Starting your fire Firing Your Oven Discuss Starting your fire in the Oven Management forums; I tried top down a couple times tonight with no luck.. it seemed like there just wasn't enough oxygen in ...

[blacknoir]

I tried top down a couple times tonight with no luck.. it seemed like there just wasn't enough oxygen in the oven to keep the paper knots burning let alone start the kindling beneath it.

What did work was the blow torch method! I held that on the lower pieces for a bit and soon enough I had a fire going.

I haven't given up though with the top down method. I'm going to get a better axe tomorrow so I can cut up some smaller kindling to put on the top of the pile and give it another go. I'm curious though where you guys build the fire when you do this. In the middle of the oven, in the entry or in between?

-Shay

[Les]

Originally Posted by blacknoir

I tried top down a couple times tonight with no luck.. it seemed like there just wasn't enough oxygen in the oven to keep the paper knots burning let alone start the kindling beneath it.

Shay, you may have it backwards. I will NEVER start a fire the old way. You put the big stuff on the bottom and increment up to the kindling on top. After the first course, I crumple up a couple of sheets of newspaper. Stack a couple of more rows of wood and do the same. At the end, I top it w/ kindling and the puppy takes off like no other. The great thing about it is you can walk away for 1/2 to an hour without looking back - gives you some time to address the real work.

Les...

[blacknoir]

wait, so it's like a multi-layer sandwich with a couple sheets of paper in between? ie.

kindling - this is the top
paper
small wood
paper
medium wood
paper
large wood - bottom

I thought top down just had paper on the very top?

[Les]

Works for me - James has a video posted somewhere. I think he didn't even add more wood to get to temp. I'm not there yet...


Les...

[blacknoir]

I actually just watched it and was going to post the link.

http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f41/...ideo-5294.html (Top Down Fire Video)