My MAM-505

[haney007]

I have recently aquired a MAM-505 oven. I am having a little trouble getting the hearth heat I need to crisp up the bottom prefectly. I have cured the oven using the 7 fires technique, and have fully fired the oven 3 times. I fire until the dome turns white and brush the coals to the left, get a licking fire going and start cooking. I am thinking I may need to fire for longer than 2 hours since the oven is so big. What are your thoughts on this?
Any advice is appreciated.
Here is a link to a video of my oven in action.

[RTflorida]

Re: My MAM-505

That is a 53" interior oven, right?
That puppy is going to take a big, long ass fire to get up to temp and saturate every inch. I sure hope you insulated both the hearth and dome VERY WELL.
that said, your fire looks a bit small, I think I have a bigger fire going in my 36" when making pizza.

RT

[haney007]

Re: My MAM-505

Yes it is fully self contained inside a steel enclosure. It doesn't even get warm to the touch. How long a fire should I burn? 3 hours?

[dmun]

Re: My MAM-505

Yes, I vote for a bigger fire. Most of us would be making charcoal at the five minute mark. You want smaller wood during cooking, and flames licking up the side of the dome. It also looks like you have carbon all around the bottom of the dome, except right over the fire, again, a marker that you don't have the temperatures you need.

Again, it's a new oven, and it will get better and better as the last residual moisture is driven out of the dome and the insulation. But many new owners are afraid to build really big fires. Go for it.

[ERASMO]

Re: My MAM-505

I agree with d.

You need a "Big Scary Fire"

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: My MAM-505

BIGGer FIRE,,,,, Also try leaving the hot coals on the floor to the very last minute and brush them to the side just before you cook....

[texassourdough]

Re: My MAM-505

Your oven looks way cold. The hearth can't be much over 500, probably less, and the dome is probably under 700 - maybe under 600. An infrared thermometer would be a good investment. The fire is way small for that big oven. The scary part is you indicate you fired for 2 hours and if so where did the heat go. The hearth and dome shouldn't be that cool that fast unless they are badly wet and/or not insulated.

When the hearth is too cold rake the coals out over the hearth and let them burn for 5-10 minutes to recharge the hearth. A bigger fire will help keep the dome hot.

Good luck!
Jay

[james]

Re: My MAM-505

There might be one other thing going on. If the oven is new, or has been in storage for a long time, there will be a lot of retained moisture. You should try going through a traditional curing process to drive out all the water. A 2,000 lb oven can have up to 200lbs of water in the refractories, or about 25 gallons. That's a lot of water to cure out, and it will keep you from having a hot oven until it's gone.

James

[james]

Re: My MAM-505

On other thing to mention. The outer enclosure of the oven might be hotter than normal when you are curing the oven, because of the escaping water. It will reach the metal enclosure and heat it up.
James

[PizzaPolice]

Re: My MAM-505

I watched the video and it left me wondering what kind of pizza you are making. For a heavy pizza like that, I imagine 4+ minutes is about right. It looked ok.
I have that model oven. It needs every bit of 3 1/2 to 4 hours to get up to VPN heat.
Where does the heat go? The damn thing is 2500 lbs. Once it soaks in, it will stay hot for a long time. Use smaller size wood. Quarter splits do you no good. You'll get that acrid black smoke line as the wood tries to heat up to off gas and burn.
Get some air under those coals. Fire it up. It can take it.
It's a real workhorse, too. A few hours ago, I cooked 60+ lbs of beef for Italian Beef. Try that in a small home oven!
PM me if you get stuck. Nice goin'

[Lars]

Re: My MAM-505

Haney,
I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. I have had trouble getting my 39" oven really hot. Mind you, I could not comfortably put my pizza in the oven with that short handled peel you have there. But, your turn tool and technique were quite good!!

I would say that each time I learn a bit more, and rarely fire for over and hour. I haven't gotten the sides to 'go white' yet, just the top, say 26" across. One thing I have lacked is adequate dry well split hardwood. I may need to go for two separate firings... get the top white, the shovel out some of the coals and get even more fresh flames in there.

I think they all have good points, there may still be moisture, which, while boiling off cools the masonry ( water continues to boil off at 212 degrees) so that was part of my initial problem. If the wood is soft wood, or damp, can be very HEAT inhibiting.

I decided to cut down several black locust trees and I will be trying that, somewhat harder wood ( which grows like weeds all around my oven area)...


Hard, dry, well split wood. The more surface area ( smaller pieces) the more heat can be given off at once.

Good luck.

lars.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: My MAM-505

Maybe you should consider burning some coal, as James suggests there is still a ton of water in there, A good coal fire going for a day or two might help get a bunch of that moisture out....

Worry not you WILL get it going

[jmhepworth]

Re: My MAM-505

I haven't seemed to have trouble getting my oven really hot. After going through the cure, we decided to try some pizza on Labor Day. I started two hours before we wanted pizza with a slow fire and kept adding hardwood to keep the fire reasonable. I would not have described it as the fires from hell. I checked the floor and ceiling temps with my cheap Harbor Fright infrared thermometer and it gave an error message (from which I concluded it was over 1000 degrees F). We burned the pizza. We'll try again tonight with a slow fire and less wood.

[haney007]

Re: My MAM-505

Thanks, I'm trying saturday, I think my wood is not small enough as well because it seems to take a long time to get to the "plasma" stage". Wood is quarter split btw.

Thanks again for everyones insight. I will let everyone know how it goes.

[jmhepworth]

Re: My MAM-505

I split mine to about 2-3"

Joe