Gas burner

[lwood]

This is the newbie section, so I can ask dumb questions, right. here goes......Anybody use a gas burner, inside the oven, to light the wood and warm-up the oven initially?

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: Gas burner

hi lwood,
Not a dumb question, I use a propane torch to light my oven, I think using a gas burner would probably be expensive and could result in too rapid an expansion of your mortar joints possibly leading to more cracks than normal.

To me building and lighting the fire is half the fun.... I keep wood scraps from my shop and use them for kindling under the logs,, I light the kindling with the torch,

Dont rush it, enjoy your oven, watching the dome turn white after a good heat soak is a real pleasure

Good Luck
Mark

[dmun]

Re: Gas burner

Gas is an expensive fuel, and not very heat intensive compared to firewood. It also has problems with safety. Other than in the dead of winter when everything is cold and wet, I've never had the least problem starting a fire with kindling and newspaper.

[pacoast]

Re: Gas burner

You can do it, but as dmun points out it is relatively expensive. If you find it convenient to use a propane torch or something similar, rather than make kindling, then go ahead. The only time I do so is when I am in a hurry, but even them it hardly saves perhaps ten minutes in getting to a full fire.

Or did you mean a built in gas burner? There are some dual fuel commercial ovens that could do that, but it would be considerable work to build that into a homebuilt oven to save very little time. Doesn't seem desirable or worthwhile to me.

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