Overkill?

[Les]

Originally Posted by PerryPizza

I've just laid my 3" thick brick floor and I can't help thinking it's just too much thermal mass for what I'm going to use it for

Perry, most of our floors are 2.5 inches thick - 3 inches is just 20% more. I don't see this as the end of the world, and personally, I wouldn't change it. In fact, I wished I had just a little more mass on the floor. All things being equal, 20% more wood to bring it to heat would be something less than 2 sticks and less then 1/2 hour of time. The time is a huge variable - if you go nuclear, it will take considerable less. Question, where did you get 3 inch brick (or did you rip the standard?)

Les...

[james]

Nice point Les.

If you have the bricks and have done the work, a 3" floor isn't a disaster. That said, it's a real bear keeping a thick oven floor hot enough to bake serious pizza. And even if you can make it work, it takes a lot of the fun out of the evening.

I know I'm a stuck record on this one, but I think it's important. The FB Modena commercial Italian pizza ovens are designed for 10+ years of high throughput restaurant pizza baking, they are the state-of-the-art, very popular in Italian pizzerias, and they have a 2 3/4" cooking floor.

It worries me that too many builders overlook this.
James

[PerryPizza]

Originally Posted by Les

Question, where did you get 3 inch brick (or did you rip the standard?)

Les...

I got them from David Reekie, who I think got them from Aureole...

I'm going to re-do the floor with the thinner brick - it's laid on a dry mix of fireclay & sand so it isn't a huge problem to change it. The surface on the new bricks is much rougher than the ones I'm replacing (it looks as if the 'grain' of the brick runs through it like in a slice of bread) but I don't think this will be a problem, especially as I like a bit of char on my pizza base. Cosmetically the smooth bricks do look a bit nicer though...

Just looking at the 3" floor I can see it will take a very long time to heat up, I honestly think the 2" one will be more than enough, especially after the comments in the thread - gloves are on & the sun is up, time to crack on!