Curing my 42" low dome oven Firing Your Oven Discuss Curing my 42" low dome oven in the Oven Management forums; There were times yesterday when I could really feel the heat in my face and when I was placing pieces ...

[builder brad]

There were times yesterday when I could really feel the heat in my face and when I was placing pieces of wood on the hearth I could almost feel the hairs on the back of my hand burning.

One time I loaded a pile of really dry pine strips in and the flames were licking all around the inside of the dome. I had to spread the wood out on the floor to stop it from going into overdrive! and then I knew it was HOT. I also noticed that almost all of the soot had burned off of the inside of the dome.

Lets see what I can top out at later today!

here are the temps right now:

top dome 240C
Exterior of dome 247C
Near surface Hearth 213C
Deep Hearth 207C
Bottom of Base between insulation and Hearth 74C

so even with the small fire going all morning I have lost heat by opening up the bricked in door. The lower hearth temps are probably because of the amount of ash covering it.

Brad

[builder brad]

DAY 5!

I blocked up the door overnight with a piece of 2mm thick stainless steel cut to fit into the opening perfectly, with a couple of mm gap in places at the most around the edges. Then I put some of the off-cut ceramic board in the opening.

temps this morning:
top dome 255C
Exterior of dome 257C
Near surface Hearth 208C
Deep Hearth 214C
Bottom of Base between insulation and Hearth 76C

I just added some more wood, and it lit from the smouldering embers!

[builder brad]

OK

bank holiday weekend over........almost. I am writing this on Monday evening 10.30pm.

I have really tried to push the oven over the last couple of nights, and have maneaged to get the interior of he dome to clear completely of the black soot, however the thermocuples have never gone over 400C. The most frustrating thing tonight was trying to hit 500C from a cold start and after 3 hours getting to 350 with everyone asking when we could use the oven.

the thing is I am using wood that has not been properly dried, bought from a neighbour planning for his winter, and I needed to use a hairdrier and baffle plate to give the fire a BIG kick start.

everyone has now gone home and my wife is in bed - I have just reached 430 Celcius and cooked the best pizza of the weekend, but I have eaten it on my own. I did not really get to eat as I was chopping wood ect.

Pleas tell me this is going t get easier.

Brad

[egalecki]

I don't know how much easier it gets when your wood isn't as dry as it ought to be, but with proper wood it does indeed get easier. The first time I took my oven up all the way it took forever. The second time was faster. I think there's a lot of moisture in there even after the week long cure, and as it leaves, it gets easier to start a fire as well as get it up to temp. My oven was so damp inside at first it was hard to even get a fire started, much less keep it burning and get the oven hot!

Patience....

[Frances]

You'll fnd the weather influences your oven, too. After a long dry spell its far easier to get the oven up to temp than after a week of rain.

The bit that gets easier is the planning. As you get to know the oven better you can guess at how long it'll take on a certain day and start firing accordingly. You'll probably also get better at grabbing a slice of pizza inbetween cooking for everyone else...

[builder brad]

cheers Elizabeth + Frances.

on a really positive note the dome temps this morning were sitting at 360 C, so the insulation is doing its job!

Brad