"White oven" design

[taiwanpizzaman]

Does anybody have plans for a "white oven"? It's a barrel style bread oven where the fire is made underneath and not inside the oven.

[dmun]

Other than large commercial ovens for commercial bakery use, the only "white" ovens for domestic use that I know of are built as part of a masonry heater.

Try the Masonry Heater Association for more information

[taiwanpizzaman]

Thank you very much, I found all the info I needed except for one more stupid question: How do you make a reinforced refractory slab as the base of the oven? I assume it's made from fire cement, but what do you reinforce it with?

[dmun]

Originally Posted by taiwanpizzaman

Thank you very much, I found all the info I needed except for one more stupid question: How do you make a reinforced refractory slab as the base of the oven? I assume it's made from fire cement, but what do you reinforce it with?

In our ovens, we make the support slab out of ordinary reinforced portland cement concrete, and this supports the weight of the oven, which is insulated top and bottom. I don't know what they do with the masonry heaters. I'd guess that the floor of the oven was the flat top of a firebrick arch which is self supporting, but I don't know enough about the subject to say for sure.

[taiwanpizzaman]

Thanks. Most of the designs I saw uses a precast slab as the hearth floor. In the "white" oven, the base(hearth) of the oven sits directly above the fireplace, with the air flowing underneath and around or behind the oven. What I don't know is how much heat can this base stand without cracking. What do I make it from, how thick, and how is it reinforced? I assumed reinforcing it with metal is out of the question since the metal might expand faster than the concrete.

[dmun]

Places that sell, and places that make refractory concrete have engineers on staff that can answer your questions about refractory concrete. This in not something you can buy at a home center: The refractory dealers will know a lot more than I do, and even more info can be had from the manufacturers, like Harbison-Walker.

[taiwanpizzaman]

Thanks again!