Oven struggles - bottom of crust terrible

[C5dad]

Re: Oven struggles - bottom of crust terrible

Big fire + 2 hours = thermal success. After reading, sounds like you are not saturating the oven with heat, especially since the dome in not clearing. Do not be afraid of the fire going up the chimney - that is good. The oven can take it.

[david s]

Re: Oven struggles - bottom of crust terrible

Big fire + 2 hours = thermal success. After reading, sounds like you are not saturating the oven with heat, especially since the dome in not clearing. Do not be afraid of the fire going up the chimney - that is good. The oven can take it.

Sorry Chris, but I can't agree. Fire going up the chimney is wasted fuel and means that your oven chamber is overloaded. The flame should only ever be just licking out the oven door. Apart from risking damage to the flue pipe attachment, the stainless steel will discolour (minor problem), it will create more smoke (bad emissions), temp rise will be actually less because the atmosphere in the chamber will be reducing rather than oxidising (the equivalent of running an engine on an over rich fuel mixture). Finally you risk damaging the refractory because it is the 500-600 C range where there are significant delicate chemical and physical changes that take place in the refractory and temperature fluctuations exacerbate the problems creating many small cracks and maybe some bigger ones. Wood firings are notoriously difficult to control in terms of fuel regulation, don't try to see how hot you can get it unless you don't mind damaged refractory.This applies more to unsintered castable refractory than fire bricks, but also applies to mortar, which is not pre-sintered.