Stupid questions about oven doors...

[JoeyVelderrain]

1. What is the purpose of the door?

2. What side of the door is the stack on?

I like the spring hinged door in ths video someone posted earlier and I think I can buld one for my oven.
YouTube - Fabrication du pain Max Poilâne à Lyon

[nissanneill]

Hi Joey,
the oven door is designed to do several things. Primarily it will retain the heat within the dome of the actual oven for baking without the heat being lost through the open oven archway. By placing a well constructed and insulated door on the oven, it will smother the fire as it will prevent oxygen from maintaining the fire. This can be used to slow the fire, allow it to smoulder and if you were to put some wet or damp selected wood shavings, use the oven as a smoker for that special effect in your cooking.
The stack (as I assume you are referring to the chimney) is on the outside of the door. Some people even make a door for the outside arch and incorporate a damper so as to be able to regulate the amount of air that gous into your oven. This feature can also be incorporated into the inner dome door should you wish to slow the fire but not extinguish it BUT you also need to control the hot air/smoke out of the top of the door as well.

Cheers.

Neill

[heliman]

For outside WFOs the door prevents water and other stuff getting into the oven chamber when it's not in use...

Rossco

[dmun]

For inside WFOs the exterior door functions as a flue damper, and prevents heat loss in the house.

You can also put vents in the bottom of an exterior door to create a blast furnace effect. This is called a draft door. Here's the picture of Jim's excellent blacksmith made example:

[BurntFingers]

Originally Posted by JoeyVelderrain

1. What is the purpose of the door?

Take a look here:

In my oven I have three doors. One for baking bread that sits on the inside of the stack. It prevents heat from rising out of the oven and up the stack or out the entrance. It is black iron and we bring it in so it doesn't rust. One for keeping critters from finding a warm spot after we are finished. It sits inside the stack too. Finally, an outside door we use it when we fire the oven. Since our design has a slot for an ash dump that sits right under the stack this last door just keeps the heat in. Combustion air enters from the ash dump when it is used.

2. What side of the door is the stack on?
I think I answered that above.

I like the spring hinged door in ths video someone posted earlier and I think I can buld one for my oven.
That was a commercial bakery. The fire was in a chamber alongside the oven and not inside the oven. The spring loaded door was to speed up peeling in the loaves of bread. I believe that once loaded they manually placed another insulated door just outside the spring loaded/weight counterbalanced door. John's Pizza in the theatre district of NYC uses a cast iron weighted counterbalanced door on their ovens. His ovens are coal fired pizza ovens. I think using springs would eventually rust out that is why they use a counterbalance weight.
BillPizzaioloatgmaildotcom/aka Burntfingers
YouTube - Fabrication du pain Max Poilâne à Lyon

I hope I answered your questions.

[JoeyVelderrain]

really good info.
thanks guys.

[BurntFingers]

Here is a picture of my inside door.

[heliman]

Looks pretty solid!!!

Mine was made by a local blacksmithing group in stainless steel. It is quite well made and has a curly wire bit on the handle so you don't burn your hand when removing the door. I have got an old mild steel one that I put on the oven when the heat is up high so as to prevent blueing of the SS door, and only keep that one for decorative purposes. The mild steel one also has a welder's mask screen built in to it which was intended to allow the bread to be viewed when baking. I can post some pics if you like.

Rossco