Re: Steel Drum Oven at the Lake Cottage
Successful party!
Two different types of pies and the oven worked great. I started it up early in the day to drive off us much moisture as possible as I had only had the one drying fire previously. The steel definitely allows the heat to disperse evenly throughout the dome quickly as it's a better conductor of heat than brick. The outside layer of bricks obviously isn't dry yet as it was very slow to increase temp. At the end of the day it was only at 280F and I'd been running a fire for 6 hours. I ended up cooking with the hearth temp at 550F (a little low) and the dome at 750F. Pizza pies turned out great. You'll just have to trust me as apparently once they were cooked the focus was on eating them rather than getting a picture. We ended up flouring the back side of the pizza trays and used them as improvised pizza peels and using my oversize spatula as a turning and removing peel. We then went to dessert, a blueberry pie that i'd picked up from a farmers market. Turned out it was uncooked and since I had the oven preheated we just threw it in there. The hearth temp was at 450F and the dome was at 550 at that point. Turned out well, the hearth temp was still a little high so it cooked a little too much on the bottom but the rest was great. I noticed a few cracks around the chimney that developed yesterday so I filled those this morning. Depending on how energetic I feel tomorrow and as long as the weather holds I will insulate the oven and put the roof on.
Successful party!
Two different types of pies and the oven worked great. I started it up early in the day to drive off us much moisture as possible as I had only had the one drying fire previously. The steel definitely allows the heat to disperse evenly throughout the dome quickly as it's a better conductor of heat than brick. The outside layer of bricks obviously isn't dry yet as it was very slow to increase temp. At the end of the day it was only at 280F and I'd been running a fire for 6 hours. I ended up cooking with the hearth temp at 550F (a little low) and the dome at 750F. Pizza pies turned out great. You'll just have to trust me as apparently once they were cooked the focus was on eating them rather than getting a picture. We ended up flouring the back side of the pizza trays and used them as improvised pizza peels and using my oversize spatula as a turning and removing peel. We then went to dessert, a blueberry pie that i'd picked up from a farmers market. Turned out it was uncooked and since I had the oven preheated we just threw it in there. The hearth temp was at 450F and the dome was at 550 at that point. Turned out well, the hearth temp was still a little high so it cooked a little too much on the bottom but the rest was great. I noticed a few cracks around the chimney that developed yesterday so I filled those this morning. Depending on how energetic I feel tomorrow and as long as the weather holds I will insulate the oven and put the roof on.
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