oven opening size

[thezaman]

i am hoping that someone can help with the effect of reducing the oven entrance size how it effects performance. i have a forno bravo oven that i want to increase the floor thickness in. the reason being is that my pizzas are burning on the bottom and are out of balance. i thickened the floor on a small forno bravo primevera 70 and it out cooks my big oven, so i want to take the same approach.i have two sets of firebrick available 1 1/4 inch and 2.5 inch. the oven opening is 20 by 10 so it would be reduced by 20 by 9 or 20 by71/2. can any members tell me how that will effect performance of the oven, such as how the oven will burn, how it will light ect.the oven is a toscanno.[sorry spelling is wrong] the floor is 40 inches

[azpizzanut]

Re: oven opening size

Hello thezaman,

If your pizza is burning on the bottom I'd wait until the bricks cooled down a bit. Not every dough recipe can take high heat. Things that can make the bottom of a pizza burn or appear burned are sugars in the dough which caramelize and too much cornmeal or flour stuck to the dough or on the peel. I use a laser thermometer and check the floor of my oven. After awhile you will know when the oven is ready for your style of pizza dough and a thermometer isn't really necessary. In addition, if you have a thick layer of coals and some live fire in the oven then you can easily burn the edge of the pie. I use semolina flour on the peel and others recommend rice flour (meal) since they don't burn as easily as corn meal or wheat flour.

As for adding more brick to the floor I would ask myself it that would really fix the problem. I think they would get as hot as your current bricks.

Changing the dynamics of the oven opening dimensions has a lot of leeway. Taller or shorter opening heights still work ok as long as they are not extreme. The 63% ratio is a good average but higher and lower have also worked. If you want to experiment a little then place new brick on the floor temporarily and try it.

Something you might try, without going to the extremes of placing new brick or changing the opening dynamics, is to take a clue from some of the professional pizza cooks. At least two YouTube videos show a professional raising the pizza on a peel into the dome area, where it is very hot, to finish cooking the top of the pie. It is obvious the bottom of the pie is done and he knows raising the pie to the dome area will essentially stop the browning on the bottom and finish it on the top. In this scenario you might conclude that the floor bricks were hot enough to rapidly cook the dough on the bottom but the oven temperature at pie level was not quite sufficient to entirely cook the top of the pie.

Best of luck,

[thezaman]

Re: oven opening size

what is the formula for the 63 % ratio. i use the dome technique ,but i feel more thermal mass on the floor will help .

[dmun]

Re: oven opening size

I'm thinking this is a drastic solution to a simple problem. Do you rake your fire to the side a good twenty to thirty minutes before you start cooking pizza? This moderates the floor temperature and gets pretty even browning to top and bottom. An oven where the fire has just raked to the side is too hot for pretty much everything except pita bread.

An FB modular oven is a carefully engineered product. I'm thinking that after market modifications may not be the first thing to try.

[lwood]

Re: oven opening size

You could just put a few of your bricks down in the middle of the hearth, big enough to fit a pizza and bake a pizza on it. See if it makes a difference. Personally, I don't see how it will make any difference except get the pizza a little closer to the dome.

[thezaman]

Re: oven opening size

i think the floor will have better thermal mass. and getting it closer to the dome won't hurt. i did this in my p70 and it made a big difference in my pizzas