Driving heat across the cooking floor

[maver]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

washing firebricks with a wet mop certainly may cool it down, but if you have really heated the hearth bricks they should still do their job (so get it good and hot). To be cautious, I would not use a 'wet' mop, but perhaps a 'slightly damp' mop instead. I prefer just the brass brush - it does the job of diminishing the ash without any cooling effect on the hearth bricks.

As a rule, I think most here have learned that even with a poorly insulated oven, the first step to making good use of the oven is to really saturate the bricks. Even with a well insulated oven it takes some learning to figure out the oven character of your oven. Once you've used the oven for a while and feel comfortable that it is fully cured (6-10 good bakes) then make a point of overdoing it with heat up time and wood amount to find out what the oven is like when those bricks are really saturated - you'll probably need to let it cool a bit with a smaller fire before you can cook. That can be your frame of reference in the future. My dad has a poorly insulated oven (no under oven insulation, and he mixed perlite with refractory mortar for the dome insulation) but even his oven (when we use about twice as much wood as mine uses for heat up) makes a nice pizza when it has been saturated.

[cbakken]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

Could someone define "plasma" for me as it's being used in these forums. What a great word for something to do with a wood oven!

[Acoma]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

A raging inferno type of fire. Plasma heat wanting to boil the air within the oven. Dave has one too. CanukJim has a great one within the photo gallery too. This will be the defined Plasma you question.

[Dutchoven]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

bakken,
there are lots of photos of that stage of the fire floating through the site....basically the fire needs to be very frightening....very frightening with the flames sometimes licking their way out the door...the flames will also appear to not be touching the wood below...as for the baking be patient and log your progress so you can begin to eliminate variables to improve the final product...each oven is different...those who make their floor of firebricks will have hot spots located in different areas due to slight variations in the individual brick's compostition(I do)...we unfortunately are not dealing witha perfectly homogenous appliance...but it is the variation that makes it so much fun
Keep on keepin' on
Dutch

[dave d pizza lover]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

please help have finished my ove in august and have had many successful pizza partys sometimes cooking 20 a nite the only problem is that whe n i try to cook at very high temps (800-900) the pizza top and bottom cook but the middle is not cooked thru . i have excellent rusults at 600 but keep hearing about you guys cooking a pizza in 3 minutes i mite add that im using about 16 ozs of dough and the pizzas are app 18 inches across so the dough is pretty thin thanks dave

[asudavew]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

please help have finished my ove in august and have had many successful pizza partys sometimes cooking 20 a nite the only problem is that whe n i try to cook at very high temps (800-900) the pizza top and bottom cook but the middle is not cooked thru . i have excellent rusults at 600 but keep hearing about you guys cooking a pizza in 3 minutes i mite add that im using about 16 ozs of dough and the pizzas are app 18 inches across so the dough is pretty thin thanks dave

Have you got any pictures of he dough after flattening it? Before and after pictures.? How long is it taking you to cook a pie?
And if it works for you and you're happy.... Do you need them faster?

[stuart]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

The goal of a 3 minute pizza may require you to redefine just what pizza is.

My first question is when you use the term middle of the pizza are you talking about the middle thickness or center of the circular shape?

My second question is how heavily are you loading your pies with cheese and toppings? Many Americans have come to expect a pizza to be loaded far more than what traditional pizza should be. My interpretation of a VPN inspired pizza includes as much as 100g or mozzerella. That's less than 4 oz of cheese on a pie no larger than 14" in diameter!

Just as earlier discussion regarding deep dish, a "meat lovers" pizza or similar pizzas will do better cooked at lower temps for longer periods of time.

[stuart]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

Have I just had an epiphany...epizzany?.

I've read a good deal of the discussions on the fire in our ovens. Some time after going through the first firings of my oven to cure it, I learned that one should start their fire in the middle of the oven and then move it to the side. I've been doing this, assuming the main reason was to easily reach the fire in it's infancy where starting with small bits of wood is required. My understanding was that once it was of sufficient size one could move it into position to the side for baking.

Do I understand that what many are doing is leaving the fire centered in the oven throughout the heat up and then moving to the side just before putting the first pie in?

[Inishta]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

Hi stuart........that is now my understanding of how to heat up the oven. This is a reply I got from James when I questioned why only one side of the oven turned white.

Keep the fire in the center of the oven, and you will see the top of the dome turn white first. The flame should "lap" into the top of the dome. As you increase the size of your fire, add new wood to the sides and the back, and you get to watch the white spot get bigger and bigger, until it reaches the cooking floor. How cool is that.

James

The thread the quote comes from is here...........

http://http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f16/finally-hot-enough-burn-off-soot-1504.html#post20667

[beammeup]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

By the time my oven is ready its just a case of pushing over the coals to the side and adding a few more logs. I now remove about half of the coals. I also mop out the floor but the heat from the new wood convecting onto the floor keeps it very hot. I can regulate the temp of the floor this way with the amount of new wood added.

[christo]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

I need to push the ashes from the center of the floor of the oven and give enough time (15-20 mins) for that part of the floor to absorb heat after the dome turns white at the top.

Most of our homemade ovens behave a little differently - so I could see where some ovens might have a hotter floor than mine and keeping the ashes/fire in the center might help to moderate the floor temperature.

Chris

[stuart]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

Hi stuart........that is now my understanding of how to heat up the oven. This is a reply I got from James when I questioned why only one side of the oven turned white.

Thanks for the quote. I've been able to achieve a fully white dome when starting the oven fire at the side. However I have an Artigiano 120 with 20" of hearth in front of the oven threshold. It sure would be easier to build the fire to the intensity need to turn things white by doing it at the center and pushing it aside when I'm ready to bake!

[Inishta]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

My oven has not been fired to pizza temperature as yet so I was unsure how hot it needed to get to burn the carbon off completely. Should be firing up again on Saturday so I should notice the difference.

[stuart]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

Who needs Plasma TV when you can have Plasma WFO? I've achieved plasma in the past but not like last night when I kept the fire in the middle of the oven for over 2 hours. At about 2 1/2 hours I moved the fire to the left and kept stoking it for another hour. By the time I put the first pie on the entire dome was white and off the scale on my IR Thermometer! The floor was in the mid 900's and the pizza took 90 seconds.



While the bottom of the first was a bit too charred, these were the best pies I've made to date. The subsequent were just right. The best compliment I had was from our dinner guests who had not eaten pizza since their recent trip to Italy. It was wonderful to hear them exclaim that my pizza was exactly like those they had enjoyed in Tuscany!

[Acoma]

Re: Driving heat across the cooking floor

Stuart, true beauty. This should be shown to all those wondering how hot to get the oven for pizzas, and what plasma is. You should have this picture in the photo gallery if it is not there already. Again, awesome job with the plasma.