Oven Floor?

[Dennis Ferraro]

First time to the forum I am amazed at the amount of info on this web sight. I would like to say thank you! Ok my question I have been looking at Rado Hand and Allen Scott ovens which are barrel style WFO before finding this sight. In there design the floor is lined with bricks on edge which gives you a 4 1/2 inch floor.The Pompeii oven design has the bricks laying flat which gives you a 2 1/2 inch thick flooring or in my case 2 1/4 inch thick which is less thermal mass. I have looked at the pros and cons of both ovens. I will be cooking mostly pizza but would also like to make bread. Why the differance in floor design?

[dmun]

The two and a half inch oven floor is more than sufficient for home use, particularly for pizza, where an oven is being brought up to temperature from cold in a short amount of time. There's plenty of mass for retained heat cooking. The higher mass ovens are ideal for multiple batch bakes of bread, and are best when used daily and kept hot. It's also more of a challenge to get a thicker oven up to pizza temperatures.

The fact that the floor is thinner than the dome is a function of heat rising: The thicker mass is in the hotter part of the oven. This is also true of the barrel vault oven which has serious masonry cladding over and around the dome.

[Dennis Ferraro]

Thank you for your response. That is what I was thinking I realy like the round Pompeii style oven and it is the one I will build. There is a pizza place here in Boise ID that has a wood fired oven build by Allen Scott and it does a wonderful job but it stays fired up day in and day out. I have spent time with the man who owns Big Green Truck Pizza he has a Mugnaini WFO mounted on his truck and it also does a wonderful job but even with that oven which heats up quickly for cooking pizza he says the first day it does a good job but when they have back to back days of catering and the oven has been running he says by day three the oven is working perfectly. Again Thank You! I am sure I will have more questions.