Curing strategy Firing Your Oven Discuss Curing strategy in the Oven Management forums; Sounds like your slow elimination of water is working well. If you reached 350 your almost there. You will probably ...

[david s]

Sounds like your slow elimination of water is working well. If you reached 350 your almost there. You will probably notice that when the inside goes white there will be a ring of black around the bottom, on the inside. This is an indication that the heat hasn't quite driven out all the water there. Your oven performance wil continue to improve the more you use it. Throw in a roast to use some of the heat you've captured.

[david s]

Mieno,
Just cookedsome pizzas tonight, for my wife, son and self. Oven to pizza temp in one hour and about 3Kg of wood used. In my baby oven an evening meal like this is so easy. I tried the step down method tonight and was amazed that it worked really well, and, hardly any smoke. I my youth i did alot of camping and hiking in the Victorian Alps and starting a fire there, in Victorian winter, is an achievement. Glad to hear your oven preparation is working well. You don't have to go to pizza temp straight away. Try cooking something like puff pastries, bread or a roast.Seems a pity to waste the heat.

[mieno]

Originally Posted by david sewell

Mieno,
Just cookedsome pizzas tonight, for my wife, son and self. Oven to pizza temp in one hour and about 3Kg of wood used. In my baby oven an evening meal like this is so easy. I tried the step down method tonight and was amazed that it worked really well, and, hardly any smoke. I my youth i did alot of camping and hiking in the Victorian Alps and starting a fire there, in Victorian winter, is an achievement. Glad to hear your oven preparation is working well. You don't have to go to pizza temp straight away. Try cooking something like puff pastries, bread or a roast.Seems a pity to waste the heat.

David
I'm almost there with the cure and all has gone well. Around where the render meets the chimney there is some cracking - having a look at it, it is no surprise as the render tended to taper to a feather edge in this region. I'm at about 350 C on the floor and 400 C at the top of the dome. The gidgee was great to use - caught a lot easier than those cheap Bunnings heat beads!
I'll see what the temp is tomorrow night and hopefully do a roast. I agree about wasting the heat. Can you give a brief guide on how you prep your oven for pizzas? Do you push your coals to the side/ rear etc. What temps do you aim for on the floor/dome?

Also, what type of oven is yours? Thanks

[david s]

My oven is quite small, so I find it easier to take out about half the coals and dump them into a $5 crazy Clarks galv bucket 1/2 filled with water (careful of steam) It'll burn off the galv if you don't put in water. I then push the remaining coals to the outside of the oven, and blow the ash to the outsides also, using a piece of 12mm copper pipe (blow don't suck!)Then slide your first pizza off a wooden pizza peel (some semolina flour or cornmeal between the dough base and the peel will stop it from sticking) You have to use a jerking motion. Have your next pizza ready because the fist one will be really quick. Seems to be like pancakes the first one is often not perfect. Hardest part is rolling out the dough. We cook only one pizza at atime but if you getem straight in youll cook for about an hour. If your doing a party for lots of people the frozen bases are easier (but not quite as good)

[david s]

Have no idea what the flooor temp is. I do have a pyrometer with probe set in about half way up the dome, but you get to know when its up to temp. Methods I use are ...
1. Just get it really hot, it wo't go much over 400 C because of heat loss (unless you use some forced air induction)
2. I start my stopwatch when I light the fire and slide the first pizza in 1 1/2 hours later.
3. A hand held to the outside of the oven tells you when the heat has crept right down to the base of the dome. Unless your insulation is so good the outside is still cool to touch, after 1 1/2 hrs

I love playing with fire,
Sorry I ramble.

[david s]

The second oven I built had cracks around the flue that seemed to be caused by the expanding ss flue pi[e getting hot first and expanding. Now I use a layer of vermiculite with 10% cement in it surrounding the flue and the ferro cement shell around that. Seems to work ok, just a few hairline cracks that become visible when oven hot but youcant see them when the oven cools and they dont get any bigger. Dont worry too much about small cracks.