Cooking For Engineers

[CJM]

Hi - I am a newbie to this site and hope I am not revisiting a past thread. I am designing a new type of outdoor oven and face a dilemma between engineering dogma and what CFE members feel is right for the task. The first question concerns whether or not fired ceramic is preferrable as a direct cooking surface for bread (compared to say loaf tins). The second question is whether charcoal or wood fires add anything to bread (pizza, naan etc) other than a smokey flavour. Since these questions are largely subjective, I would be glad to hear any views on these topics. I want to build an oven that is affordable, energy efficient, quick to heat up and that people love to use. However, hard nosed engineering offers several alternative configurations that may achieve the engineeering goals - but are an emotional turn-off. It would help if you can qualify your opinion.