MY 40inch CORNER BUILD

[Mr.Pizza3]

Couple more questions for the group!

after my last curing fire how long do I need to wait to fire up the oven again once I put on my outer render?

a week? More? less?

where are we getting the pressure cap that goes at the top of the render and does anyone have a forum or photos they can show of how they went about putting in the pressure cap?

[Giovanni Rossi]

quick question ,

is it necessary to do all the layers for the fires or just need to lay down one or two ? Not sure if I need to go all out like I was planning on and have all three layers down and wired in and ready for it’s render once the last curing fire occcurs

I'm out working on my pavilion and noticed your questions. Here's some quick notes. Hopefully others will reply in more detail. I don't think there's a hard guideline. I did small fires with just two layers of blanket loosely wrapped on the dome bc I wanted to dry the masonry a little bf covering it for winter. The goal is to minimized the temp differential between the inside and outside of the bricks to decrease the chance of cracking from expansion. The insulation slows heat loss from the outside and allows the dome to expand more uniformly.

after my last curing fire how long do I need to wait to fire up the oven again once I put on my outer render?

a week? More? less?

Again, others have more experience, but it depends. If you are adding more vcrete for added insulation or to give you a more stable substrate for your final render, that's added water that needs removed. I did a full drying sequence with just 4" of blanket in place. After adding about 1.5" of pericrete over my blanket I waited 6 days before doing a moderate fire for a day and then took it to full cooking temp the next day. My last concrete render was 1/2-3/4" without any perlite. I waited 3 days bf doing a full firing.

If your final render is waterproof, I'd wait for 2-3 full firings bf applying it.

where are we getting the pressure cap that goes at the top of the render and does anyone have a forum or photos they can show of how they went about putting in the pressure cap?

I got mine from Amazon but some guys say they are available in auto parts stores. Look at my build. I did something similar to what others had done.

[UtahBeehiver]

Any auto store will carry this (see picture) and cheap (IE Grainger Less than $10). embed a 1/2" fnpt pvc bushing in the stucco with a wire mesh for extra strength(see Gulf's build)

[david s]

I don't recall if you are bricking around the clay liner or not. There have been some cracking of "uninsulated clay liners, there a video poking around the blog somewhere of showing how uninsulated liners crack. IMHO, the clay liner needs some they of insulation to temper the temp differential. Gulf brick around his chimney and filled the gap between the brick and clay with vcrete.

Here's the video on uninsulated flue tiles. Yes they will crack if they are not insulated and they receive direct flame impingement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxOkwQyY-2w

[Mr.Pizza3]

Here's the video on uninsulated flue tiles. Yes they will crack if they are not insulated and they receive direct flame impingement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxOkwQyY-2w

I can see that being a big factor with direct overhead chimneys on a typical home fire place

I presume I will be okay for the beginnings of the curing fires but any left over insulation I may have I’ll wrap it with

I know I have some fiber glass insulation I can atleast use for the curing fires

I will plan on filling the space between the glue and the outer chimney (when built) with loose fill vermiculite

[Mr.Pizza3]

My major question as of now is what sealant are we using these days for the air gap around the upper archway

will a silicone based or latest based “flexible” sealant holdup to the higher temps of the pizza oven? And be a better insulator or

should I go with the higher 2000 degree resistant fire block resistant sealant that cures with heat to a rock hard finish (not sure if this defeats the purpose

I do plan on using the ceramic rope as a backer rod for whatever sealant I go with

I see rutland makes a 800f continous “flexible” sealant

[UtahBeehiver]

I have seen several oven where the flames will leave the dome and head up the chimney. I also start my fires under my chimney to get a good draft going then push the stack in.
Kaowool makes a moldable high temp caulk (2000F plus).

[Mr.Pizza3]

I have seen several oven where the flames will leave the dome and head up the chimney. I also start my fires under my chimney to get a good draft going then push the stack in.
Kaowool makes a moldable high temp caulk (2000F plus).

Thankyou for the info on the sealant I will look into that

also I do plan on insulating the flue in the long term once the outer chimney walls are built

I assume loose fill vermiculite will suffice as a good insulator at min a 1/2 thick around then encapsulated by whatever outer brick I choose to run with

for the curing fires I will use whatever left over blanket I may have plus some standard insulation to keep it from potentially cracking

[UtahBeehiver]

You can start the curing fires using briquettes (insulated dome recommended). This gets you about 200 F with no flame plus you can do a dutch oven if so inclined. Remember go slow, one extra piece of wood will spike the temp very quickly. This is where we see builders get impatient go too hot, too fast and crack their ovens. The turtle wins the race in curing.

