Introduce myself to the forum

[Uncle Hawkeye]

It looks like you have a neat forum here. I am pleased to be part of it. Here is some relevant history. I built a bread oven in mid-90's, weight approx. 4 tons. I make a lot of sourdough bread. I built a small pizza oven in 2000 by cladding the inside of a boiler-plate furnace with fire-brick. This oven is on a trailer and every so often I take my family out to a festival and we make and sell pizza's for fun.

Nothing I have done so far has been with a pompeii style oven. I am interested in building or buying a mobile one that will handle around 100 12" pizza's/hr. I need to keep the weight down and the temperature up. Though I have unlimited access to all the free hardwood one could ever use, I would like to add a propane assist in addition to wood fuel for a pre-burn prior to use. I am interested in castable structures as opposed to fire-brick. Also, the newer insulation materials available are intriguing.

My education is in engineering, and my experience is in building. I tend to be dumb about stuff until I actually try it myself. I have the scars to prove it. About pizza - less is more. About heat - more is more.

Looking forward to all your wisdom, advise, and warnings.

[david s]

Re: Introduce myself to the forum

100 / hr means you will need a large oven on a tandem trailer and a V8 to haul it.
The gas idea is one that many wood fired pizzerias use and could be a convenient option. Unfortunately we are banned from discussing it due to safety concerns. You must make sure that the burner has a flame failure device attached.

[Uncle Hawkeye]

Re: Introduce myself to the forum

david s,
Thanks for the advice on the trailer and primary mover. I should have read deeper into the forum regs. I will not approach the gas burner needs here.

I run a cummins diesel (350) and pull heavy equipment trailers regularly with it. But, I am thinking of a 2 ton grain or hay truck to set the oven on.

What inside diameter would be the nominal size to produce that kind of through put? Would a castable oven hold up better to mobility than would one built of firebrick?

I am guessing that a minimum size would require both inside diameter as well as wall, floor, and ceiling thickness in order to maintain heat retention under duress. Help me if I am not thinking right here. A larger oven might give more room to move pizzas around alternating position to avoid cold spots. You might even give up some thickness if the oven is large enough. Or, a smaller oven that was really thick but just large enough to get enough pizzas in could produce the same number per hour but at the cost of a much longer pre-burn and recovery burn if the event went long enough to finally sap its' heat as well. My bread oven takes about 20 hours to heat sufficiently for pizza if starting cold. It is 9" to 12" thick brick. Once it is hot, it doesn't care if the pizzas are frozen or small or big. My trailered oven is a single layer of 2.5" brick and will heat in 1.5 hours to 800 degrees. It just doesn't hold the heat very well. And it is cobbled and not very efficient for pizzas. Good for steak though.