Firebrick chunk broke off

[Gretsch]

I’ve been firing up the oven semi regularly, maybe sometimes a few months between firings and have been covering it with tarps during rainy periods until I get around to building a roof over it. I’ve been loving the bread it produces, last batch one loaf had a small piece of firebrick on it. It came off just above where another piece came off during my curing phase and I’m thinking it could have weakened back then and taken until now to fall off, or is it my spraying the interior with water prior to loading the loaves that may be affecting the bricks ?

[Gulf]

I guess that my answer will depend on what you mean by "spraying" water in to the oven. Some have adopted to adding steam into the oven by various means. Some just damp mop the floor. But, "spraying water" into a hot oven is a no no!

[JRPizza]

I have created steam by "misting" the oven after making sure the sprayer was adjusted to get as fine of a spray as possible, and have not had any adverse effects. As Gulf is saying, a stream of water hitting hot bricks is not a good thing. Looking at your pictures however, it appears the piece fell out adjacent to where you have a crack in the oven. I have a similar crack and have had some small pieces fall off where the crack went through a brick. These bricks are rather brittle and having a little collateral damage adjacent to a crack is not unexpected.

[UtahBeehiver]

Look at Faith in Virginia's thread, although she does not participates in the forum anymore (our loss) she was a serious bread baker, she had experimented with adding steam to the dome via a pressure cooker and tubing into the dome.

[Gretsch]

Look at Faith in Virginia's thread, although she does not participates in the forum anymore (our loss) she was a serious bread baker, she had experimented with adding steam to the dome via a pressure cooker and tubing into the dome.

Well that sounds like a good idea! I'll have to find that thread.

I am just spraying a fine mist into the dome so that's probably not it. Been doing this for a while now and no evidence of water damage anywhere else, plus a pan of hot water towards the back before loading the loaves, it all seems to work quite well.

Maybe it was partly damaged early in the curing process.