Glenn's WFO

[exceloven]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Very nice Glenn. You'll be cooking in no time.

Mark

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Beautiful job, Glenn. I really like the way it's looking. How did you fasten the chicken wire to the dome to affix the insulating blanket? Does the wire itself keep its shape? or did you secure it with wire towards the opening? I'll be doing mine probably next weekend.
Hope all continues to go well!

Carlos,
I used a couple (5) tapcon screws into the concrete slab around the dome. When i had the blanket on (it stays in place easily), i then wrapped my wire around and over the dome and just twisted a loop of wire from the bottom of the mesh, around the heads of the screws (they were hex head ones).

I should of taken a photo of that detail before i buried it

The rolls of mesh that i bought came with a bit of very thin straight wire, so I used this to tie from the edge of the wire mesh at the top to take it over the dome to the other side and tension it onto the tapcon screw.

After that, the wire just pushes into place, or can be twisted with a pair of pliers to take up any slack. The Vermicrete goes on fine without the wire though, so if you do your blanket going from the top of the dome down, then it may not be needed.

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Well, i haven't posted for awhile, mainly cause i've been busy cooking
I've had 4 pizza nights so far, and have also cooked a banana cake, pork roast, osso bucco, and a couple of attempts at bread. We have another pizza night tomorrow for some friends, so will be making dough again tonight.

The pizza's are improving, and i'm still experimenting a bit with flours (no caputo available in Aus, afaik). Cooking is nice and quick and they are coming out nicely done, so no problems with my oven temps. I do need to keep it hot though, by adding firewood to the coals as i'm cooking, as coals alone tend to let the air temp drop a bit inside.

The banana cake was fantastic and cooked really well, completely even both top and bottom. I actually think this cooked better than my normal fancy oven!.

My first attempt at bread failed as I overproofed it, but i was trying to cook bread during/after pizza, and my timing wasn't right. I will have to fire the oven for bread seperately to experiment some more.

The roast pork and osso bucco were fantastic, both cooked for about 3 hours at 150 C, which was the temp the day after pizza night.

My oven is taking about 1.5 to 2 hours to fully heat (floor bricks to 700F / 370C), but it's not weather proofed yet, so there is probably still a bit of moisture in the insulation. It doesn't take a lot of wood (using dry redgum), maybe 6 medium peices, plus a few to keep it going during cooking.

Once I close it up for the night at about ~300C, it is at about 200C the next day and drops about 50C over the next 8-12 hours, which is perfect for cooking/roasting. This is just using bricks to close the entrance, as I don't have a steel door yet.

Photos.

[james]

Re: Glenn's WFO

When does it start feeling like autumn down there? We are definitely starting to look forward to spring up here.

Your heat up times will definitely come down -- you are seeing how important it is to keep feeding that fire and getting that high heat bouncing around. Next time your bread is starting to overproof before the oven is ready, you can stick it in the refrigerator.

James

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

wow, time flys.
I've been busy cooking and haven't posted a follow up on this, but I finally finished the render on the dome last weekend and cleaned up the arch brickwork so thought i'd post some photos.

Pizza's are going really well, although it's hard to find good Typo 00 flour here in Melbourne.
I'm loving the oven for slow cooking of one pot wonders (osso bucco, roasts, etc).
And I fail at bread making Well, there's room to improve at least.

I still need to render the bottom bricks, and paint the dome at some point, but not really in a rush at this point.

The dome render has a few cracks that open up when hot around the chimney, but this is purely due to the metal expansion and a good elastic type paint will fix it up.

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Also a few notes on my oven performance:
Heatup takes 90-120 mins depending on how much wood i throw in.
Temperatures are good with 700F + in the floor and the air temp inside the dome at ~800F at cooking time. Does peak up to 1500F though when it's at full blast!

I let the coals die down and put my wood door on it at night, and the temps are at 200C the next morning and will typically drop to about 160C by that night (24 hrs).

Smoke out the front only occurs when i have the wind in the wrong direction, and if i use green/wet wood. Otherwise it draws pretty good.

I generally only cook 1 pizza at a time with the coals over to one side, but if I push it to the back, 2 12" pizza's are an easy fit in the front. The first pizza last weekend was done in the 90 second timeframe, but they take a bit longer as it cools a bit, but still 2-3 mins max.

[glennb]

Re: Glenn's WFO

Just thought i'd add another quick update on my oven.
I checked the temp of the bottom of my support slab the other night after pizza's and it actually does warm up a bit. I could only test it by hand and it was warm to touch but certainly not hot, so guesstimate of 30-40 deg C.

I have a single layer of 50mm thick insulating board betweem my hearth bricks and the slab, and the concrete slab is 140mm thick, so to warm it up, there is a substantial amount of heating going into it.

It doesn't affect my pizza cooking ability as i can still get my oven floor bricks to 800F easily enough, but my oven probably isn't holding it's heat as long as others with better insulation under the bricks.

So, next time i build, i'll be either adding another layer of insulating board, or do a vermicrete layer under it as well (or both).

insulate.....insulate.....insulate....