Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

[texassourdough]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

By char...I mean crispy critters.... like charcoal on the outside... Not good! I went crazy once and tried to do a 2 1/2 inch t-bone on the WFO grill. Inside I knew it wouldn't work but since that's "what the Italians do" I did it. It was a mess. Charcoal on the surface and cold in the center. Never again!
Jay

[SCChris]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

I saw a show with Mario and the Tuscan butcher cooking over an open fire.. Those steaks were incredible..

C

[proprio italiano]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

can anyone give me some sense of the dimensions of the wood/logs you are using once you have brought the oven up to temperature to maintain the fire for pizzas? thanks. joe

[BurntFingers]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

What about taking the steak and just throwing it on the coals directly. Then pull it out turn over and do it again. Remove and brush off any stuck to it. You know "dirty steak." That works without any fancy equipment.

[splatgirl]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

can anyone give me some sense of the dimensions of the wood/logs you are using once you have brought the oven up to temperature to maintain the fire for pizzas? thanks. joe

The standing guideline seems to be nothing thicker than your wrist for the size of the wood. I don't always bother to split mine down to that size and have found that as long as it's good and dry it doesn't really matter once the oven is hot hot. Whatever size piece of wood goes in is in flames in under a minute, and to me the size of the active fire is more important than the size of the wood. That said, I use about a 5-6" diameter split max, or about double the size of my wrist.
I've found that a decent size active fire works best in my oven. I like to see flames reaching most of the way up the side of the dome the fire is next to.
It is easier to modulate the heat of the active fire with smaller pieces of wood, but for pizza cooking, I've never had a problem with the dome being too hot.

[BurntFingers]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

Length = Wrist to elbow. Diameter about the same as lower arm for faster fire. Sometimes I use larger but I like the smaller stuff.

[joe bloggs]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

James or anyone who knows:
I am trying to find the right thermocouple/thermometer for my oven and I am wondering what is the the hottest my oven will ever get ie. how high should my thermometer be rated so that I'll never ruin it by overheating. Can anyone tell me what's the hottest they've ever got their oven?
thanks, joe

[KEmerson]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

I use a hand held infra red thermometer that is rated at about 1,300 ? F. When the oven is hotter it will read HI, so I suppose I've had the oven at least that high in spots. As for the hottest your oven will ever get, I don't know that that's a concern as you are not going to be baking pizza in temps as high as the oven can get. When the inside dome is white, that's about as hot as you need it to be. I allow my oven fire to continue raging once the dome turns white and I no longer check the temperature at this point because to me it's moot. So I would suggest if you are buying a hand held, get one that is rated for higher than pizza temps (1,000? F) and I think you're good to go. The only real purpose for me to use the thermometer is for lower temps for breads or roasts, when the dome might not be as white, though I do get the oven to pizza heat before lowering the heat for other things.
I have accidentally left my thermometer too close to the oven, on the staging ledge, as heat was searing the air right there. At first the thermometer wouldn't read anything - blank! So I put it in the 'fridge and all was well.

[joe bloggs]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

Thanks for the reply. I am planning to get a couple of dial thermometers and mount them in the dome, one to read the inside of the bricks and one the outside. These are the ones I am worried about, so if your oven has been over 1300?F then I need to rethink because the thermometers I've looked at so far don't go that high. Or what do people think?

[david s]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

You'll never get your oven to 1300 F

[BurntFingers]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

When the bricks get white my infra red thermometer read HI which is over 1000 degrees F.

[KEmerson]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

Joe: Why do you want the outside temperature?
David: I doubt the oven ever gets to 1,300? F, but what does it mean when my thermometer reads either HI or, sometimes, it reads only about 100? when it's well into the 900?+ range? For instance when I point at the burning wood it can read 100? but the hearth just in front of the wood, or the walls nearby will read 900? or so. (My thermometer is a Thermo Tech 1382. Its range is from a low of -4? to a high of 1382?.)

[joe bloggs]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

Thanks for all the replies. I want the outside temp of the bricks i.e. just inside the insulation to measure the heat soak through the bricks. I am told this is useful when baking bread and doing other long term cooking, where you need to be sure you have fired your oven long enough that it will stay hot long enough. Other people may know more or have experience. So how high do my thermometers need to be rated? 800?C is 1472?F. Is that high enough?
joe

[KEmerson]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

Joe: From my experience so far (finished the oven and began baking only last October) when I get the oven up to pizza temperature, that oven will still be at least 400? F the next day, easily in the 200? range 36 hours later. I've had it at about 150? 48 hours later. It comes down to what has been gospel on this forum: You cannot over insulate. You can over kill but you will only benefit from it. So, for bread I simply get the oven up to about the 900? - 1,000? range, rake out the coals, maybe - or maybe not - put the door on and let it cool down gradually to bread temperature (500?). Replacing the door or not is a matter of regulating the rate at which the oven cools down. A well insulated oven shouldn't lose so much heat after getting that hot that you have to worry about heat loss for bread. But, the adding of several loaves will drop the temp. a bit so that if you want to do a second bake after removing everything from the oven's first bake, you might have to build a new fire. But if the first fire took 1 -2 hours to get up to the 900? range, the second fire might only take a half hour. And if the ambient temperature (outside air) is a hot summer day, even a first firing will only take an hour.
I'd like to know for myself, though, if the temperature drop rate is faster from, say, 1,000? to 500? than it is from 500? to 0?. Or does the temperature drop equally all along the way?

As for how high the thermometer should be rated, I'd say above the 800 as you'll be wanting the oven to hit at least 900? or 1,000?. So go for that higher one of the two you mentioned. (I'm still trying to learn the throw some flour on the flame trick. Have you come across that one yet? If nothing else, it impresses people, which is part of what we're here for.)

Now that you've read what I have to offer, look back up at my name and you'll see I'm still an apprentice. I'm not sure how we move along that scale, but "apprentice" should signal that wiser heads may be lurking.

[david s]

Re: Temperature ratings in wood-fired ovens

Take some semolina flour and throw it onto the floor where you want to cook. 3secs between casting the flour and it turning black is correct for pizza. 2 secs too hot 4secs too cold. If your oven floor is too hot try placing the pizza nearer the entry where it will be cooler.