Sealing Perlite/Concrete Insulation

[FastFXR]

The Perlite/Concrete insulation on the top/sides of my oven is dried, but I'm running out of time to get brick up, so I'd like to seal it up with something A) solid (as the perlite does break off on the corners) and B) weatherproof (as the winters are harsh here.
I'm thinking some stucco mesh with a thin concrete mix, but what can I use or add to keep the water out? I'll take pics tomorrow to show what I have going on, but if anyone has ideas, I'd greatly appreciate it.
(FWIW, I plan to finish the outside with either brick...or maybe stucco, but it looks like that's going to have to wait until next summer.

[UtahBeehiver]

Pcrete, even though the surface looks dry, contains a LOT of water. Use a cheap plant moisture meter to confirm. Once sealed it will be much harder to remove the moisture. When the oven is being cured, water in the pcrete will sublimate and the volume from free water to steam will increase by a 1500 times and has the potential to build up enough pressure to crack stucco, hence many builders will install a vent in the stucco to relieve the pressure. Search the blog, there are dozen of venting opens users have installed. since you man not get the final coating up, you may have to tarp up well and let pcrete dry out next season.

[FastFXR]

So here's what I have. The bottom obviously cinder, with a 3" slab. That part I'm not so worried about, it's the upper part that I don't want to see get destroyed over the winter. Any ideas on a way to keep it from crumbling apart and to seal the sides up?

[Giovanni Rossi]

I had a similar situation last winter. I had just completed my dome and didn't want any retained water in the bricks to freeze. The fellows on the Forum always warn about firing before insulating to decrease uneven expansion in the dome. As luck would have it my schedule was full at the time and I knew it was going to take me days to properly fit the blanket, so I just wrapped a couple of layers around the dome. You don't have that problem bc you're already insulated.

I did 4 days of really low fires to push out as much moisture as I could. The top of the dome was 275F on day 4. Then, I secured a tarp over the oven for the winter. It snowed the next day and we had a hard freeze 2 days later. Everything looked fine this spring.