Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

[southpaw]

i installed a 2mm metal vent & galvanize chimney but didnt insulate them, will that affect the heat of the oven? (escape)

also could u close the oven with (with for example a metal door) durring heating so it heats up faster, with ofcrse a small opeing for oxygen?

[maver]

Nice looking oven. If the vent is in front of the oven opening per the usual pompeii plans, insulation is not needed (although it may help the oven draw). If your oven is fully cured, it's time to make some big fires. If you have not made a big fire to cook in it, then that is why you are not burning off the soot. As I said in my previous post, you may have a few fires before it really performs well (I felt I hit the sweet spot at six).

Will the gas pipe work? I don't know. It certainly could be used to help start fires with wood, and may work to help maintain heat, but you need a lot of BTUs for a pizza oven to get hot - as I said previously, I thought you probably have not had a big enough fire to burn off the soot and the information you have given us since seems to support this. As far as using wood for taste - that makes sense if you are cooking at lower temperatures, but in my oven the fire is so hot the wood burns pretty clean and there is no visible smoke, I think the taste from wood is hard to perceive, but that's probably just me.

Fire it up!

Marc

[jwnorris]

Originally Posted by maver

Nice looking oven.
<snip> It certainly could be used to help start fires with wood, and may work to help maintain heat, but you need a lot of BTUs for a pizza oven to get hot - as I said previously, I thought you probably have not had a big enough fire to burn off the soot and the information you have given us since seems to support this.<snip>

I agree with Marc, both about this being a good-looking oven, and that you need to FIRE IT UP. I do not think that the gas that you have has sufficient BTU's to get the oven up to temperature.

That said, I would be interested in the use of gas to start the warming process and if it is able to maintaime heat once the oven is up to pizza themerature. Please keep us informed as you continue to experiment – experimentation and the learning curve just helps us get better.

I also like the stand that you have built. How easy is it to move around?

J W

[wlively]

By looking at your pictures I would tend to agree that the fires have not been hot enough. You can see that there is a square section of "clean" wall that corresponds to your buner placement. That would seem to say that piece of wall is getting hot enough to clear from the burners.

Do you have any way to measure temp? Would be helpful to see how hot your dome really is.

Yes, you can build a firing door. I will be building one with a 2 inch tall opening across the bottom of the door and a 2 inch opening across the top. Air in and smoke out. I believe someone posted a picture of one a while back, but I don't remember who.