Compact 36" in Seattle

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

More pics, and all in one place:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.470699742806.248521.632447806&l=7ac1185d2e&type=1

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

I'm really happy with the performance. It gets white-dome, 800? floor, 900?+ in less than an hour with a good fire. I'd say an hour, from striking the match. IT was even hotter when I was doing those sub-50 second pies, at 900? floor, and off scale (so over 1000?) on the dome. I'm also having fun cooking things other than pizza. No door yet, so no bread, but I've been roasting veggies as the oven is heating up, and fish and chickens over the coals once I'm finished cooking pizza. The veggies are amazingly good, with a very, very thin, delicate, almost shattery crust, and soft interiors. The fish was outrageous too. It was a whole, wild sockeye salmon, stuffed with fresh herbs and lemon, salted and peppered generously, then rubbed all over with olive oil. Then I cooked it over the coals of the dying pizza fire, and through a woody branch of a rosemary bush (they grow like weeds out here, and get huge) on the fire, and the fish was perfumed with rosemary smoke, which you could taste in the final product.

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

Finished! I don't have any pics of the counter polishing process, but it was surprisingly quick and easy with some diamond-resin disks on my 4.5" grinder. It is glass smooth, then sealed. If you look closely, you can see a couple of stains which happened when I was cooking and some oils spilled onto the concrete, before any grinding at all. At the time I wasn't worried about it because I was planning on grinding the top layer off, but apparently the oil penetrates the concrete pretty deep. Adds character, I guess. However, now that it is sealed, new oil spills don't soak in at all.

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

Taking a break to cook! My fastest pie was 48 seconds, which was amazing, but now I shoot for 70-80 seconds! There just wasn't enough margin for error, and you have to work really fast. Even so, I wowed the crowd pulling out several 50 second pizzas in quick succession. The pics isn't one of those, that pie took about 70 seconds.

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

Updates! I finished the project (except for the door) a long time ago, but haven't gotten around to posting pics. So here you go! These are of pouring the counter, and finishing the stucco up. The stucco is three coats of fiber-reinforced portland stucco over wire lathe(mesh), with two coats of terra-cotta colored acrylic stucco over that. My thinking was that the layer of insulation blanket over the bricks, then an un-anchored mesh layer over that would provide a way for the bricks to expand and contract, without cracking the stucco. So far, no cracks after about 8 uses of the oven! I'm hopping the two coats of acrylic stucco will keep it water tight.

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

No door yet, but I just ordered materials to build an insulated door. I feel like the door is where there is the least design consensus of the whole project.

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

The blanket and insulation board I ordered from fornoo bravo. I got everything else locally. I made my own mortar, using #70 silica sand, portland, lime, and fireclay in a 3:1:1:1 ratio. I got the mortar materials from Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel, they are cheaper, have a better selection, and get you in and out the door faster than the big box stores. The bricks and the skagits (large 2'x1' floor bricks) I got from IXL, but they went out of business a couple of months ago, so I think Mutual materials is your best bet. That is also where I got the clay flue liner.

[ggoose]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

What are you using for an oven door (if anything) when cooking those great looking pizzas?

[BriggsARNP]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

You can always buy from FornoBravo, shipping a little steep. There is Harbison-Walker Refractories in Kent that has fire brick, fiberboard and blanket.

[dpike]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

I bought mine off of ebay, some company in portland. I bought the one whose fibers were soluble in your body(!). Got my Heat Stop (yes for my dome) at IXL in Redmond which is now closed.

[brennerwilliam]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

More pics, including curing fires... Draws great! Now insulation!

Great thread! I'm also in Seattle and having difficulties finding some materials. Where did you get the FB blanket? No one around seems to know what it is. Mutual Materials is the only place that carries Heat Stop mortar. Is that what you used for the dome? Thanks!

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

Yup! Pouring a counter!

[Mike D]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

Nice job, I was wondering what you were doing all this time. looks good. What are you doing with the form around the oven. Are you pouring counter? I am just about to do that myself.

Mike

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

Just a couple of more...

[ohthetrees]

Re: Compact 36" in Seattle

A week of curing fires later.... and now (today!) time for the first full tilt fire, and my first pizza! Last night I made 8 doughs from my own wild starter culture. The first three or four were learning experiences, but I'm super happy with how the last few turned out. Not perfection, but darn good for a first day.

I still have a long way to go, still bare insulation, need to do lathe, stucco, etc, and pour an apron/counter. But yahoo!