Steel Dome Oven

[Wiley]

Dave, Quilcene is just a short run away. I'm "free" most of the time and save for a tree I have to cut down and clean up, this Saturday would be fine. PM me if that works for you. I can show you the neighbors' two cob ovens as well. Can you find your way to the store in Nordland?

The rest of you, that's an inside joke ....... Nordland, the nearest town to where I live, has only one store! But directions to where I live are easy from there.
Wiley

[BCiliberto]

Hello Mr. Wiley!

I'm loving the oven i built early this year, and would like to put one together for on the road.

Have been admiring your work and postings-- great idea! Very clever!

How's your baking going? Are you hitting your temps, and is the heat being retained to your satisfaction?

I recently obtained a 500 gall propane tank and will probably be starting a truck mounted version of your oven soon. Any additional observations or advice ?

Thanks!

[Wiley]

BCiliberto,
Thank you for the kind words :-)
On the whole I have been pleased with my WFO. I have not done as much baking as I expected but that has been due to other circumstances that have placed demands upon my time rather than any fault in the oven. I have still to make a "overnight" insulated door for heat retention, again that is due to time contraints. Heat up is quite quick, I am able to reach pizza temps in about forty to fifty minutes of burn and that is not trying to create some sort of fire storm in the oven. I have developed a routine which allows me to build and bake a pizza, I then rake the coals over the open area and throw on a few small pieces of wood. I can then sit and enjoy the pizza with my company and enjoy the spectacle of the flames and fire thru the windows of our solarium indoor eating area. A second pizza and all subsequent pizzas follow the routine of raking off the coals, giving the hearth a quick sweep and placing the just built pizza, baking and then raking the coals over the hearth and adding a few sticks of wood. Using this technique I have enjoyed as many as five pizzas with my wife and another couple without significant hearth temp drop or extension of cooking time over a period of 2 hours. I imagine many WFO owners have a similar routine for cooking in "off season" (late fall, winter and spring) when one doesn't eat outside.

Regarding alterations of design, I would increase the size of the transition area where the chimney joins the entrance; at present I have a six inch chimney which has just over 28 square inches of area in cross section, the transition opening is 27 square inches (that's the rectangular hole in the wheel). I would increase that 27 sq inches to something larger and perhaps increase to an 8 inch chimney as there are times during initial fireup that there is more smoke created than the chimney can handle and so it escapes out the front.

This is my first WFO and so I have little emperical experience other than this oven. I have seen pictures of ovens which from the soot staining have similar problems yet have larger chimney and transition areas. SO I could be wrong that changes in what I did will be productive. The situation with my oven is by no measure bad enough to warrant a tear down and/or rebuild/modification of my existing oven.

If I were designing one for the road I would think about using two domes with diameters something like 40 and 48 inches. One within the other and the space between filled with my basalt refractory or something similiar. The domes would have the entrance and transition areas in steel and would have all their top insulation exterior to the outer dome. The dome shells would be joined to each other at the the bases and they would be able to be bolted to a trailer frame. The idea being to keep the whole together regardless of road condition. The whole idea of using bricks on a trailer seems to me problem prone and destined to failure. Great for a static build but to paraphase Borat..... "for bouncing down a road... Not so much".

Wiley

[BCiliberto]

Good Stuff Wiley!

Thank you-- I'll post some pics when i get going-- going to build it into an older Ford 150-- supposed to come in this week.

Just in from cooking up 2 stromboli's and 7 pizzas-- just delicious, nothing like fresh bread!! Ran one to my mom, wife, son and I kncoked off the rest. I dough a real thin crust from a 4 oz. dough ball. About a 10 " pizza.

I'm hoping to do some fundraisers at events, serving up small pizzas for donations to the cause of the day (anything but political ) !

I'm hoping to have it completed by the end of the year-- your idea about the steel dome and wheel really puts me at ease about trucking down the road. Being an old mason, the thought of bouncing bricks or a fragile cast shell around made me cringe.


Thanks again and enjoy your baking!

Ben