Planning my 32" cast oven

[david s]

You are thinking along the right lines. I like to do the vermicrete, then leave it for a week to allow the sun and wind do much of the drying, then do the fires.But there are many ways to skin a cat and a fair bit may depend on your weather conditions.

[AndreasP]

Made some progress today. It was hot and dry the last few days. In the high 80s. Should have helped drying the oven out.
Was able to put on 2" of insulation around the oven and 3" on the top of the dome. Only have 1" around the gallery, but I will add as much Vcrete as I can in that area
Made another fire and kept it going tor a while. Dome got up to 250F but floor got to 500F+ after I moved the coals.

Planning to do the 10:1 Vermicrete over the insulation tomorrow. It seems there are different opinions if this should be done before or after the curing fires:

• Before: I would not be adding more water to the build once the dome is cured and dried
• After: It might be easier to drive any remaining water out of the dome without the Vcrete on top of the fiber blanket

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Looking forward to pizza.

[MarkJerling]

I tend to start with good, dry, seasoned pine and once I have a good fire I add gum and finally I move on to cherry, apple and/or olive wood.

[Kris S]

From my experience with our home wood burning stove: lots of people say don’t use pine but that’s nonsense, I burn it without any problems (soot or black smoke). To do this I have to split the logs smaller than with any other type of wood I’ve burnt because pine tends to need more oxygen to have a clean burn, so big chunks of pine will either burn/smolder with dirty smoke (too little air) or get way too hot with flames going partly up in the chimney pipe when you give adequate oxygen for a clean burn. I had to learn through trial and error and seeing your stove go Chernobyl scared the hell out of me! Smaller splits, not overloading the stove and adequate oxygen supply and I can burn pine just fine without visible smoke outside.

I don’t use pine to start my home fire though, because on firing the temperature is still low and smoke does occur with any type op wood, but just more with pine, it’s smoke also smells worse, maybe because of the resin. Pieces with resin oozing out give lots of heat, but more smoke and soot as well.

I haven’t used it in the pizza oven and don’t plan on doing it, but that’s because I have enough other soft- and hardwood.

Anyway I’d season them for at least a year instead of 6 months.

Cherry wood is excellent!

Acacia, I don’t know, interested in this as well! I have some drying right now and ready to burn in the oven next year. It’s a dense hardwood but I read somewhere it can smell funny as well?

[AndreasP]

Good to know, will have to wait a while until the pine is seasoned.
Yes, I bought two wooden peels for loading the pizza.
My banjo peel is aluminum, will have to live with it for now.

[UtahBeehiver]

I use pine or cheaper wood for the initial startup/heating of my oven and finish off with hardwoods for the final stage as well as the live fire while cooking pizza. Gotta use what you got. BTW, nice banjo peel. The banjo peels gets a lot of use with turning the pies, it also get a lot exposure to heat. I just cut off the burnt end of my wood shaft and remounted the ss banjo. Loading of pizzas seems to work better with a wood peel.

[AndreasP]

Lastly a wood question. I looked on the forums and read that people recommend against using pine in a pizza oven.
I just got probably 1/2 a cord of Italian pine for free.
It will of course need to get seasoned for at least 6 months before I can use it at all.
I was hoping that I could at least us it for heating up the oven, then switch to purchased hardwood (expensive) for cooking. I do have a little bit of cherry from when we cut down a small cherry tree, but that will be gone quickly.
Any thoughts on what to use and not to use pine for and why?
I may also be able to get a hold of a small quantity of acacia wood, any concerns with that? It is a hardwood from what I am reading.

[AndreasP]

Also started collecting some tools for the first pizza party. Made a turning peel out of a broom handle and the bottom of a quicke tin with a removable bottom. Was easy enough to cut it down to 9" with a bit that can be inserted into the handle. Used screws from an Ikea kitchen install (to screw cabinets together).

[AndreasP]

It has been really humid here the last few days. 99% condensing humidity every night.
Where the oven is located it doesn't get any sun this time of year so I decided to make a few small drying fires. Nothing bad has happened so far.
I kept the fires really small, just 5 pieces of matchlight charcoal for the first two days. Once the charcoal was lit I distributed them. The dome never got hotter than where I could comfortably hold my hand both on the inside and outside.
Then added a few more coals.
Matchlight did work quite well. I know they contain lighter fluid, but I am sure it will burn off long before I start my first pizza.

The dome has dried quite visibly, but will wait until next weekend to insulate and start the real curing fires.

[MarkJerling]

I use a similar recept but with a lot less yeast (instant dry yeast) and a little more salt, I believe the long resting time for the dough is key, as well as using typo 00 flour!

1 kg typo 00 flour
600 g water
0.3 g yeast
30 g salt

rest for 24 hours, then ball and rest for another 2 hours or so and make pizza!

your build looks great Andreas!

That is interesting re the yeast. I often wondered about the 6 grams. (Which to my mind seemed a lot) Seems like there's a lot of scope for reduction of the yeast component. Will halve my recipe and go from there!

[AndreasP]

Thanks Kris. That's a lot less yeast.
I'll have to experiment when the oven is ready.
Still in the "patience" stage of the build.

[Kris S]

I use a similar recept but with a lot less yeast (instant dry yeast) and a little more salt, I believe the long resting time for the dough is key, as well as using typo 00 flour!

1 kg typo 00 flour
600 g water
0.3 g yeast
30 g salt

rest for 24 hours, then ball and rest for another 2 hours or so and make pizza!

your build looks great Andreas!

[MarkJerling]

I've not tried it in the bread maker David! Must have a go.

[david s]

Thanks to this forum and some further reading I now only use one dough recipe:
1kg Caputo '00' or "pizza" flour.
635g water at room temperature.
6g Caputo dry yeast.
20g fine sea salt.

Mix all the ingredients together. Dough should be easy to work but not too sticky. Lightly knead through for a minute or two once fully mixed. Let stand for 15 minutes. Knead through again for a minute or two.
Place in an oiled dough box in the fridge for minimum 24 hours. Remove from fridge 1-2 hours before making pizzas so as to allow the dough to come to room temperature., but leave dough in closed dough box so as to keep dough moist.

For each pizza, grab a hand full of dough or roughly 225g-250g. (The recipe makes 7x 235g dough balls) These, if stretched carefully, will make 10" to 12" pizzas, depending how thin you go. Stretch dough on a bench using about a tablespoon of flour per pizza.

Any "00" grade flour will work but I prefer Caputo. (From Naples)

Yes, I use the same recipe and method, although I usually dump all the ingredients in a bread maker on dough only setting (I'll happily work with clay and concrete, but I don't like handling sticky dough), then when it's done turn the dough into a plastic bag with some spray cooking oil on the inside. Twist the top of the bag loosely and refrigerate overnight.

[AndreasP]

Mark, thanks for the recipe, I will have to try that once I have dried and fired my oven. At this time I have to be patient (I am told), so I will do my best.
Still have 4 days to complete the wet curing of the gallery. Then at least 7 days of drying, insulate, fire slowly for 7 days.
So I am about 3 weeks from my first pizza.