Starting your fire

[PizzaPolice]

Me? ..Sticking with the weed burner. I've got 2500 pounds of mass to heat. Sticks ain't gonna cut it if I want to eat on the same calendar day.
What's really nice about this is that a man can tip out to the oven on a skin numbing, cold morning and set the torch to low and after some coffee and prepping in the kitchen, I can return and get the blaze a goin' in earnest. No thermal shock. My 2¢.

[Mojoe]

Pair of long johns, wool stocking cap, hot cup of coffee, and the smell of burning wood... makes any morning a good morning.
Never calculated the total weight of my bread oven but I've got 1,750 lbs just in fire brick, couple more pounds in the 4" thick concrete cladding, few more pounds in the 4" thick vermiculite hearth slab and a couple more in the 4" thick concrete hearth slab...I'm cooking in less than 2hrs.

[Inishta]

For starting fires and barbeques we in Turkey use Cirra. It is heartwood from a pine tree and has a high resin concetration. It bursts into flame with little persuasion and readily lights larger kindling reducing the time taken to get to cooking temps. Dont think it would work with the top down burn but if I put it in a couple of rows from the top it may work. Must give it a try.

[Frances]

Is there any reason against using nut shells as kindling? Peanuts and walnuts?

[oventhusiast]

I was using newspaper and sticks (kindling) but I found these babies at Home Depot for $3.00 a box. They are awesome! You can put them under a pile of split logs and within two or three minutes, the logs are burning! I use two under the pile but I'm sure you could get away with using only one towards the middle of the log stack. I use one of those candle lighters to get under the stack to light them. (see photo)
Rick

[Ken524]

I grabbed a box of "Fatwood" sticks at Walmart the other day. They work great. It only takes on or two sticks to start a roaring fire.

Fatwood is simply dried out pine that contains a high concentration of resin. When they burn, they have a nice pine smell that reminds me of Christmas.

Fatwood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[fullback66]

Anyone try the drier lent yet?
works good.
fb66

[Ken524]

Anyone try the drier lent yet?

Alright... I'm up for it. My oven is already damaged goods so I'll give the lint a whirl .

It'll be a few days before I try another fire. That will give me some time to collect a few handfuls (with 6 in the house, I should be able to collect quite a bit!)

[fullback66]

Ken,
Why do you say your oven is damaged goods?
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[Ken524]

Originally Posted by fullback66

Why do you say your oven is damaged goods?

Just joking. I'm in the middle of repairing a cracked/separating entry arch. I'll restart curing fires in a couple of days to see if it'll hold.