Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

[scott123]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

As I said from the start, this is an experiment. A fun one I might add.

The proof (failure or success) will be in its actual performance.

I'll keep you posted so we can all learn from it.

I know this may shock you, but people have actually built ovens like this before And, crazy as it sounds, they've learned from it. We've all learned from it. I gave you the benefit of the doubt earlier because I wasn't sure what your final configuration would be, but, now that I see the final setup, baking steel in a bottom heat scenario is a recipe for disaster.

Pizza bakes from below AND above. All successful pizza ovens take this basic concept into account. What you've done here is basically recreate the effect of a frying pan on a hot burner. The bottom of the pizza will be a cinder before the top takes on even the slightest bit of color.

Experimenting can be fun, but performing experiments that have already been done many times before, with completely predictable outcomes- that's wasting time and money.

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Fired it up for the first time last night for actual cooking. I was a bit nervous and even asked my wife to pick up a frozen pizza to cook inside just in case.

I want to thank Jeff (pizzahacker) for his advice, Andris (BakingSteel), and Steve (Greenman) and to all who posted their supportive and encouraging comments.

We made a total of four pizzas last night and used very little wood. I will let the photos speak for themselves.

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

Having trouble with upload. Standby.

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum

[busboss]

Re: Rocket Oven with 55 gallon drum





Overall, I am really happy with the results! Now on to tweaking favorite recipes for my family.

[vegandaddymikey]

You are letting the pictures speak for themselves, but scott123 already told you that your cooking steel would be a disaster. I'm sorry, but the pictures must be from another oven, or are possibly DiGiorno.

[busboss]

Thanks Mikey - I appreciate your sense of humor. While I am not fond of DiGiorno pizza, I am very fond of this Theodore Roosevelt quote:


Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic"
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910
download PDF of complete speech

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

[shuboyje]

When the "pictures spoke for themselves" I really wanted to chime in but didn't under the age old if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all policy. Now that it's getting pretty deep in here I'm compelled to speak up.

Let me preface all this by saying if you are happy with the oven that is the most important thing. I'm really not a jerk but sometimes I play one on TV.

I really don't see a single desirable element in the pizzas you posted that leads me to believe the oven design is anything but a failure. If you standard is to cook something that passes as pizza then you succeeded. If your standard is as high as Scott, myself and others who live for this stuff, it's not even in the ball park of validating the design.

The pizzas pictured show a complete lack of top heat, looking almost as if they have been steamed when viewed from above, and the undercarriage leads me to believe the highly conductive steel was never over 400F or so resulting in an extremely long bake time. This is baked up by a complete lack of oven spring in the crumb.

For a dedicated pizza oven to even register as a success it needs to out perform a standard home oven at a minimum since most people already have an oven in their kitchen. I assure you you could produce a better bake on that same steel in your home oven using a broiler.

Only reason I care about any of this is because I would hate to see someone else mimmick this design because the conceive it to be a success based on the last few post.