New oven maker

[becharaka]

After many weeks of researching brick ovens construction methods, I decided on building the Pompeii oven featured in Forno Bravo site. I opted for the high vault - 36'' dome size, which is supposed to have a 20'' interior height. This is my first experience ever with brick oven construction or brick laying. I started the first chain with full bricks instead of half bricks and ended up with an inside center height of 27'' instead of 20''. Everything else is according to specs.

Is the additional 7" in height going to affect the oven functionality?

Thank you.
Becharaka

[dmun]

Dome height is related to top browning. The pompeii ovens are designed to heat uniformly and reflect the top heat down on the pizza. Conventional wisdom is that high domes don't cook the top of the pizza very well, you might have to lift it to the dome at the last minute to get the top browning you want.

My guess? It'll work just fine. If it doesn't,you could lift the floor bricks you can get at easily, add a level of insulating concrete, and re-lay the brick floor cut to fit the inside of the dome.

[james]

I agree with David, that your oven is going to cook wonderfully. Give it a lot of time to cure and really dry out thoroughly before you make any judgements on how well the oven is cooking. It will do a good job -- and the only thing to watch is how you keep the top and bottom cooking in sync when making Pizza Napoletana. A larger fire might be something that will help.

For everything else, the higer dome won't have any impact. Bread, roasts, grilling, baking, turkey, fish, et al will work perfectly. As Alf noted the other day, traditional round bread ovens had a much higher dome -- and they were used for all of the community's baking.

I think it is unlikely that you will ever want to raise the floor -- though of course you could do it if you ever were so inclined. Give it a good breaking-in process, and I think it will work well.
James

[maver]

Becharaka, once you get it cured and try it out please post your experience with how it performs, heat up time, cooking time for pizza and whether you need to use Dmum's suggestion of raising the pizza up in the dome to finish the top. Post pics also, if you are willing. For those who are building a 36" oven maybe you could post your analysis of how you ended up with a dome height heigher than you planned.