how many coals?

[petanque]

I had my fist wood oven experience yesterday.

at a local community garden (Glandore)

the learning curve is steep.

the person who fired the oven had a pile of coals that was about 30 cm tall and was all the way across the back of the oven.

they had the door removed.

while some fire would be needed to make up for heat loss.

the amount of coals was more than I expected.

did they have more coals than they needed.

the cooking seemed harsh with the top cooked and the bottom raw

[shuboyje]

Re: how many coals?

The amount of coals doesn't sound totally excessive if it is a larger oven. Based on the coals being at the back I'm going to guess this is a barrel vault oven?

The issue could be multiple things.

The first thing that comes to mind is that the oven was not properly fired, the open flame cooked the top, but the heath was not up to temperature and hence the bottom was uncooked.

My second guess would be that this is an Alan scott type oven with the structural layer above the insulation and the hearth does not get as hot s a true pizza oven which led to the undercooked bottom.

My last idea is that the oven was fired and performing fine, and the type of pizza this style of oven produces at high temperature isn't your thing. Traditional neapolitan pizza cooked on a 900F hearth in under a minute is going to be wet, soft and pliable. If you expect your pizza crisp you might think this is raw.

My best advice would be to try and find a way to measure the temperature of the ovens hearth next time you have a chance.

[petanque]

Re: how many coals?

it is a round dome type oven

[david s]

Re: how many coals?

To measure floor temp cast about a 1/4 tsp of semolina flour onto the centre of the oven. It should go black in 3 secs if the temp is right. 4 secs= not hot enough, 2 secs = too hot
Old Italian trick, no need for fancy infrared guns or thermocouples.

[texassourdough]

Re: how many coals?

First, if the bottom and top don't cook properly in the same amount of time, the less cooked side is TOO COLD and needs to be hotter. (IF the top and bottom are done but the interior or lower toppings are raw the pie and toppings are wrong for the oven temp!)

There is another potential problem to this description though. You want FLAMES in a WFO when cooking pizza and coals as I define them don't have much flame. You need pieces of wood IMO to give appropriate flames.

Your description clearly suggests the oven was not well managed for sure (hearth temp improperly managed - and probably improperly fired such that the hearth never got hot enough to begin with.

The oven was almost certainly way cold for WFO pizza.

The semolina test is a very accurate and easy test that is quite reliable. If the hearth is hot the bottom will at least cook. And the dome temp can be controlled with wood/flames.