Oven Curing Firing Your Oven Discuss Oven Curing in the Oven Management forums; Last night’s burn went different than I had anticipated, not bad just different. I started the burn at 6:30 and ...

[SCChris]

Last night’s burn went different than I had anticipated, not bad just different. I started the burn at 6:30 and gave it an hour of gentle flame, less than full throttle, before I opened things up full. At 8:00 I was approaching 360 at 9:30 I was 370 in some places and at 11 I was about the same although the temps were more consistent. It’s at this point I decided that I could settle in for a few hours, and did. I woke at 3:30 and went to check temps, holy $#1+, I was 410 throughout, and 210 on the top outside ½ of the dome, 180 on the soldiers. I decided that it was time to shut things down and take stock in the morning. The interior temps are now about 260 and the exterior top is down to 170. No cracks that I can see so far. I still need to do a real visual of the interior and exterior without the loose bats, but these will wait till things cool more. The 210 temp says to me that I was pushing steam, I didn’t see any, but the temp and broad distribution of this temp says that this is what was going on. The chimney stack was cool and the top of the interior entry arch was over 530. Today's work is to get a building frame in place. With weather coming and the need to organize the semi-rigid insulation, at least to the point where I can continue curing. I'm a bit suprised that the burner is able to push temps to 400+ without formal, taylored, insulation.

Chris

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Hi Chris,,
As your driving the moisture out, you can see its building heat,, Thats great..

Cheers
Mark

[SCChris]

On further inspection, no heat related cracking has been found. On Sunday I ran to Lowes and gathered steel studs and channel for the surround and I now have a steel box frame built 38” high around the dome. The next task is to apply ½ inch thick Hardie Backer to the sides and back of the steel and block structure. This weekend, I'll line the interior of this outside wall with unfaced fiberglass insulation; this insulation will support the rockwool, RW, bats. I’ll use these RW bats directly against the dome. I have 3, 4 cuft, bags of vermiculite to fill in what holes I can't easily get RW or FG insulation into. I’ll be using all these materials to level out the insulation within the box. I'll be leaving some space around the insulation, next to the studs, to provide air movement and hopefully minimize humidity that would chew up the steel framing. Before I do a final pack on the insulation and dump the vermiculite I want to get the curing fires done and get the OMG fire behind me. This weekend I push forward with 500 and 600 degree burns and begin using wood rather than LP.

Sorry I don’t have any pictures, I’ll add some soon.

Chris

[jmhepworth]

Everything sounds good.

Joe

[SCChris]

Last night I started the burn at 5:30PM and just finished at 2:00PM 20.5 hours and a max temp of 540 degrees. I now have cement board surounding the oven and this is gong to help to get the maximum amount of insulation within this structure.

Tonight I'll run another long burn and figure that I'm 95% there as far as curing. I know the cure instruction indicate run a sieries of long burns ending at about where I now am at, but I want one more long high temp burn and a 2 or 3 carefull, non temp shocking, wood burns ending in the OMG 800 to 900 degree burn. So I guess I have 3 or so more burns to the oven being ready for anything.

Chris

[SCChris]

No more fires since Oct. 31st, :-( but I have the structure insulated top to bottom, front to back and left to right. The roof structure is coming along and I hope to get the box water tight this weekend.

Chris

[SCChris]

Status - November 23.

I have been running up the temp by use of the propane torch and the last burn, several weeks ago, I held a maximum of 540f, for several hours, at the end of 20+ hours of gradual heat increase. Yesterday, Sunday, I started the torch at 9am and built the temp with the door mostly closed, for about 1.5 hours and then started adding almond wood. Once I had a good fire I removed the torch and built the temp to 350 at the top of the soldiers somthing about 500 at the top of the dome. With the door open and keeping the fire low, I added a package of beets to roast and 45 minutes later added a rib roast with foil covering the top, sitting on a bed of roasting vegetables. Once the roast was out I added wood and built up to just shy of a full raging fire. After 20 minutes the dome was clear of soot and reading 850.. I sacrificed a quick margarita pizza to the oven, not quite sacrificed it looked like hell but tasted fine.


Chris

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

not quite sacrificed it looked like hell but tasted fine

I like to say If its pretty take a picture then eat it... If its not... Just eat it....

Congrats
Mark

[SCChris]

The last 2, all wood, burns have been to high temps. No smoke where it’s not supposed to be and no observed cracks, yet. I’m happy that the propane, LP Gas, method of long sustained, temperature controlled burns, cured things just fine.

Thanks for all of those who are contributing to, and those who have contributed to, the curing forum for your help! For those coming after, I’ll do my best to lend a hand where I can.

Chris

[spazio]

I just lit my first fire today. It's been pretty cold (around freezing for the better part of several weeks). The dome has been curing for almost a month while I built and insulated the enclosure. I've been running a fan/heater inside the dome for most of that time, so it's probably well pre-cured and dried out. The ambient humidity has been fairly high, plus I've had a tarp over it for the first few weeks while the heater was on, so much of the moisture likely got trapped and helped keep the mortar damp. Temp inside was probably up to about 100 f or so much or that time. It also sat for a while recently at ambient, about 30 deg. Today's fire was about high 200's for about a half hour, and now it's cooling off. I'm hoping to do two fires a day, morning and evening, as long as it drops to about 50 or so. I'm trying not to let it drop to ambient for now, that's scary cold. Any hints for cold weather curing? Where should I be measuring the temps, top of the dome?