is cold to the touch. Not warm. Cold. If you can rest a bare hand flat on the ash and hold it there, you are clear.
  2. Lift, do not drag. Reach under each piece and pick it straight up. Sliding a pot across grit is how a good surface picks up its first scratch.
  3. Wash with plain water and a soft brush. No soap and no scrubbing at first. Most of what looks like damage is loose ash and it rinses straight off.
  4. Only then, go after the crust. If there is a hard deposit left, very light steel wool or a green scrub pad, dry, with almost no pressure. Stop the moment color starts lifting, because it will.
  5. Let it dry completely, then seal it. A paste wax buffed to a shine deepens every color and gives a soft glow. A matte acrylic spray keeps the surface exactly as it is and protects it better. Neither one makes the pot food safe or watertight.
  6. Sign it and date it. A soft pencil works on a pit fired surface, and in a year you will want to know which firing it came from and what you put in the pit.

If a piece is cracked but not in pieces, it is still worth finishing. Pit fired work is decorative anyway, and a hairline crack on a beautiful surface reads as history rather than failure. Save the harsh judgement for pots that came apart.

Pick your version

Four ways to do this

Same chemistry every time. What changes is how much digging you do, how much control you get, and how angry your neighbors are. There is a fifth option worth knowing about too: an old charcoal grill with a lid makes a surprisingly good miniature pit for small work, and it is the least conspicuous way to try this at all.

Same chemistry every time. Start with the open pit if you have the ground for it. If not, an old charcoal grill with a lid works for small pieces.

The open pit

  • Start here
  • Needs a yard

A hole in the ground, loaded as a layer cake, burned down and smothered. The most fuel, the most heat, the biggest color range, and the most work. If you have somewhere legal to dig, this is the one that gives you the real thing.

The most fuel, the most heat, the biggest color range, and the most work. If you can dig legally, start here.

You need: a shovel, a place you are allowed to burn, two to three cubic feet of sawdust, a wheelbarrow of split wood, and a sheet of metal.

Pit Fire Pottery In Your Backyard | NO Kiln!
Tinker & Think

The barrel

  • No digging
  • Hotter

A metal drum or galvanized trash can with holes punched around the base for air and a loose lid on top. Because it is enclosed it holds heat better than an open pit and runs hotter, and because it is above ground you can do it on a patio.

You need: a metal can, a drill, bricks to raise it off the ground, sawdust and small wood. Never a plastic-lined or painted can.

Firing Pottery in a Trash Can! 🔥FULL PROCESS🔥
Serena McRae

The foil saggar

  • Most control
  • Small work

Wrap a single pot in heavy duty aluminum foil with its own private handful of colorants sealed inside, then fire the parcel. The foil traps the vapor right against that one pot, so the effects are stronger, tighter and far more repeatable than anything loose in a pit.

Crinkle the foil and open it back out before wrapping, leave one small vent so pressure can escape, and remember foil starts breaking down around 1,400 degrees, which caps how hot you can push it.

Saggar Firing Pottery
The Pottery Wheel

The saggar in a kiln

  • The cheat
  • Not for our kilns

Foil parcels fired inside a raku or gas kiln instead of a bonfire. You get pit fire surfaces with a controlled ramp, a thermocouple and a two hour turnaround, which is why a lot of production potters work this way.

One firm caveat: this is not something to try in a studio electric kiln. Combustibles and salt vapor destroy elements and brick, so it belongs in a kiln somebody has deliberately sacrificed to the cause.

20. Tin Foil Saggar Fire Pottery in a Raku Kiln
Mikkel deMib - Pottery Tips

Keep this open

Two lists for a dirty hand and a phone

Tap a line to cross it off. Your ticks are saved on this device, so you can close the page, drive out to the pit and pick up where you left off.

Pack this

0 of 14

Fire day, in order

0 of 12

Troubleshooting

When it goes wrong

Every one of these has happened to somebody good at this. Most of them have a single cause and a single fix.

The three that will get you on a first firing.

The pot cracked cleanly in half

Thermal shock at the start. The pot went in cold, or the fire was lit from underneath. Warm the pots for an hour first, and light from the top.

Thermal shock, almost always at the start. Either the pot went in cold, or the fire was lit from underneath and came up fast. Warm your pots for a full hour next to a small fire before they go in, and light the pit from the top so the heat works its way down.

It blew apart with a bang

Water turning to steam with nowhere to go. Bisque first, and press the base to your cheek before it goes near heat. Cool means damp.

Water. Either the pot was not bone dry, or it was raw greenware with chemical water still in it, and the steam had nowhere to go. Bisque first, and press the base against your cheek before it goes anywhere near heat. Cool to the touch means it is still holding moisture.

