New Napolino 70 - Curing this week

[jr07]

Hello all!

Just got my Napolino 70 last week and started the curing process yesterday to the best of my abilities following the instructions, and I have a few questions perhaps someone our there can give me a hand

1. I struggled yesterday to keep the temperature exactly at 300 at the beginning. It got up to 150ish then started dropping down, then I added more to the fire and it went up to 400, then back down to 250... I finally managed to get the handle on it at 300 and managed to keep it there for the last 3 hours of the 6 hour process. I hope this hasnt caused any damage!

2. I was using a regular oven thermometer which I placed to the side . Will purchase an infrared one for today... When I do so, where do I point for measuring? the dome? the floor?

3. Given what happened to me the first day, should i work today towards 350? Or should I go to 400?

4. Impressed at how this morning the temp was still around 180.... I can see a lot of overnight slow cooking in my future!!!!! Question on this: what do I do with all these ashes? which are still sort of hot. Can I through them away in my yard? Will it be good fertilizer?

5. There is a lot of debri, ash of course all over the oven floor. I won't be cooking anything today but in the future, how do I clean it so I can add food? I have read that water must never touch the oven itself.... does this apply even to a damp cloth?
thanks!!

J

[Gulf]

Congratulations on the new oven and welcome to the forum. Here is Forno Bravo's oven curing schedule. Also, lump charcoal can be used for those lower temp fires at the begining. It's a lot easier to control the lower temps with it than it is with wood. Just start it with paper (No starter fluid ) in a charcoal chimney and add it to the oven when it is starts to ash over. Rake some of the ash that you already have in the oven to the middle and use it to protect the floor directly under the charcoal for the next couple of curing fires.

On the ash: For live fired cooking, you can just rake it to the side and then brush or blow the floor clean. Many use a blow pipe, I use a small bellows. For baking, just rake the ash and or live coals out into a metal container with a metal cover. Blowing the floor will send most of the remaining ash up the flu. I have never seen the need to damp mop.

EDIT: If you don't have enough ash to insulate the floor from the lump charcoal, find something to elevate it above the floor just a little.

[SableSprings]

Just got my Napolino 70 last week and started the curing process yesterday to the best of my abilities following the instructions, and I have a few questions perhaps someone our there can give me a hand
...
2. I was using a regular oven thermometer which I placed to the side . Will purchase an infrared one for today... When I do so, where do I point for measuring? the dome? the floor?
...
4. Impressed at how this morning the temp was still around 180.... I can see a lot of overnight slow cooking in my future!!!!! Question on this: what do I do with all these ashes? which are still sort of hot. Can I through them away in my yard? Will it be good fertilizer?

5. There is a lot of debri, ash of course all over the oven floor. I won't be cooking anything today but in the future, how do I clean it so I can add food? I have read that water must never touch the oven itself.... does this apply even to a damp cloth?
thanks!!

J, welcome to the wonderful world of WFOs.

In addition to what Gulf noted above you can use a BBQ grill sitting up on a couple pieces of angle iron (or small brick pieces) to keep the lump charcoal (or briquettes) off the cooking floor for those first few lower temperature curing fires.

RE: 2 - The temp of the oven surfaces is going to vary considerably based on the type and placement of your curing fires. Obviously the dome top will tend to be the hottest and around the edges, the coolest. Use your IR gun to take readings in several places (and remember that the farther away you hold the IR gun from the surface, the less accurate...I once went to a pizza party where someone held the IR gun several feet away from the oven and based on the spot of the gun's laser pointer on the cooking surface called out a temp that was several hundred degrees off). Your goal is to move the majority of the oven toward the target curing temp before you increase the fire too much...so you may need to run a low temp fire longer than other people. Again, the idea is to raise the temperatures up slowly so that you don't have big temperature variations within different parts of the build. Once you get halfway through the process you'll note the oven comes up to temp quicker and with larger sections attaining and holding "similar" temps.

RE: 4 - Again as Joe noted make sure those ashes have cooled completely and don't contain any little live coals. If you have a compost heap, the ashes are an excellent addition. Ashes are also easily added to a garden if you water them down a bit after application. After your oven is cured, you'll find that by using a good hardwood you won't actually create that much ash from each firing. If you fire up, have your pizza, and don't have the metal bucket & lid available afterwards...just leave everything in the oven (with the door ajar) until it's cooled down completely. After a couple of days or less, it's pretty safe to shovel them into almost any container. Whatever you do, don't put ashes in your garbage can or with other trash unless you are really, really, and I mean really sure there are no coals in it!

RE: 5 - I initially used a damp cloth to clean my cooking surfaces but it just was too much work for very little "return". Not enough water in a damp cloth to be significant to the oven. (I now use the blow pipe method to clean off my cooking surface--Joe mentioned that already--and have also used the "pizza peel slap" method for a quick spot clean. Have you read about the Caveman Steak method? Just throw your steak directly on fire coals...works great and no one worries about some ash on the food.) You will almost always get some ash on a pizza base, relax it's not a problem (unless you're using old pallets, painted, or treated wood )!

I now brush and blow most of the ash out of my oven before baking bread but my loaves still often come out with some ash on their bottom edges...no worries, you have to eat a lot of ash before you reach the dietary concerns involved with that handful of chips you had last night . I also spray the oven chamber with water after loading it with my loaves, that "water never touching the oven itself" is a little paranoid. Absolutely, you don't want to throw water into a hot oven because the volume and temp differential can cause bricks to break/spaul. That said, I use my mister to bring my oven temperature down on occasion with no problems to report after 7 years and +2 1/4 tons of dough put through it.

Bottom line, damp cloth cleaning, misting or a slight spill from a loaded pot being pushed into the oven aren't a problem...it's water getting into your insulation that's the problem. Even that is only a problem because you're going to have to repeat your curing fire routine...long term, the oven is only out of service as a temporary inconvenience.

Sorry, as usual I am as long winded at the keyboard as I am at a party...

[jr07]

thanks you!