Excited or Dissapointed - My Cool New Oven isn't Heating Up

[JRPizza]

Sorry to hear your oven is not living up to expectations. Without going back through your previous threads I'm curious how proven the design you used was. It seems like you have very little thermal mass in the floor and other than the inner shell none in the "dome". It's an unusual design (at least on this forum) which is why I was asking about the performance of similar (if any) ovens.

[Oven_Man]

I took some measurements and found the following

Whilst the oven was very hot, the outside of the oven was around 170 to 180f.
The underneath of the oven was actually cold to the touch - you could leave your hand there indefinitely and not discomfort whatsoever. Infact to say it was even warm would be an understatement. This leads me to believe that the firebrick isn't losing heat to the bottom of the oven.
The steel got to around 700 to 750f and stabalized around there.
The firebrick got to around 600F
After the fire died down and the coals were almost out, the Steel measure around 450f and the firebrick around 350f

Not sure if these measurements can help someone diagnose my problem but I'm so desperate to fix this problem since I spent a small fortune to build this oven - I would hate for the oven to be almost useless.

[Oven_Man]

I lit the oven now and loaded it with some old wood that was lying around the house which I was meaning to get rid of - what a perfect opportunity to create an inferno.
I also had some old paperwork which I need to get rid of so I threw that in too. The oven is ultra hot - you can barely stand in front of the entrance and just trying to put your hand into the mouth of the oven runs the risk of getting burned. It's very very hot.

I also put my baking steel onto half of the firebrick floor. I did a measurement of the temperature and the baking steel is reaching almost 700f - the firebrick is around 600f. Maybe the baking steel is my answer to solving the poor heating of the floor. Hopefully I can bake a pie shortly and see how it goes once the flame dies down a bit.

[Oven_Man]

Hi Everyone

In another post, I mentioned a Stainless Steel Oven that I was in the process of Building. Finally the oven was completed at my fabricator and boy was I excited. Then the excitement turned to disappointment yesterday when I fired it up for the first time. The oven is heating up quite well and you can feel the blazing inferno of the fire as can be seen in the video.

The problem I have is my Firebricks just can't get up to temperature. First I couldn't get it beyond 450f then I moved my fire around and managed to get it up to 575f with lots and lots of wood and a blazing inferno but that would drop quickly right after baking a pie - the temp would go right down to 380f. The outside of my oven gets hot to the touch such that placing your hand on the outer for more than 3 seconds could probably burn you - I tried to take a temperature reading but because the Stainless Steel has a mirror finish, the IR Thermometer bounced right of the mirror onto the closest object. I would estimate that the outside reaches around 250f.

Quick Summary of my Build
Oven is full stainless steel with an inner and outer dome (Ooni Pro Design but larger 70 X 70 Internal Area)
100mm Ceramic Fiber Blanket between the domes
75mm Ceramic Fiber Blanket at the Back of the oven
75mm Ceramic Fiber Blanket underneath the floor
The right ride of the oven has the firebrick enough to bake 2 X 30cm pizzas - exact dimension is 345mm X 690mm
Left side of the oven has a Stainless steel tray to hold the logs and acts as an ash tray as well
Inner dome height is just over 13"
Oven opening is 18" wide and 8.5" height
Firebrick is 25mm thick 35% alumina medium duty

Looking at the video ,https://youtu.be/T_ZGRyBOzE8 you will notice the flames from my fire doesn't lap around the dome and I know that might pose some issues - I'm not sure why this is the case and still trying to find out.


I'm desperately looking for some suggestions how to circumvent these problems I am experiencing?

Please help

Take Care
Om