Roasting questions

[kstronach]

i'm planning to fire the oven up tomorrow to cook the sunday roast and maybe a few loaves of bread, i'm just wondering the best way to do it!

i'm thinking of firing up in the morning until the dome clears then raking out the ashes letting it cool down for a while then put the door on and see what temperature i'm at! is this the best way to go in peoples opinion?

in my wfo cookbook it says start fire until required temp is reached then push to the back and cook with the door on. my concerns with this are one, i've heard about backdraft fires when you seal in a live fire and also wont the door being on just put the fire out therefore causing too much smoke and ruin the food? and two, if i only fire for say 45 mins to an hour to get to the required temp say 190 - 200 degrees the dome wont be hot enough clear and will be black with soot does this matter?

thanks for any help

keith

[david s]

Re: Roasting questions

Probably the best way is to fire the oven until it is clear then allow the temp to drop. The trouble with this method is that the oven takes so long to cool and you've burnt a fair bit of wood to get it really hot. I prefer to fire my oven for one hour of flame, by which time the crown of the dome is starting to clear. I allow the flame to die and then push aside the few coals on the floor, place the roast and sometimes throw in half a handful of hickory chips. With the door in position the coals will die and the smoking chips will have done their thing.The oven is not saturated with heat using this method and the temperature drops off faster, but is plenty sufficient to cook the roast to perfection. It is a mistake to keep opening the oven door. I usually give it an hour letting the aroma tell me when it's ready. Also use a meat thermometer probe and sometimes replace the roast for a while more until it's done.

[V-wiz]

Re: Roasting questions

For roast/meat i would cook with a live fire, while your building up heat you are cooking at the same time, once your done cooking close the door then you can bake bread.

[Greenman]

Re: Roasting questions

When I roast things with a live fire I put up a small 'wall' of firebricks on edge between the food and the fire. This allows you to have a reasonable fire to slowly build the saturation level of the oven without burning the food with the direct radiant heat.

[V-wiz]

Re: Roasting questions

When I roast things with a live fire I put up a small 'wall' of firebricks on edge between the food and the fire. This allows you to have a reasonable fire to slowly build the saturation level of the oven without burning the food with the direct radiant heat.

What i do in situations like that is i leave my food closer to the entrance of the oven, in doing so the food does not burn and i continue doing what i would normal do for pizza temps. The dome can be anywhere from 500-800 but the entrance i find is around 250-375 (atleast in my situation)

[kstronach]

Re: Roasting questions

hi all, thanks for all the advice!

all in all it went fairly well! i lit the oven about 9.30am and had the dome cleared in an hour, left it about another half hour then raked the coals out and put the door on. (dome temp was about 480c and floor about 300c at this point!) went back to check the door thermometer about 30 mins later and the oven had settled at about 150c, not quite as hot as i wanted or thought it would have been, i think because i hadn't saturated the bricks fully! had to pop to the supermarket after dinner so when i got home i refired for about 40 mins then pushed the coals to the back and put the door on, temp about 240c now. left the oven about 30 to make sure the coals had extinguished then went for it and put the chicken in! when i closed her back up i was bang on 200c right about where i wanted it! throughout the cook after adding various things the temp dropped to 160c

the chicken was amazing!

[cobblerdave]

Re: Roasting questions

When I roast things with a live fire I put up a small 'wall' of firebricks on edge between the food and the fire. This allows you to have a reasonable fire to slowly build the saturation level of the oven without burning the food with the direct radiant heat.

Gudday
What do you use to stack your bricks up , I'm presuming you have them more than one high?
Regards dave

[Greenman]

Re: Roasting questions

I have them 2 high. Just place them on top of each other. If I have to place things in the oven, like bricks or wood when it is properly hot I use a small garden cultivator (kids thing from the big green shed). It is also handy for hooking cast iron bakeware out.