Another Aussie Oven

[John K]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Well done Paul

The finished oven looks great and love the colour of the dome.

Good to see that a simple Door construction has lasted 10 firings. Hopefully it will last for many more!!

Cheers

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

David,

So far my door has lasted about 10 firing cycles and is not showing any signs of damage apart from the the odd chip where it gets taken in & out of the oven. It was only ever meant to be temporary but as with many temp jobs they seem to be there a long time!

The plywood is stuck on the Hebel blocks with a high temp adhesive and screwed in place with chipboard screws.

[david s]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Good luck with the hebel door panel Paul. I tried that too, although mine was only 1" it lasted afew times then cracked. Remember it is made from Portland cement. I think the manufacturers claims about the stuff are extremely optimistic. Hope yours lasts longer than mine.

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

It rained all day Saturday but today I managed to spend the Sunday playing with the oven. The colour is oxide powder mixed with Portland cement and water proofing and painted onto the oven.

To keep the pizza tools in order I fixed 2 short lengths of 50mm electrical conduit beneath the slab. I also installed a temp guage in my door. This door is version 2 (version 1 was just plywood that caught fire one night when I put it in when the oven was too hot) and was only meant to be temporary but it seems to have stood up well to constant use. It is a Hebel 50mm aerated concrete brick with the plywood form screwed to it.

I fired up the oven for pizza at lunch time and then roasted a chicken for dinner tonight.

As you can see from the photo, the neighbours were begging over the fence and the only way to keep the quite was to toss a pizza over the fence.

Paul

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

The tiles have arrived so if the weather stays dry this weekend I can get the tiles on the base and water proof the front of the oven to stop the floor insulation soaking up water.

I think that there must be a lot of moisture in this insulation as the oven didn't perform as well as when I had been using it every week. I will also make an outerdoor to keep rain off the landing floor where it just soakes into the bricks.

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

It has been 6 weeks since I last had a fire in the oven so I plan to have a long burning low fire on Thursay evening to drive any moisture out of the oven that it has probably absorbed in that time and it will be pizza time again on Friday evening

Paul

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

It has been a while since my last post but things have been slowly evolving.

I wasn't happy with my outer arch as too much smoke was leaking out the front. I pulled down the arch and rebuilt it with a much larger transition into the chimney. Previously The chimney was simply a hole cut into the arch and now it is like a large inverted funnel before entering the chimney.

Today I also finished rendering the outside of the oven and next weekend hopefully I can put the colour coat on the dome and start think about tile decoration on the concrete base,

then I have to do the timber deck..
then the pool surround..
then the lighting around the oven/deck..
then returf the back yard..
cut down a tree that has grown too large..
the list is endless!

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

It was an exciting weekend. I didn't do any work on the oven but I did make pizzas and split & stack wood.

All I can say is that the pizza pros make it look easier than it actually is to slide pizzas off a peel onto the oven floor. I made a few on Friday evening for the neighbours who were all hanging about in the street for the regular "Friday Night Drinks".

You can see that the first pizza started off fairly round but after it had been pulled onto the peel and then slid off into the oven it was somewhat artistically arranged. Anyway, no one cared as it tasted really good. I tried making the others while on the peel but it's not so easy on an aluminium peel with a long handle in the kitchen!

I fired back up the oven for pizzas on Saturday lunchtime as my teenage kids were dirty on me for making pizza while they were not there and all I can say is that it must have been beginner's luck on Friday night. I thought that on the first pizzas they were too big so I made the dough balls smaller but this didn't help much as lots of them stuck to the peel and I discovered how olives and other toppings will roll off a pizza while it stays stuck to the peel. I few pizzas were sacrificed to the pizza gods after they ended up as a mess on the floor of the oven. My son who is nearly 17 was horrified to realise that I just threw the mess onto the fire in disgust. His comment was "how bad can it have been? I would have still eaten it!?

The good news is that I can only get better and I have an excuse to keep practicing.

Paul

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Hey Paul..

Very Cool.... Love the thermographic images.. Your oven looks great too... Congrats on your first fire...
Cheers
Mark

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Rossco,

The company doesn't have an office in Perth so I don't have an excuse to go over there. Not only do they have the cool test equipment but good tools to borrow when building pizza ovens! I'll take a few more pics on the weekend when I have the oven up to full temp.

Paul

[heliman]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Nice and high tech....

Got me thinking now where I can get hold of something similar. Would be a great exercise to be able to map out the heat patterns of one's own oven....

When are you coming to Perth???

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

After a few fires that are getting hotter and hotter the oven is holding up well. I have a crack in the mortar of the keystone on the outer arch but as the chimney is not drawing as well as I hoped I may rebuild that at some later stage. The dome has bricks and mortar show no signs of cracks which just goes to show that you should leave the mortar longer than 24hrs like I did with the brickwork on my outer arch.

The fire last night got the bricks at the top of the dome to about 200 deg C and I was surprised on how much steam was visible and how hot and damp the top of the insulation was. I'm not sure if the moisture is in the bricks or the insulation but I will start keeping the fire going for longer to dry it all out.

Attached are a few thermographic images of the oven under firing to show the spread of temps. Who needs an infrared thermometer when they have one of these at work to borrow ;-)

Paul

[kebwi]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

I think you may have built the most perfectly round dome (at the brick, not the blanket) I have yet seen on FB.

[John K]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

Looking Fantastic Paul!!

keep up the great work

[Alter ego]

Re: Another Aussie Oven

It has been a good week end for pizza oven construction.

The outer arch has now been bricked in, the chimney is in place, the insulation is over the oven and fires inside the oven are hotting up. There is still a long way to go until all the decoration and landscaping is done but we plan to have the first trial pizza next weekend.

The insulation is horrible stuff to work with and unfortunately I still need to put some chicken wire over the insulation and pull it into a better dome shape before I start the rendering, but at least no more cutting.

Paul