Oven floor design: thickness & insulation

[Xabia Jim]

Re: Oven floor design: thickness & insulation

Great thread!

Dmun says heat rises. I think statement is entirely coorect wrt heat in air. My oven's stand gets warm by the next day, so heat certainly sinks towards cooler areas as well. !

Cold is the absence of heat...I notice that any of the masonry in touch with the oven eventually warms up as it wicks away heat. (particularly after 5 days cooking)

My first oven was to be a cooking oven and the thermal mass was intentional....but after the FB addiction "I want Pitha"

[vincent]

Re: Oven floor design: thickness & insulation

Although i haven't built my oven yet i believe that i can give a bit of advise on a hot fire. My wife and i cook most of the winter with a 1936 Kalamazoo wood fired stove. The fire box is very small. Its easy to get the cast iron top hot but the oven is different. It requires a hotter and constant burn. I buy my firewood split and delivered which i then have to split it even smaller. Its generally oak or ash which burns very hot. When i want increased oven temps i use pieces that are only about 2 inches in thickness. i also use a small axe to shave off the bark. There isn't really any BTU value in it and if the wood is stored outside it has a tendency to wick moisture. Its worthless and slows the fire down. I have found that feeding the fire in this manner the oven temp quicky increases and becomes easily maintained. One last thing. Properly seasoned wood is critical.

[james]

Re: Oven floor design: thickness & insulation

... I buy my firewood split and delivered which i then have to split it even smaller. Its generally oak or ash which burns very hot. When i want increased oven temps i use pieces that are only about 2 inches in thickness. i also use a small axe to shave off the bark. There isn't really any BTU value in it and if the wood is stored outside it has a tendency to wick moisture. Its worthless and slows the fire down. I have found that feeding the fire in this manner the oven temp quicky increases and becomes easily maintained. One last thing. Properly seasoned wood is critical.

This is excellent, excellent advice. Right on target -- and what a difference it makes when you do it right.

Maybe we should move some of these postings to Fire Management.
James

[gjbingham]

Re: Oven floor design: thickness & insulation

Good post Vincent!

I did 9 pizzas tonight. The party was delayed by an hour - the oven heated for 2 full hours. The heat retention is much better, in fact, overly so. Four hours later I was still waiting for cooler temps to put Kaiser rolls in the oven.

The pizza was superb tonight. Good comments all!

XJ - think of heat as simple energy. It takes energy (read - fire in this case) to make the sustrate (oven) hot, and subsequently colder surfaces around it absorb it. It runs downhill like water, higer energy to lower energy, hot to cold. Never cold to hot. Hence, you get a cold butt on a cold rock!

[Xabia Jim]

Re: Oven floor design: thickness & insulation

I'm with you george.....but I do prefer the hot butt from the hot rocks under the sun!

[mannextdoor]

Re: Oven floor design: thickness & insulation

This thread was very big help to me. Just starting to build my WFO. It's always better when you employ the 5P's. Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

Mannextdoor