The Morgan's WFO build

[vintagemx0]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

I think you're right Darius...beginners luck! Lucky to have been able to pour over all the good work on this forum too. We just used a bar clamp mounted on a swivel to set the bricks on an arc. We used a couple of discs propped-up to hold the upper last few courses in place. We got all these ideas from the forum here.

[KINGRIUS]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

Cool. You're right, this forum concentrates years of techniques, tips and tricks, and other's mistakes that we can learn from and get our oven build the way we want the first try!
I have the rest of this week devoted to setting the oven floor and starting the dome. Just in time for us to be in for a weeks worth of rain!
But I built a canopy over my project today- The Show Must Go On!
Darius

[vintagemx0]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

Sounds like the position we're in Darius. I live in Portland Oregon (which is notorious for it's rain), and we feel a little under the gun to get ours buttoned-up before the rain starts. It usually starts dumping pretty good around halloween, but it could come sooner or later... I look forward to tracking your progress and will "feel your pain" when we're racing the rain.

Ken Morgan

[vintagemx0]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

We tried to make a little push today. During the evenings last week, we applied a coat of RefMix mortar over the dome.



And today, we received our ceramic blanket from Forno Bravo and applied it. 3 inches of insulation should be enough - one would think!



Since Thursday, we have been burning some newspaper and today we started burning little twigs of wood - low and slow...



We kept feeding this little fire for about three hours. We never let the fire get much bigger than what you see here, but kept it going. The outside of the dome at the top was just slightly warm to the touch after about 2-1/2 hours. We'll keep going low and slow and gradually increase the burn-rate over the next week or so.

So, tomorrow we hope to get the ficade walls up and fill in the voids with perlite/portland. We are under the gun now to get it weather-proofed before the rains come.

The Morgan's

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

HI morgans, had my first attempt at the concrete polishing,, with the Harbor Freight Dry grinding blocks, looked ok, But at a cost of 7.$ per area of about 10 x 12 inches, its gonna get too costly, so im on ebay this morning looking for a more practical "professional" solution Will keep you posted,,, Keep going with the nice work

Mark

[olddude]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

doing the same thing just bought wet polisher on line for 170.00
when it comes in i can let you know how it works tried a diamond grinding
on a peanut grinder to cut the rough stuff off work good so far
have a test peace that about 2x3 it it works will be a shelf

[Neil2]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

"But at a cost of 7.$ per area of about 10 x 12 inches, its gonna get too costly"

I used a 5 inch grinder with a set of 4 inch diamond grind pads (50 grit to 3000 grit, $120). Grind wet. It is messy but the pads will last forever. I've used the same set for 7 counter tops so far. When grinding dry, it is the heat that destroys the matrix holding the diamond material.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

hey neil,,, the Harbor Freight pads are DRY only, I just figured for the 7 bucks i'd give it a shot,, Nothing ventured,,,, I had previously bought a 300.00 set on ebay from a foreign importer,, Never arrived,, I finally got my money back from paypal,, so im looking
for a good wet system
Mark

[vintagemx0]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

Wow, I suppose those $7 dry ones are meant for something other than putting a fine polish on a large table top. It's good to know, thanks. It sounds like a lot of people have been down this path, so it must be cost-effective in the end. I may wait until next year on my bench, but when the rainy season starts here, it may be a good time to make a mess...

We started building our ficade this weekend, but I ran out of blocks at about the same time I ran out of motivation. I decided to take this Sunday afternoon "off". We did manage to keep the curing fires going. We're up to a small multi-branch fire somewhere around 400 degrees. I pulled some of the insulation back to feel the dome. It was quite warm, somewhere around 200 degrees, and you could feel the moist warm air hit your hands as the insulation was pulled back. We also saw a hairline crack running latitudinal across the refractory mortar coat. No noticable fractures inside just yet.

Is it wise to cure with all the insulation in place? Is there anything we should consider when having the insulation in place during the curing process?

We will continue to build up the ficade walls in the evenings this week and keep the curing fires burning. Despite how much we get done during the week, pizza on Friday night is looking like a definate possibility!

