fire brick size

[ikhan42]

Hi every one,

I was just wondering is there any reason why people cut the fire bricks in 1/2 ? is there any reason why I can't cut the bricks in 2/3 and let 1/3 go to waste and increase the thermal mass of the oven.

thanks
ikhan42

[brickie in oz]

You can do that but it increases the heat up time and you will need a forest of wood.

[Cheesesteak]

Originally Posted by brickie in oz

You can do that but it increases the heat up time and you will need a forest of wood.

And you'll need more bricks. Cutting in half gives you 2 bricks to use.

[GianniFocaccia]

If you did have an unlimited supply of free wood and an unlimited supply of really inexpensive firebricks (hey, it's happened!) then an oven built with 6"-thick dome walls would be very, very cool.

[shuboyje]

Your question begs the question what you are looking for out of an oven? Fire bricks are ridiculously expensive in Australia, unless there is a major need for the mass there are many reason not to got that route.

[Double Decker]

This is the hard part for me I have picked up 2 Pallets of Fire Bricks from a Brick Works that closed down.... They are from their own Brick Kiln that they ended up pulling down so I have just over 600Full fire bricks to use so we are wanting to cook pizzas and then do a heap of other cooking ie baking breads, roasting, biscuits, muffins etc...... So is it worth me putting the bricks in full to get the longest cooking time or will that Really limit the Pizza cooking ...... The way i see it is once the fire brick is hot all the way through then it will take the same amount of fire to keep hot as any other Pizza oven..... I have the bricks and they were cheap not to say the least at $1 each so If i use a heap of them it wont matter....I will be cutting all bricks so they form an actual roman arch rather then brick edges touching so i will only be using a miniumal amount of refactory mortar.... The other bonus i have is by using a cad program to work out the angles I need to cut for it to fit nicely together I wish to only make 1 WFO and hopefully have all the things i would like 1st time by talking to others and getting a heap of info so i can figure out where i want to go with things, OK sorry for the long post but all info happily taken

[GianniFocaccia]

Since you aren't a commercial bakery requiring stored heat sufficient to bake multiple batches of bread, the only other justification for a thicker-domed oven would be to maintain pizza-cooking temps on a daily basis, which would be overkill and highly in-efficient for a home operation. Sure, you could re-fire your oven every four or five days to keep it hot all the time, but it would take a helluva lot more wood to saturate a 6"-thick oven than a 4.5"-thick oven. And don't forget - a thicker-domed oven will require more insulation, below the oven as well as above it. Why not build a standard 42" Pompeii and reserve the remaining bricks to build a 1)fireplace 2)tandoor 3)barbecue 4)dedicated low-dome pizza oven?

[brickie in oz]

Originally Posted by GianniFocaccia

Why not build a standard 42" Pompeii

Because he is from Queensland.......

[Karangi Dude]

Hi Double Decker,

I used standard size fire bricks 230x115x75 cut in half that gave me walls 115mm thick .
I have set thermo couplings in the wall at 10mm and 105mm deep it takes about 4 hours of intense fire to get the temp at 115mm to about 300c.
If you decide to use fire bricks at 150mm thick I would imagine it would take forever to get anywhere near 300c on the outside. You need to get all the brick heated to achieve saturation if not the bricks will continue to pull heat out of the inside of the oven resulting in an oven that is more than likely to cold to bake in.
Don't get me wrong about ovens with thicker walls they work very well but they are mainly used for commercial applications.
There is an oven down the road from Coffs that is huge they bake hearth breads, they heat it up for a couple of days and then bake bread for a day or so and then a couple of days later start the process over again.

Double Decker my oven is 1200 when I heat it up to pizza temp it remains hot enough to cook / bake for 3 to 4 days going from about 420c to 85c.
I am with John just build a standard 115mm wall thickness oven.

[Karangi Dude]

Hi Double Decker,
I just read your other thread and now realise that you are planning a vault / barrel oven like Alan Scott or Rado they are a different style of oven, they are very good for baking yet still can reach pizza temps. They normally have extra thermal mass so if you are planning that style of oven you could go with the extra wall thickness. I also notice that they have a lower oven height that will be good for pizza but it will take extra firewood.