[maver]

Luis, I am staggered at the temperatures you reach in your oven, this emboldens me to perhaps try larger fires - I have seen the oven hearth actually drop a little in temperature after about 30 minutes when the fire has died down a little during the preheat sometimes from 750 back down to 700. I thought the 750 might be a threshold that I would not be able to surpass, but with your higher hearth temperatures I may try to push it past this during the preheat.

I'm surprised to hear your observation that the fire over the cooking surface actually slows down heating of the hearth - I would have expected it just not to help, but not to shield it from heating.

Where in the hearth bricks are your thermocouples? Are they in the surface layer, the middle, or under the bricks (it sounds like you might actually have several of these locations measured)?

I'm understanding that you fire your oven for 2 1/2 to four hours to reach pizza cooking temperatures - what does your hearth temperature vs time graph look like (hopefully with a superficial and a deep hearth reading)? Can you graph this (even a plot of several data points would be helpful) with a corresponding thermocouple or two in the dome at the interior surface of the oven?

While different ovens will perform differently at heating, your data could really help provide a concrete basis to oven management. I've cooked pizza in a little over an hour from the time I start my fire, and can get away with this with small amounts of pizza cooked, but I certainly have had a falloff of hearth temperature towards the end of my cooking despite having a flame in my oven 3/4 of the way to the apex of the dome. I have seen better crust when I have preheated the oven more than 1 1/2 hours. For bigger parties it sounds like the 3-4 hour preheat may be needed.

Thank you for your two cents, I think you've changed my understanding of this significantly.