building the oven

[Tman1]

Re: building the oven

Thanks Stephen! It doesn't look too pretty, but makes great pizza!!

[stephen*z]

Re: building the oven

yea! some times you have to just go for it and the heck with the rules. there are videos on the web of women cooking beautiful bread in things that look like holes in the floor using grass clippings.
I say Rock On! to you.

[Tman1]

Re: building the oven

C5- Consider that bet placed. Please mail the money to... Thanks for the info on pictures. I won't feel like such a techno newbie now.

Mkingles- Around 600. The concrete pavers make a 4x4 landing. I did place a layer of clay pavers (bricks) to start with under the whole thing because I was worried about the pavers failing due to heat. Over that went a piece of 2x3 insulation board, then another layer of pavers. So, basically the cooking area is 2x3, and I probably could do 3 pizzas at a time, but I usually only do 1, sometimes 2. The long narrow shape and the small opening make moving pizzas tricky. I could've went smaller in size, but we had a lot of pavers, so at the time, we just went with it. Looking back on it, I should have put the pavers on edge instead of flat to have more mass on the floor, but it seems to work just fine, as you can see. One of the downsides of these clay pavers, was they were not a good size to work with. Two bricks on edge did not equal one laying perpendicular to it, but at a cost of $50....

[mklingles]

Re: building the oven

What's the brick count for the oven?

How big is the floor cooking surface (about) -- or how many 14" pizza's can you cook at a time?

[C5dad]

Re: building the oven

Tman

This is a really cool oven that is like the energizer bunny. I would have placed a c note that a failure would have happened by the end of the fire!

As for the thumbnails, use the reply button under the last posting. The click on the paperclip (next to the smiley face) and upload the pictures one by one. It will take some time. You can only upload 5 pics as well.

Keep it up

[Tman1]

Re: building the oven

I should add that the metal bar across the top is there just for a piece of metal I had on top to act as a temporary roof to keep water off. I didn't have that there to start, and I noticed a hearth temp problem with that pizza party. Sure, enough, the piece of insulation underneath my hearth bricks was wet.

[Tman1]

Re: building the oven

I have no idea, at the moment, how to create the thumbnails at the bottom of the post, so, for now, here's a few more of another pizza party.
Again, a picture from the front to show it's not going to cave in... at least not without any help.



and a before & after of a white pizza...

[Tman1]

Re: building the oven

Now I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong/differently than before... but it'll have to wait
I got the pictures fixed, now I need to figure how everybody else gets the thumbnail size to explode when clicked.

[Tman1]

Re: building the oven

I just realized I haven't put up any pizza photos from my other parties...

I know everybody thinks it's going to collapse, but it hasn't moved from day 1.

Now, the pizza;

[mn8tr]

Re: building the oven

Too funny! That's a good story.

[sacwoodpusher]

Re: building the oven

I don't know if this happens to everyone, but I have been cooking in my wood fired oven for 2 months now.

After about 2 "sane firings", I stuff the oven full of wood, and lit it. I had to wait 4 hours before the temperature came down enough to do anything except incinerate my pizza and remove the hair on my knuckles. Hot enough? Ever see a lump of dough turn black in about 30 seconds?

I was watching the cooking show about the young guy living "la dulce vita" in Italy. They showed a mens cooking society on the show, and they showed the first 2 pizzas coming out of the oven black.

On Thanksgiving, I just had to stick my face close to the oven and peer in over the door. My wife was quite upset with me because I singed a few locks of my hair.

Ah well, we learn slowly.

[Tman1]

Re: building the oven

After (almost) 3 months, this thing still stands. We've had multiple pizza parties with it and it has performed amazingly well. The last one we did was the day after Thanksgiving... 22 pizzas, 5 hours of cooking (2 for heat up, although it didn't need that much), many people fed! Interestingly, I measured the temperature of the oven the next day (I had blocked up the door with bricks). It measured 90*F inside, which doesn't sound like much, but you have to take into consideration that there is no insulation, it was 17 hours since the last log went on the fire, AND it got to 10*F overnight (it was 15*F outside at time of reading).

[eprante]

Re: building the oven

Cool, and all of us have been obsessing about curing fires and driving the moisture out of our ovens. 0 to cooking pizza in 4 hours- awesome
Eric

[Tscarborough]

Re: building the oven

I need to build one of these. Once it cools off, I will.

[Tman1]

Re: building the oven

Also, we blocked up the door with bricks last night after we were done and just measured the floor temp now.... 172*f after 17 hours. I really wish I had the thermometer last night. I singed my unibrow blowing on the coals prior to the first pizza (actually in video).