BA's Dome! Let the games Begin!

[Bandrasco]

After rave reviews on the turkey cooked in the pizza oven last Christmas I decided to cook two for this Thanksgiving. I cooked the traditional honkin bird in the kitchen oven that came out fantastic , and then I smoked one on the pizza oven. I still cannot believe how easy it is to cook in the pizza oven. It doesn't matter what it is it always comes out better than expected.

I started the fire around 830am, had a good roaring fire for a few hours and just when the top of the dome started to self clean I knocked the inferno down, pulled the larger logs out and left a nice pile of embers/coals glowing. The temp averaged around 650f. After I moved the coals to the left side I let the oven rest for about 40 minutes so it could adjust itself to an even temp all the way around. Then I placed a 15lb bird resting on a roasting tray with foil covering the entire surface along with an inch of water in it to the back right side. I placed another water tray in the center of the oven with about 2" in it. (Glad I built the larger oven). After that I simply tossed a few handfuls of Publix bought hickory chunks 'DRY' on the pile of coals, place my ugly stainless steel door in front of the opening leaving just about 1/2" gap on the bottom right of the doorway. Within seconds moist thick smoke was billowing out of the door and chimney. I opened the door up after 1 hour, pulled the bird out, filled both trays up with water, tossed another pile of chunks on the bed of coals and shut the door. 2 hours later I uncovered the bird. Surprisingly the bird was already caramelized from the smoke and looked incredible but the bird was just at 150f. One hour later it was done and the bird came out. It looked like it was over cooked but that was just the smoke on the skin/surface. After pulling the skin off (too smokey/spicy for me) I started carving and man o man was it awesome! the smoke had penetrated so deep it was a third way through the breast. The meat was falling apart, and had the best flavor. My family has already requested that the large Christmas bird is from the pizza oven .

Here are a few shots.

Ready to get started.

Fire burning nicely.

Now that's a fire!

Hard to see but the smoke is super thick.

[Bandrasco]

Smoke is going strong.

Tried to show it swirling up the chimney.

This was the larger one in the oven. I love the drumstick!

She ain't pretty but there were hardly any left overs! The meat was so tender; at first glance you'd think this would have been dry. Next time I'm not going to heat up the oven as much and try a lower temp/longer cooking. I think if I get it around 400f and then keep the coals going like I did I could maintain a 250-300f oven for a longer period. I'm also going to try one without any smoke; just retained heat.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

[Dino_Pizza]

Hey Bill,
That smoked bird looks so good! Thanks for showing us how to do it. You make it look easy.
Did you have any issues with the smoke from the heat-up wood vs the hickory you added later? I mean, how much smoke did you get from your oven coals? Did you pull out most that was unburned and left mostly red embers? My one attempt at smoking came out with the not-so-pleasant, strong, you can taste the blackness, smokiness.
Sounds like you had one of those great Florida-warm thanksgivings. Glad to see enjoying your beautiful oven. Cheers, Dino

[mfiore]

Looks Great! I didn't realize you could get that much smokiness with meat covered in foil. I thought it had to be exposed.

Thanks for posting.

[Bandrasco]

Hey Dino, thanks! I mainly use red oak to heat and cook in my oven. The smoke it produces I actually like better than hickory but it may be on the spicy side for some.

After I got the oven hot enough I pulled out the large logs. If you look at the pictures of the wood stack before I got started you'll see the ones I am referring to. They're huge. I had a pile of embers about 10-15" wide, 20" deep, and 5-7" high along with many end pcs of smaller logs that weren't totally burned. I have talked to a few guys who got their oven too hot and when they put the chips on the coals and shut the door the heat immediately incinerated the chips giving off a very unpleasant taste. They said it tasted like they cooked with some sort of pine...? I've had that happen to dry oak after the dome is white; anything you send in turns to flaming gas immediately so maybe thats what happened .

BTW, you can see in the pictures my attempt to create an old world countertop. I used concrete with multiple pigments, aggregate, shells, etc. Not so bad but I'll probably change it at some point.

We had a cold Thanksgiving. It was 50f when I went out and barely got into the 70's. Yikes!

Thanks again; I'll be cooking another bird in 25 days!

[Bandrasco]

Originally Posted by mfiore

Looks Great! I didn't realize you could get that much smokiness with meat covered in foil. I thought it had to be exposed.

Thanks for posting.

Hi Mike!

I was very surprised as well at how much smoke gets not only on the bird but in the bird. The foil was loose, very loose so maybe that helps. My only guess is (without sending in a camera to watch ) that once the door is in place the smoke is everywhere and not layered like when the door is off. Make sense? The smoke comes out of the sides of the door from bottom to top continually. When I open the door it plooms out like crazy. My next one will be started at a lower temp and cooked longer.

Thanks Mike, take care.

[korykoch]

Bill,

Fantastic thread. I just read all (yes, from start to finish) 26 pages.. Yikes!

Your willingness to share information and the ability to communicate ideas, advice and thoughts through words and photos made this such so much fun to read.

Thank you for sharing your build and cooking experiences.

Congratulations on your one year anniversary!

Best Regards,

[Bandrasco]

Thank you very much Kory!

I tried to follow in the foot steps of the many I learned from on this site. You can't have enough pictures, detailed information, humor, etc. I have made many changes to my oven exterior over the year (sounds good to finally say ) but still have a long way to go. Call me crazy but I'd love to build another oven; I have so many ideas that I came up with along the way that would be cool add ons .

I may add a small fire burning grill area that I can grill on while using the oven for pizzas, etc .

Thanks again for the kind words; I really appreciate the feedback and glad you enjoyed (put up with) the story.

[Bandrasco]

Saturday night my wife and I sat out and enjoyed a nice fire and a glass of wine. Yesterday morning the oven was still hovering around 300f so at 10:00am I put in a 9.5lb fresh ham in a shallow pyrex dish covered in foil, shut the door and left it. around 3:00pm I opened the door and holy smokes it looked and smelled awesome. The ham was at 155f, the oven was at 250f. I made a very small fire (4-5 half inch thick by 8" long pcs) on the left side using red oak and hickory chips to get some smoke flavor. Once they were lit I shut the door and let it smoke. At 4:30 I opened the door and removed the ham. I didn't take any pictures but it was a perfect looking ham but tasted way better!

By far one of the best things I've cooked in my oven. It was so moist and just a hint of smoke.

I'm thinking a whole pig will be the next attempt. I have a party coming up; that would be a hit! I wonder how big of a pig I could fit in there? Has anyone attempted that or have an idea?

Thanks,