We were just at one of these near Beloit. A family member’s band had a small gig. They sell about 100 pizzas on weekends they’ve booked a band. During weekdays, they have limited hours for their store (produce, etc.), and occasionally have breakfast hours. It’s a real farm, but the acreage is small so they also have day jobs.
It didn’t occur to me that it might be a Wisconsin thing and I still suspect these exist everywhere, because the trend seems more about it being easy to buy and install wood-fired pizza ovens, to make and market new Pinterest-ish outdoor event venues, and to work remote jobs that support hobby farming.
I remember a friend who lived in minnesota, but his family had "a hobby farm in wisconsin". Is hobby farming something special wrt wisconsin, does the state give hobby farms some sort of financial advantage, or does wisconsin just have a lot of farmland?
I don’t know about government incentives, but it does have tons of farmland and a culture of pride in WI dairy and agriculture. Parts of southern WI do a lot of tourist business for the Chicago area, and a break from urban life is part of that appeal.
Not completely. If the wood is from renewable sources, the carbon usage is low, because it gets recaptured when they grow the next batch. Net carbon usage is from transport and logging. As such it's much better than fossil fuels.
It does contribute to air pollution, but that's more of a problem in a city, where it's diluted over a smaller area.
I did once look into whether it would be possible to run a carbon negative BBQ by doing wood pyrolysis of renewable wood and ending up with black carbon to bury. It does seem possible, but still has the air quality issue. And there's a risk that you'd emit some methane (if you fail to burn it), which would be bad. Also, I wasn't sure how to figure out whether it would emit more CO than a normal BBQ. In theory that would be the best case for carbon though.
The issue with pizza ovens specifically is that they reach operating temperatures (450-500C / 840-930F) where black carbon does not accumulate, it oxidises away into the air. I see this happen every time I use my pizza oven and leave some flour behind in it.
Yeah I was going off at a tangent from pizza ovens.
Pyrolysis happens when you heat wood in a chamber with low ventilation (low oxygen) , which causes flammable gases (methane, CO etc) to be emitted, leaving black carbon. The flammable gases are then burned separately, to sustain the process and also to heat whatever you want. Methane burns at hot enough temperatures to power a pizza oven; so in theory you could construct one powered by pyrolysis, but it isn't going to happen in an unmodified one. A normal one should be constructed to ventilate the wood well, to avoid emitting too much CO.
There is a video on youtube of some guy pyrolizing some wood by putting a metal box with it in in his oven - it's not rocket science. But I live in a city, so in the end it didn't seem like a good idea to experiment with it.
HN: if you glance at this person's comment history, it's clear they're commenting here for bad-faith politics trolling. They don't genuinely believe the provocative things they write—they're trying to get a rise out of you.
>> repeatedly hit by climate-change induced typhoons here
If anyone was curious. Well insulated pizza oven needs surprisingly little wood. It takes some to put it in the right tempature but then it just needs piece here and there to retain it. It will stay hot for hours afterwards so many people afterthey are done with pizza use it for slow cooking, pulled meats and broths. Often you can even make breakfast eggs next morning.
yes, any time you're burning wood you're climate unfriendly. But a lot of other things are climate unfriendly: where do you live what's the energy source breakdown? It's all renewable? Your computer was manufactured and furnaces were involved at some point: what about their emission? It's CO2 all the way down.
You should look at all of this relatively: from an absolute standpoint, humanity isn't good for the planet
CO2 levels were at least an order of magnitude higher millions of years ago. Perhaps that is better and humanity is actually improving the planet? Who is to say what is good for a planet?
Enjoyed this in upstate New York years ago. Apple orchard started serving pizzas in addition to hard apple cider. The pizzas are great—better than they should be. Now the pizza is the destination. Great concept.
This is appealing in that it rips us away from our modern "connected but alone" vices. We should all be making an effort more often to connect over pizza - or whatever.
I refer you to the hn guidelines, 'did you even read it' is considered off limits.
Yes it is obviously a farm that sells pizza, but doesn't that begin to pose follow up questions for you? It is a pretty incongruous scene. Farms rear animals, grow crops and generally trade wholesale. They are also pretty remote.
Small farms rarely do much action wholesale, because they can make a lot more money retail - either farmer's markets, or community supported agriculture, or honey, or something else - like this.
And while lots of large farms are miles from anywhere, many farms are only a few minutes outside of major cities - commuting farms (or more and more, work from home farms).
