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**Wiley** · 12-21-2010, 01:26 AM

Re: Opinions please on this steel portable oven

And a Merry Christmas to you as well :-)

Comments and opinions, well what this seller is selling isn't really the same wood fired ovens we are usually discussing here. Sure it has some firebricks but basically it is not relying on retained heat in the same manner/scale as our Pompeii style. I looked but had no luck finding the weight. Weight would be a good indicator of mass and mass is what is heated in our WFOs and what holds/stores our heat. It would appear the mass for retained heat is the bricks in the hearth and the top is only sheet metal and insulation. I can't imagine a 90 second pizza coming out of this oven, it might bake more like a conventional oven (ie: ten to twenty or more minute pizza). Nor can I image a slow cooked pork shoulder or turkey coming out of this oven. And bread, hard to imagine enough stored heat in those few bricks to bake several loaves of bread.

The seller is a wholesale seller and interested in moving stuff from his ebay storefront. And lots of variety in the stuff he's selling. Not like he was a retailer of wood fired ovens much less that he built them or had them built. I looked at the seller's profile in hopes of finding someone who had purchased one of these (won auction, whatever) but had no luck the ebay feedback site doesn't list the purchases, all listed as "private" sales. I figured if you could find someone who owned one of these you could find out just what it can and cannot do. However, as his sales are all listed as "private" and so one cannot find someone who bought for one of these. That I personally think is a questionable practice, if someone is a honest, forthright seller he should have no problem with my wanting to talk with previous patrons and buyers of the stuff he sells. He probably would say he's "protecting" the "privacy" of his clients..which I could understand if he was selling sex toys or some such, otherwise it's a ruse to keep buyers in the dark (IMHO).

Just my 2 cents worth, hope it was some help,
Wiley

**mn8tr** · 12-21-2010, 06:33 AM

Re: Opinions please on this steel portable oven

Totally different animal from the oven builds on this forum. Anything you cook in a WFO that you build with your own hands will be the best you ever had. And if it is not you will say that it is... ; )

**v12spirit** · 03-10-2014, 08:47 PM

Re: Opinions please on this steel portable oven

Originally posted by Wiley View Post

And a Merry Christmas to you as well :-)

Comments and opinions, well what this seller is selling isn't really the same wood fired ovens we are usually discussing here. Sure it has some firebricks but basically it is not relying on retained heat in the same manner/scale as our Pompeii style. I looked but had no luck finding the weight. Weight would be a good indicator of mass and mass is what is heated in our WFOs and what holds/stores our heat. It would appear the mass for retained heat is the bricks in the hearth and the top is only sheet metal and insulation. I can't imagine a 90 second pizza coming out of this oven, it might bake more like a conventional oven (ie: ten to twenty or more minute pizza). Nor can I image a slow cooked pork shoulder or turkey coming out of this oven. And bread, hard to imagine enough stored heat in those few bricks to bake several loaves of bread.

The seller is a wholesale seller and interested in moving stuff from his ebay storefront. And lots of variety in the stuff he's selling. Not like he was a retailer of wood fired ovens much less that he built them or had them built. I looked at the seller's profile in hopes of finding someone who had purchased one of these (won auction, whatever) but had no luck the ebay feedback site doesn't list the purchases, all listed as "private" sales. I figured if you could find someone who owned one of these you could find out just what it can and cannot do. However, as his sales are all listed as "private" and so one cannot find someone who bought for one of these. That I personally think is a questionable practice, if someone is a honest, forthright seller he should have no problem with my wanting to talk with previous patrons and buyers of the stuff he sells. He probably would say he's "protecting" the "privacy" of his clients..which I could understand if he was selling sex toys or some such, otherwise it's a ruse to keep buyers in the dark (IMHO).

Just my 2 cents worth, hope it was some help,
Wiley

Hi Wiley,
You know I'm planning to build a steel oven. I have been thinking that the thermal mass is just for retained heat cooking not for fast (in fire) cooking. I am wondering why a steel oven having the same temp as a brick one (even while having roughly less thermal mass than the brick one) would not cook as fast as the brick oven?

**Craig308** · 03-10-2014, 10:13 PM

Re: Opinions please on this steel portable oven

We have a steel oven it has fire bricks and insulation around the out side as has been said it dose not hold heat for a long period of time but we have cooked plenty of food in it yes bread as well but only a couple of loafs at a time . have try low and slow but it is more like medium and not so slow. pizza take about 10mins but we have had some great tasting food out of it. I think it will burn out over time
But my next oven will be a brick one!
this is ours with a tandoori pizza

**v12spirit** · 03-11-2014, 12:14 AM

Re: Opinions please on this steel portable oven

How does this kind of ovens operate? I mean does it have two chambers; the upper for loading pizzas and the lower for loading wood? Are these chambers separate or they are just one chamber split by a shelf in the middle?

**Craig308** · 03-11-2014, 12:29 AM

Re: Opinions please on this steel portable oven

v12 it does have two chambers wood in the bottom chamber which is separated by a fire brick which you cook the pizza on in the top chamber
Cheers Craig

**v12spirit** · 03-11-2014, 04:03 AM

Re: Opinions please on this steel portable oven

Got it.
I think that the fire being in a separate chamber is contributing to the limited performance of that oven and resulting in 10 min pizzas. I think that if such an oven had the pizzas and the wood together right in one steel chamber that is well insulated it would do 90 secs pizzas. Don't you think?
BTW I viewed your public profile. I like motor sport too. I'm now building a vehicle dynamics simulator to apply my insane driving in my virtual world. I can not be insane in my father's car.
Kind Regards.

**Wiley** · 03-11-2014, 10:02 AM

Re: Opinions please on this steel portable oven

v12Spirit,
You are good at checking archives and so you might look back a couple of years as there was a fellow in California (if memory serves) who was building a commercial WFO using steel plate he had rolled into a half a tube. His questions were regarding the need for some sort of refractory over the plate. When he started he was talking of using 1/2 inch plate but I think he ended up using 3/8"plate. The tools needed to roll the heavy plate and the cost and weight of the plate were factors in that change.

As I remember he went without refractory and was having success in producing pizzas. The key thing here is the thickness of the steel plate. You were considering using 2mm or less thick steel sheet which acts differently than the much thicker steel plate when subjected to non uniform heating, at least in the heat we are discussing here.

But in answer to your question: If you are going to use a thin sheet of steel (where the mass is not great enough to supply the amount of heat needed to bake a pizza) one will need to supply additional heat while the pizza is baking. This is done commercially wherein they leave off the thin steel sheet and simply run the pizza thru a tunnel on a conveyor belt and use radiant heat....not my idea of a pizza but I guess in the absence of any other perhaps acceptable. In this case however placing a thin sheet of steel between the heat source and the pizza would only slow the process. The heat source can easily be a glowing nickel chrome wire/element at a temp in excess of 1400F.

If such a pizza is acceptable then I would suggest you rethink the pizza oven idea and consider using a pizza stone in a conventional oven. Pizza baked in a WFO is a different product.

While the photo of the pizza Craig308 has generously shown us looks inviting it does (IMHO) not look like a pizza baked in a WFO but rather more like one would get at a standard pizza establishment where the pizza is baked in a shelf type commercial oven. In my opinion it is lacking the "char" that is produced by exposure to an open flame or very high heat source.

Hope this helps,
Wiley