 Re: What I have learned so far.
When you count 8 fires, does that include the curing fires? With my oven, I had 7 curing fires, then it took at least six more fires to finish the curing process. After that, the oven 'jumped' to pizza temp much more readily and was easier to achieve a white dome. No need to push it with a super big fire yet - if your dome was 860 and the floor 690 I suspect you have a little more cooking to do before it jumps to that 850-900 floor range within an hour, so don't go too big just yet.
See if you can find some other wood to use as kindling - you could use a propane torch but some seasoned pine or alder makes a great firestarter. Hardwoods, even well seasoned, are harder to get started. Fruit wood probably won't be a lot different than walnut.
You don't need to take all the coals out, but every now and then you ought to rake the coals out because some of that ash will accumulate and impair oxygen delivery to the fire. I personally would not use a shop vac - just an oven rake (I use an old garden hoe that I used to mix the concrete) and a metal pail - the coals go in the compost pile. If you do use a shop vac wait at least 4-5 days to ensure there are no hot coals.  |