Alan Scott "Artisan" Brick Oven

[Lburou]

Originally Posted by Ethel

There is a layer of vermiculate above the slab but below the hearth in my oven.

Happy to hear that!

The early fornobravo pompeii oven plans had the insulation under the hearth slab....The latest plans have insulation on top of the hearth slab, like yours. A much more efficient design than the earlier plans. Glad to hear you have done so well in the construction of your beautiful oven.

[Polo]

Originally Posted by Ethel

There is a layer of vermiculate above the slab but below the hearth in my oven.

Ethel,
I would be interested to hear how well your oven retains heat. Theory is all well and good, but I would like to base some conclusions on real life experience comparing the two different designs. My oven includes the extra mass of the hearth support slab with the insulation layer below it.

[Ethel]

I wish I could provide more detail. The oven is at a weekend property so I haven't been able to monitor it very well so far. We fire it up on Friday night and Saturday morning and then cook pretty much all day Saturday. We get it up very high (800 hearth, 400-500 inner mass, 200-300 outer mass) and then we have to leave on Sunday. Between Saturday night and Sunday we close down oven and the heat stabilizes throughout the mass. I tried to put a pot of beans in overnight and I just succeeded in frying them. There was way too much heat at that point.

So bear with me. We will spend a week up there sometime this fall and I'll get a much better sense of it. I'll also start baking bread so I will have to pay closer attention. It's a brand new oven and I've been away from brick oven stewardship for eight years.

[Polo]

Fair enough Ethel. My oven is fairly new (9 months) as well and seems to behave much as yours does in regards to heating and holding heat. Fired up to 900F for pizza last night and temps this morning were at 550F. I am interested to see if there is really such a difference in results. I'll ask again later in the fall if you don't mind.