[Mr.Pizza3]

Alrighty we are back!!

we had a successful week of curing fires!

we began Sunday evening with a charcoal bed that I slowly grew throughout the night keeping the whole dome in the low 200s for about 6 hours then in the final two I did bring it up slightly with two small chunks of wood

following day we did a small fire keeping it in the high 2s mid to low 3s
(obviously the top of the dome was always going to be hotter then the rest )

I did my best during the week to take readings from every course and make sure they were all brought up uniformly

example: if day 2 fire the top was at 280 then on day 3 the top would be between 350-380 day 4 430-480 etc

I don’t see a lot of info on the amount of charcoal so I started small and slowly built it up watching the temperatures by end of the 8 hours I had used an entire 15lb bag of briquettes and let them continue to burn down for remainder of night after the final bit of wood I tossed on burned off

[Mr.Pizza3]

Day 2 went well with a smaller fire pit of wood I worked to build up a fire slowly bringing it all up to the desired temp and then spreading out the footprint of the fire so it was closer to the sides of the dome in order for the lower brick to soak up as much heat as required for the days cure

not sure if it’s talked about but for the curing fires I opted to go the bring it up slow and hold method and hold the fires at heat for extended durations of time seemed to worked really well for me

must say it was awesome watching the chimney perform as well as it did even with the lower heat smokier fires or even when I’d have to close out the fire cause it spiked too high the chimney would suck all the smoke up and out with little to no escaping

really the only times smoke would come out of the archway would be from wind blowing into the archway from across the property

[Mr.Pizza3]

So of course I must have jinxed myself last week when saying how beautiful this week was going to be and how well it was going to help with my curing fires besically everyday from Monday until last night even we had random spouts of rain so I had to continue to cover and uncover it luckily I had the tarp in place from the week prior so it was easy and it stayed nice and dry

although I did have a few very very close calls

[Mr.Pizza3]

Day 3 went well bringing it into the 400s i opted to roast our first meal in it and we cooked up a nice turkey breast

it came out amazing looking forward to doing more roasts in the future

[Mr.Pizza3]

Day 4 was an unfortunate day , on day 2 I had uncovered the oven to light and I got a call saying rain was on the way so it was covered and we just began the fires later in the night when the rain had passed

on day 4 I was about 20 minutes into lighting when the fire was put out and the oven covered as a rain came in luckily oven was fine and did not get wet I was then able to secure the tarp so I could run the fire for a couple hours as the rain quickly passed but was on it ways back and it was a random spurt here and there of very light rain so I kept it covered and ran the fire for about 2.5 hours hitting the temperatures required for that day into the 500s

[Mr.Pizza3]

No I know some people opt for a full 7 day cure but I believe that’s more geared towards the cast style ovens vs brick could be wrong but would make more sense

I opted for

200s
300s
400s
500s
and full light clear the dome which was around 600-800 degrees depending on where you shot the laser

just wanted to throw that out there before continuing on

I’d like to also say I’ve read a TON of posts of people ovens being very Smokey and that’s a good indicator that there’s still moisture trapped in the oven

from the beginning right on through the end I cannot explain how impressed I was with the performance of this oven , unles so was Loading up more wood or messing with the fire this oven would produce no smoke at all

you could stand with your face in the archway and you’d get no smoke in your eyes you would smell it it just was awesome to observe

I also would do my best to bring heat up slow not once did I build some massive fire in the beginning to get it up to temp quick I always took my time over the course of an hour to slowly bring it up to heat sort of like stretching out the muscles of the oven before a race

besides the tail end of day 5s cure where I went for clearing the dome the fires remained smaller and the oven could build to heat before the first hour was even over even for day 5 by the end of hour 1 the average readings were well into the 600s and the dome had begun clearing which was really cool


so I’d assume because of my extended wait time to fire the oven (over 6 weeks ) and being that 4 of those weeks that oven was sitting in over 12 hours of sunlight - I literally get sun in my backyard from around 8 am until it sets which around this time was after 9 pm the oven really had time to dry out

I know others have waited the minimum time like 7 days or so to begin their fires so I can see why there’d be a big moisture difference

who knows just throwing out my observations and experience so far with this thing