Question 1 from year 1 with my WFO

[Nelskwdds]

Hello all,
I've been cooking with my FB CasaG290 for a little over a year, and I thought it would be helpful to others as well to post my questions which have arisen. I've done about 12-15 firings thus far, so I'm getting a pulse on the personality of the oven now. It's been a fun trip so far and a great hobby with some obvious frustrations along the way. Here it goes:

(1) Heat management.
This has been my biggest headache thus far.
Take a look at this video and please disregard the screams of joy from my 5yr old!

Il Forno Pizza - gauging temperature - YouTube

I typically fire up the oven with a center fire of live oak, and it hasn't been too hard to get the dome of the oven up to 1100F, including a solid white dome. I have been letting it burn for about 1 hour, moving to the sides and back, adding more wood and then cooking. However, my floor typically only gets to the 650F range and seems to drop off quickly without a raging fire around it. THis leads to charred toppings and uncooked pizza bottoms. This video shows the level of fire I have had to have in order to obtain these temps. Otherwise, I tend to have a lower 500-550F floor and a 4-7 min cooking time. I've been able to make some amazing breads, as it tends to hover around the 500 range for hours and hours, but the pizzas I need help with. BTW, in construction, we have the provided Forno Bravo 2" Ceramic Board floor insulation, and all of the provided FB dome blanket insulation, but did not use Vermiculite, etc...

THanks for your input! More questions to come!
-Kerry

[Nelskwdds]

Re: Question 1 from year 1 with my WFO

NOt sure if this posted. Not seeing it in the New Post thread?

[david s]

Re: Question 1 from year 1 with my WFO

Every oven fires differently. It may be better to direct your questions to FB. One hour of firing sounds a bit short to me, I'd suggest you try firing for longer to get to pizza temp. Have you tried the semolina test? Throw some on the floor. Ideal floor temp takes 3 secs for it to turn black. A very reliable indicator, good party trick, Italian method been around for a couple of thousand years and never breaks down.

[Les]

Re: Question 1 from year 1 with my WFO

When you are getting the oven up to temp is the fire sitting where your pizza is now? I typically have the pizza a bit further into the oven as well with the fire on the sides not that it should matter.

[Nelskwdds]

Re: Question 1 from year 1 with my WFO

Semolina I have not tried. But 2000 yrs should be enough to call it time tested! I'll give it a try. I do normally build the fire in the middle of the oven, then break it after An hour or so, coals sit in the middle prior to moving to the sides. I've tried other left side, the right side, the back, and all 3 sides as in this video. Hottest was definitely all 3 sides. I've typically tried to build the plasma fire, & have assumed that once it burned down(about an hour with live oak) it should be sufficient. Are you guys building your fires back up at that point or throwing multiple new logs on? B/c that's what it would take for a longer warm up.
Thanks for the input!

[Tscarborough]

Re: Question 1 from year 1 with my WFO

Ash is an excellent insulator, so just because you have coals on the floor it doesn't mean it is imparting that much heat. Part of the process of moving from firing to cooking for me is to rake off all the coals, then spread them over the cooking area, stirring frequently. 3-5 minutes seems to suffice, then I push all the coals I plan to keep in the oven to the side throw on a small log or 2, clean the floor and cook. If it drops off too much, spread the coals back over for a few minutes, push them back, etc.

One hour is not enough time to heat soak the floor in any event.