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Heat Management for NY style pizza or lower-heat pizzas

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  • Heat Management for NY style pizza or lower-heat pizzas

    Hi all.

    I built myself a Pompeii Pizza oven that can produce some serious Neapolitan pizzas in 90 seconds, 800F, leopard spotting, etc... happy camper

    But here is the dilemma I have:

    What I understood from the other posts is that after heating the oven to let's say a floor at 750-800F, I need a side flame/fire going to keep heating the floor and so to be able to achieve awesome Neapolitan pizzas in 90 seconds (perfectly cooked bottom and top of pizza). There's a nice cycle going on for Neapolitan pizza, keeps going for hours and produces, dozens of pizzas...

    The problem arises when I want lower-heat pizza such as NY pizza style (450-500F). The floor doesn't get that re-heating because I don't have/want lots of flames like in Neapolitan pizza so not to burn the top of the pizza. The result I get is a undercooked bottom and a overcooked top.

    Basically: too hot dome VS not hot base. If I try to fire logs on the side (to reheat the bottom), the dome gets even hotter VS the heat for the bottom.

    I have tried reheating the bottom by spreading all the hot coals... but it's time consuming and not very efficient because, heat is lost after 1-2 or 3 pizzas.

    ?? what to do? thanks

  • #2
    I usually cook my pies around 550-650. I move the fire around to just clear the dome and then push it all to one side and keep it small. The floor cools a little while I am assembling the pizza's and I add wood to keep a small but bright fire on the side. We really load up our pies with toppings and don't like them burnt on the bottom, and this lets us cook them uniformly. I usually have to dome the pie a little at the end to get the top browned. You might be getting the dome too hot to start?
    My build thread
    https://community.fornobravo.com/for...h-corner-build

    Comment


    • #3
      Thanks for answering, I still have the same problem. With a little and bright fire on the side, the floor drops from 550F to 400F in no time. I get uncooked bottom. I found a trick cause I had to... I had 12 pizzas to go. I covered the pizza with the peel, until the bottom got cooked properly.

      not very practical but it worked.

      I tried moving the coals from left to right but still the same problem.

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      • #4
        How much mass do you have in your floor (thin tiles, bricks laid flat, bricks on edge) and how much insulation do you have between floor and hearth slab? After pizzas and a re-charge fire my floor is almost always around 500F the next morning after a fire.
        My build thread
        https://community.fornobravo.com/for...h-corner-build

        Comment


        • #5
          I think my floor has enough brick thickness, insulation and so on.... I think, from further tests, that I needed more time to let the bricks soak with heat and as you said, a re-charge fire of my floor did the trick. Thanks all!

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          • #6
            How long have you had your oven? Cooling off of the floor that is properly floor insulated is a common problem if the insulation is wet either from the initial build or water has egressed into the oven with from above or from the heath surface, We insulation will no insulate but act rather as a heat sink. I takes quite a number of firings to dry out wet or moist insulation. If you suspect water is getting in you need to find the source.

            If the insulation is dry then it may be that the floor bricks are not fully charged. Like JR, I will see at least 500 F the next morning with a good insulated door.
            Russell
            Google Photo Album [https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Q...JneXVXc3hVNHd3/]

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            • #7
              I don't have much insulation on the floor but have a lot of thermal mass (nice way of say a huge heat sink). I just did a 3 evening cook and the 2nd & 3rd days where completely different from the 1st. Even though I really heat soaked the floor the 1st day, and it was 350f when I started the 2nd day & 3rd day, it got to temp much faster and stayed much hotter longer than the 1st day. I think there is something to the deep heat soak. I was able to maintain a 50 degree difference (dome hotter than floor) for way longer than I wanted to cook on the 3rd day.

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