Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

[david s]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

The main disadvantage of the small oven is the lack of interior floor area and the larger (by proportion) chunk of oven wall lost to the door opening. I was really worried about getting it off the trailer because of the weight. But with my system I think my set up would easily handle another 50% weight so I could have made it a bit bigger.If you have a tractor with hydraulics for instance, you could move it on and off that way. The smaller the combustion chamber is the more difficult it is to make it fire well. I found this out when making pottery kilns, although I have no complaints about how my oven fires. The dome being closer to your pizza could actually be an advantage, because it would get more radiated heat from the top of the dome.

[JoeyVelderrain]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

hI davids, my name is Toto, i am looking arround because I want to build a oven-trailer here in spain. After some investigation I decided I will use a one pice dome they sell here is called peruela. is the shape of the oven made out with cooked mud, I don?t know if my english is that good right now but I think you get the idea.. this I want to set on a trailer... the question is how? and then cover it with some aislant material... how did you hold together the dome with the oven`s floor? I guess it has to be solid or bumps will crack it.. i read you hold this platform (oven cradle?) to the trailer, but how do you hold the oven to the platform?
How big is your oven?
saludos
ToTo

Toto,
le mande un email.

[david s]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

My oven dome is held to the floor by refractory mortar and the outer shell attaches to its supporting slab trogh the adhesion of the cement render mix and I ground into the supporting slab with an angle grinder to help it anchor itself.

[dieter]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

Hi. I have been following Joeys cast oven build very close as I will be doing one soon. My question to all is do you think a solid oven is better than doing a segmented oven for a trailer? I would like to hear thoughts on the pros and cons of each. Unlike Joey who I believe is building it on a trailer so when he moves he can take it I will e using mine on the road (hopefully a lot). If there is no issue with the solid type poor that is what I would like to do (easier). I can seperate the top and bottom as Joey did. Please all thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Diane

I am assuming when you wrote "poor", that you meant pour.

If the alternative is a dome of bricks is the alternative, then a poured monolithic dome would be better, but you need to be concerned about cracks, which will occur unless there is reinforcement. I would suggest fiberglass of the type that is put in sidewalk concrete and it would not hurt to also put in some type of steel such as wire fencing but you have to keep it from being exposed, especially to the inner side. There should be some aggregate in the slurry that you produce as well as plasticizers.

Unless you are able to secure the dome to the sole plate in a manner that will prevent movement, which may be impossible, I would suggest placing rubber insulators of the type used for setting large plate glass windows between the dome and the sole plate when transporting the oven. Naturally, it goes without saying that these insulators must be removed prior to firing the oven.

You should accept the fact that cracks will occur but unless they pull apart the effectiveness of the oven should not be affected.

tschuss!

[dieter]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

Hurry!

Here is an oven on a trailer that is going to be auctioned off tomorrow.

Fast Track Auction.com

[dieter]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

There is another one but the wheels are too small.
Fast Track Auction.com

[djag12]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

Is that a white oven?

[dieter]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

What is white oven ?

[david s]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

The disadvantage of the one piece dome is that the topof the dome gets hotter much faster than the side walls, creating thermal stress and resulting in hairline cracks. Some of this stress will be relieved if the castings are made in a number of pieces. Some hairline cracking is a minor problem because the dome is a self supporting structure. If you get a castable refractory from a reputable supplier it will come with the aggregate already in it, just add water. If you want to reinforce the castable for increased strength I would suggest you go for the industry recommended product- stainless steel needles (melt extract fibres). Mucking around with fibreglass reinforcing might work, but it is not the recommended material for this application.

[dmun]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

What is white oven?

A "White" oven is one where the firebox is outside the baking chamber, and it's heated by the combustion gasses channeled around the oven. This is the way bakery ovens work, and the ovens in wood stoves. It's not the best for pizza.

Masonry heaters often have a "white" oven over the firebox.

[dieter]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

I suppose they are white ovens. If the streets are reasonably clear today, I plan to view one of them.

As to the comment that white ovens are not suited for pizzas, could you elaborate?

Could the disadvantages of using a white oven for pizza be made up for by the addition of a small wood fire inside the oven chamber. That fire could be fed with a more desirable type of wood that would emit a more desirable flavor.

On the geodesic oven project, I would be interested in seeing photos of the inside of the house to which it is attached. Or is it the house that is attached to the oven? In any case, it is impressive.

[dmun]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

The live fire in a pizza oven imparts little direct flavor, like a smoker would. It's the blistering, direct, flame driven heat that does the trick. Having the fire somewhere else will heat up the box, but if you're doing that, why mess with solid fuel at all?

Could the disadvantages of using a white oven for pizza be made up for by the addition of a small wood fire inside the oven chamber.

That depends on how it's vented. You wouldn't build a auxiliary fire in your kitchen oven, would you?

On the geodesic oven project, I would be interested in seeing photos of the inside of the house to which it is attached. Or is it the house that is attached to the oven?

You're right! I never did finish putting up the rest of the pictures. Here's a couple:

[dieter]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

The live fire in a pizza oven imparts little direct flavor, like a smoker would. It's the blistering, direct, flame driven heat that does the trick. Having the fire somewhere else will heat up the box, but if you're doing that, why mess with solid fuel at all?

That depends on how it's vented. You wouldn't build a auxiliary fire in your kitchen oven, would you?

Actually, yes, I would build an auxiliary fire in a conventional modern oven. Now, I admit that my wife has already voiced her objections and that is why, in fact, I am bidding on one or two electric convection ovens in the auction that was referred to when I alerted you all to the oven on the trailer above.

Now, I want to go back to the first part of you response. You are claiming: " It's the blistering, direct, flame driven heat that does the trick." I am concerned with the use of the term "... blistering, direct, flame driven heat ...". The flame (or fire) creates the heat in the oven but the flame is not needed for the actual baking as the baking heat is being released from the oven's mass and absorbed by the things being cooked. Unless one is seeking the scent (taste) of smoke from the burning kindling, does it really matter where the actual heat comes from to raise the temperature of the oven mass?

[dmun]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

does it really matter where the actual heat comes from to raise the temperature of the oven mass?

Well, Yes. You can have a hot oven, a glowing bed of coals, but you aren't going to get the WFO pizza effect unless you have some wood burning, shooting flames up the side of the dome. There's really no smoke taste: the oven is too hot to smoke much if you're doing it right. Anyone who's ever been to a "brick oven" pizzeria run at low temperatures producing ordinary six minute pizzas knows what I'm talking about.

If you want a low temperature oven that travels well, you should just get a gas Bakers Pride and be done with it.

[dieter]

Re: Cast Oven on Trailer Questions

I have been to a number of places that have used wood-fired ovens and they were not always pizzerias. Unfortunately, in most all of these cases there was a language barrier and I could never get my questions answered so I still don't know.

BakersPride will only go to 5 or 6 hundred degrees F. without modification. Exactly how hot are you claiming as necessary to achieve your optimum results? How are able to determine with confidence that you are at that temperature when and wherein the oven you are cooking? With BakersPride, I know what the temperature is so long as I am relying on BakersPride's heating elements solely for the heat because I can maintain the heat level consistently at least in the area of the heat sensor.

Again, you have mentioned the flames. Some claim that once the oven is heated to a temperature level, the retained or accumulated heat of the mass is providing the cooking heat. This implies that the flame is not required or is this only the case when cooking bread?

Finally, are you actually referring to the "searing" effect on the object being cooked when you speak of the wood-fired effect? Is it the charred crust and food edges that you are trying to achieve?