[james]

I was talking with Dave in DC the other day, and I think we came across of good way of describing just how much heat a 2 1/2"-3" oven floor and dome can hold. Think of your oven as a sponge, soaking up water from a spray bottle. You keep straying the sponge on one side, and that side gets wet, but the other side of the sponge is bone dry. If you spray and wait, spray and wait, at some point, the whole sponge will get wet -- or fully saturated.

That is basically what is happening with our wood-fired ovens. You put a lot of heat into the inner face with a large fire, but outer edge of the floor and dome are still cold until the oven absorbs more heat. Just think how much fire and heat it would take to fully saturate a 2 1/2"-3" oven to where it was 800ºF all the way to the outer edge. And think about how much heat would be stored for baking.

My point is that there are no residential cooking requirements that cannot be addressed with standard a FB oven (pre-made or Pompeii). If you need more heat, you can fire the oven longer, and it will store more heat.

Back to my sponge analogy. If you spray a thicker sponge with the same amount of water, that water will just be wicked to the outer edge of the sponge, so that none of the sponge will be wet -- it will all be damp (or in oven terms, warm, not hot).

The fatter sponge, or thicker oven, cannot retain water (heat) that you have not put in.

What do you think? Does the analogy work for you?

I know I have said this before, but I think the idea that thicker is better can really get folks off on the wrong foot.

James