Trouble firing up my 42 inch Pompeii oven

[Neil2]

"Has anyone tried coal;if so, where did you buy it?"

I use coal occasionally. Check with your local blacksmiths, they will have a line on coal supplies. They also use the right type of coal (hard low sulfur anthracite). The local blacksmiths here have a sort of co-op where they chip in to get a truckload from time to time and are happy to have more people contribute. If you have a local artifacts or agricultural society that fool around with steam engines, this may also be a contact.

When I use coal, I start the fire with wood and add the coal about halfway thru the burn.

As to it taking 6 hours to get up to temperature, assuming it is cured, one cause may be that your fire is too small. I have a 40 inch and mine reaches temperature in about 90 min. I usually put in a small fire for the first 30 min then load it up all at once with about a cubic foot of well seasoned wood = a large armful, almost filling the oven right up. I don't add anymore wood after that.

You want a "plasma god" hot fire.


"Can I only build one fire a day?"

Normally only one fire a day is used. The oven is brought up to the 1000 F level to cook pizza. After the oven cools down, other thing can be cooked, often into the next day.

[Lburou]

Susan, if you are asking about the interval between fires during curing and using Fornobravo.com's recommended protocol, you can light a fire early in the morning and another as soon as the oven cools. James' explanation about this gives an actual temperature that I don't remember, but its close to 100-120 F, if memory serves.

This video shows how to light a fire and gives you a visual data point on how big a fire you need to heat the oven after it is cured. Remember, the cooling cycle between fires is going to take longer with each fire. HTH.

[SusanRHall]

Wow. Thank you. After watching that I realize I've not been making the fires near big enough.

[Ken524]

Originally Posted by Neil2

You want a "plasma god" hot fire.

BINGO! That's a good description.