Everything came out grey and boring

Three usual suspects. The surface was not burnished or terra sigged, so there was nothing for the color to sit on. The colorants were scattered near the pots instead of pressed against them. Or the pit never got hot enough to open the pores of the clay, which is usually damp fuel or too little wood.

Grey is also what a wash looks like before it dries. Rinse and wait a day before you decide.

The color rubbed off on my hand

Normal. The color is a deposit, not glass. Wash it, dry it fully, then seal with paste wax or matte acrylic.

That is normal and it is the nature of the process. Pit fire color is a deposit sitting on the surface, not glass fused into it. Wash the piece, dry it completely, then seal it with paste wax or a matte acrylic spray. After that it will handle normal shelf life fine.

The fire never seemed hot enough

Damp fuel is the number one cause, and sawdust that has been sitting in a shed all winter counts as damp. After that it is airflow: a pit packed too tightly cannot breathe, and a pit that is too shallow loses its heat straight up. Dig deeper, pack a little looser, and put more wood on than feels reasonable.

One side is gorgeous and the other is nothing

Completely normal, and a lot of potters chase it on purpose. It means one side sat against fuel and colorant and the other faced open air. If you want it more even, roll wider forms onto their sides and pack material all the way around rather than mostly underneath.

The burnished shine went dull

Burnished surfaces start losing their gloss above roughly 1,800 degrees, so an unusually hot pit will flatten them. It can also be the ash crust, which comes off with a rinse and a very light buff. Sealing with paste wax brings a lot of the depth back either way.

It smells like a campfire and will not stop

A porous pot holds smoke the way a sponge holds water, and there is no fast fix. Air the piece out for a couple of weeks somewhere dry, then seal it. Sealing traps whatever is left, so do not rush that step. The smell fades a lot in the first month.

Questions

What people ask us about pit firing

Can I drink out of a pit fired mug?

No. The pot is porous, unglazed, and carrying a surface layer of carbon and mineral residue. It is not food safe, it will not hold liquid for long, and sealing it does not change either of those. Pit fired work is sculpture that happens to be hollow.

Can I pit fire at The Clay Hole?

There is no pit here and there is not going to be one. What we do run is raku, outdoors in Alpine, about six times a year, and it is the closest thing we offer to this kind of firing. Details and dates live on the workshop page and the studio calendar.

Do I have to bisque first?

You do not have to, but you should for a first firing. Bisqued pots survive at a much higher rate. Raw greenware gives deeper blacks and is how it was done for thousands of years, and it also breaks a lot more. Bisque firing here is free and goes to cone 05, which works well for this.

Which of your clays should I use?

The groggier the better. Grog and sand let the wall move under thermal stress instead of splitting, so a speckled or sandy stoneware is a far safer bet than a smooth porcelain. Ask at the counter and we will point you at the bodies with the most tooth in them.

Can I refire something that came out boring?

Yes, and it is a good habit. Wash it, dry it fully, and put it back in the next pit with more material packed against it. Each firing adds another layer of carbon and vapor, and second-firing pots often come out better than the ones that went in fresh. Warm it slowly again, the same as any other piece.

Is raku the same thing?

Related, but no. Raku heats glazed pots in a kiln to around 1,800 degrees, then pulls them out glowing and drops them into combustibles for a few minutes. Pit firing is unglazed, buried, and takes all day. Raku is fast, loud and dramatic. Pit firing is slow and patient. Both are reduction, and both are unpredictable, which is the family resemblance.

How long before I can touch them?

Overnight at minimum, and the next morning is better. The pit holds heat far longer than it looks like it should, and a pot pulled while it is still warm can crack from the cold air alone after surviving the entire firing.

One last thing

Go in expecting to be surprised

Pit firing is the one process in ceramics where the point is that you are not in charge. You prepare carefully, you load thoughtfully, and then you hand the whole thing to a fire that does not care what you had in mind. The pots that come out are a record of what happened in that hole on that day, which is exactly why no two of them will ever match.

Make more than you need. Warm them slowly. Cool them slower. Everything else is variation.

Make more than you need. Warm them slowly. Cool them slower. Everything else is variation. For the colorant chart, the four methods and the full troubleshooting list, switch the toggle back to Comprehensive.

Raku workshops The closest thing we run to this. Outdoors in Alpine, about six times a year. Studio calendar Workshop dates, classes, closures and everything else happening here. Clay Hole University Every technique we have written up, sorted into departments, with quizzes. Glaze finder For the pots that are staying indoors and going in a real kiln. Underglazes Surface color you actually get to choose, for when the fire has had its turn. Studio FAQs Firing costs, memberships, hours and the rest of how this place works.

Videos on this page are embedded from YouTube and belong to the makers credited beside them. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Burn rules change, so confirm the current window and air quality action with your local fire authority before every firing.