The Morgans

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

Hi Morgans,
Some people cure just the dome,, before isulating, some cure after... I cured after insulating and vermicrete,,, I think I waited three weeks then started the 7 day fire process,, I was very lucky and to date not a single crack.. (It wasnt easy waiting) I like the idea many people had, they used the burner from a turkey fryer and cured with propane, very controllable, even a small heater could be left in there,, this is one time where slow and easy definitely wins the race,, as far as polishing,

Neil2 says I used a 5 inch grinder with a set of 4 inch diamond grind pads (50 grit to 3000 grit, $120). Grind wet. It is messy but the pads will last forever. I've used the same set for 7 counter tops so far. When grinding dry, it is the heat that destroys the matrix holding the diamond material.

That sounds good, I am looking again for a polishing set, will keep you posted
Mark

[vintagemx0]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

Well, we still have a lot of work to do to finish this project - back-fill the ficad with perlite/cement, add the outer door arch, stucco, decorative tiles... But, we've been curing since the Thursday before last and decided to have pizza this evening.

For the first pizza, we had to go classic and do a Margherita...



The second one is our house favorite. Olive oil, tarragon, basil, tomato, salt, pepper, mozzarella, and parmesean.



We also made one with witha a little tarragon, basil, mozzarella, prosciutto, olive, and onion. It was a little dry, but tasted great.




So, the oven is functional with some work left to do. We want to seal this thing up very soon, but feel great about having actually used it now.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

Hey, Congratulations Morgans,
They are some good looking pizza's.... Now welcome to the whole new learing curve to cook cool things in a WFO, If your cooking skills are anything like your building skills you'll be great... Congrats on a beatiful build and your first great pizza's...

Mark

[vintagemx0]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

Thanks Mark... It feels good to be in "the club", if you will....

Well, I can see we have a lot to learn. Last nights pizzas were very tasty, but I think they were lacking a little. We used Trader Joes dough as we do not have much experience with home made yet. We have used the TJ dough for a while in our electric oven on a stone with predictible and good results. Last night I noticed that even though the bottom of the dough browned (greyed) well, the middle portion of the pizza just seemed limp and wouldn't support itself very well. All the pizzas were that way.

Tonight, we made a single pizza in our electric oven with the same dough and it turned-out superior to last night's in the WFO. The electric oven's controls only go to 550 degrees and it took close to 10 minutes to cook. In the WFO, I can't be absolutely sure of the temperature, but the pizzas took less than 2-1/2 minutes.

This all leads us to beleive that this particular dough works best at the lower temperatures. It makes me wonder if the hydration is engineered for use in lower temperature home ranges. I have seen posts on here where people say that the TJ dough pretty much sucks, and I would have to agree with the results I got from the WFO, but in the electric oven, it's really very good!

So, in conclusion, I believe that we need to experiment and develope our skills at building our own dough and exploring the art of doing so. Does it sound like I'm on the right thought about the TJ dough in theorizing is too hydrated to be optimized in a hot WFO and is marketed with home ranges more in mind. Any toughts would be welcome.

We ordered and recieved some Caputo flour and hope to begin our experimenting soon. I'm sure that there are some people that will discount "store bought" dough immediately, but like I said before - In the kitchen range the results are very good.

The Morgan's

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

Hi Morgan's
I often go to my local pizza parlor and just buy dough from them, Its quick and easy and usually good,, Save's a lot of time... I have a place that will deliver it too..

It gives you a good chance to experiment

Mark

[vintagemx0]

Re: The Morgan's WFO build

We didn't get quite as far this weekend as we had hoped, but progress never-the-less.

We finished builing up the walls around the dome with 6x8x16 concrete blocks.



All the void inside this structure will be filled with perlite/cement. Here's what it looks like after two bags...



We need around three more bags of perlite to finish the filling. First, we are going to construct the outer arch and fashion a simple heat sheild around the chimney. The area between the arch and the top of the ficade in the front is going to be Durock firmly supported by angle iron. We'll probably cap the ficade walls with some large pavers that over-hang a little for some kind of detail around the top. The durock will be slightly recessed and in that area we will mount an Italian theme plaque. All of the concrete block will be stuccoed.

So, this thing has turned into quite a bohemith! We new it was going to be large, but check it out from the back side...



The large counter top in the front that we had added to double as a retaining really helps a little on the front side to justify the over-all size. Albeit huge, I think it will grow on us. We're really looking forward to using it.

The Morgan's