Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

[Lburou]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

Lee,
Great performance on your oven! The 500 degrees the next day, is that with leaving in hot coals over night? My oven's heat retention is close to yours, I only have one thermal break for the flue, none on the front. I attribute the slow cool to super insulation, 4" foamglas under hearth, three to four inches insulfrax blanket on the dome. Plus 80 cu.ft. of loose vermiculite on top of the blankets. Also, the added mass of 1 inch mortar/firebrick on the dome helps store extra heat too! I can't wait to finish closing it up from the elements and do full time cooking!

Yes, that is closing the door on some coals, but I usually have charcoal in the morning.

[Aegis]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

Lee,
Great performance on your oven! The 500 degrees the next day, is that with leaving in hot coals over night? My oven's heat retention is close to yours, I only have one thermal break for the flue, none on the front. I attribute the slow cool to super insulation, 4" foamglas under hearth, three to four inches insulfrax blanket on the dome. Plus 80 cu.ft. of loose vermiculite on top of the blankets. Also, the added mass of 1 inch mortar/firebrick on the dome helps store extra heat too! I can't wait to finish closing it up from the elements and do full time cooking!

[Lburou]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

Thanks John

Our oven looks like a Model T, but cooks like a Ferrarri...

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

Lee,

What great specs your oven achieves! 500F the next morning sounds like heaven, especially after only 100min of firing. Since my oven is 1m as well, I'll be sure to go the loose vermiculite route too. Thanks for the update.

John

[Lburou]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

After 6 months of oven use, I finally have an input here. Its too late to participate in my own poll, but we made a 39.25 inch oven (one meter).

Interior height is 21.625 inches (yes, that is two extra inches high), with an inner arch height of 13.6 inches. We used four inches of rigid insulation under the oven floor, two inches ceramic insulation and at least 7 inches of loose vermiculite above the dome, with three thermal breaks.

I get some smoke on startup and with wind coming in the front, but my 22.25 X 14.625 inch landing and 9 X 6.25 inch flu opening gets the job done. I use a blast door and everything works well without smoke. The inner arch (door opening) is 13.6 inches tall and 19.5 inches wide -A deliberate decision for a little taller and narrower doorway and dome peak than usual, but it lets more light in the oven and also allows taller dishes like turkey or a big piglet with ease. No dilaterious affects on heat distribution noted to date, (which, theoretically, could be caused by higher than normal dome).

The dome clears after 45 -55 minutes, but it takes about two hours to get a moderate store of heat in the refractory, I don't think we have ever fully saturated the oven. With a 100 minute burn & pizza in the afternoon, we have 500 F floor temp at 9 AM the next morning, 340 F after about 48 hours, 250 F at 72 hours, and 184 F after 96 hours -We can cook for days after pizza with no additional fire unless we want it

As to size, its plenty big....I prefer one pizza at a time. The most I've ever had in there at once was three 10-12 inchers. With one pizza at a time, I could have done with a much smaller oven. But, I'm hoping to use that space for baking bread soon.

See links to my Thermal breaks and oven build in my signature.

[dmun]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

A lot of the American Colonial ovens were not much more than 24", of course they weren't making pizza. A good collection of 18c houses with ovens are at the Shelburne museum in Vermont.

[david s]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

Found these two neighbouring ovens in Chinon castle in France.The smaller oven was tiny, only about 18' in diam.

[fxpose]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

If I need anything smaller and want to do it outdoors I use my Weber grill.

[Mike Hettinga]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

.... Makes me wonder if I don't need two ovens

Now there is a great question. It kind of falls under the maxim "when you want it you want it." I can see most of the time a smaller, say 28-32 inch oven being sufficient and simpler to heat but I also love to throw large parties and how perfect would it be to go ahead and fire up the 28-32 inch neighboring oven at the same time. maybe one is going pizza and the other is roasting. The possibilities seem to grow exponentially with using two smaller as opposed to one big oven.

Course then you start to wonder how they would be sitting next to each other and would you insulate between or maybe use the neighbor as a proofing box...

Oh my gosh thanks for blowing my mind!!

So let's see. paired ovens, rumsford firebox and an outdoor grill with rotisserie. This could be the beginning of a beautiful outdoor kitchen.

Mike

[Lburou]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

In a private communication egalecki had these excellent thoughts, observations and experiences to add to the discussion:

Yes, I have extra insulation both under and over the oven- I put vermiculite concrete under my insulation board (4 inches) and there's about 4 1/2 inches on top of the dome, over the two layers of blanket. There's no extra mass, however. That just adds to heating time, and I feel that the extra insulation is better for extending the cooking than extra mass.

The plans are pretty good just as they are. Lots of people think they can "refine" them, but honestly, providing you use modern materials (real firebrick, modern insulation,and lots of it), you can build an oven that works beautifully just by the plans- the same design's been used for centuries for a reason. I used to think I needed more oven space, but really, a 36 is fine. I can bake more bread at one time than I can eat, I can do two pizzas at once. I can't manage more than two pizzas at a time anyway without burning one. If you want to do commercial baking, more than one baking session at a time, well, a Scott oven might be better- but for pizza and "some" bread (mind you, I have made 20 pounds at a time) it's great just as it is.

As far as design goes, just make sure your throat/landing walls are angled outward. Mine aren't and it's a pain to get the door in and out. Also make sure you leave enough of a stop for your door to rest on. If you don't, your door won't fit well.

My oven, under normal circumstances, heats up to pizza temps in about an hour and a half, with as big a fire as I can manage to make. As for retaining heat, well, you have to remember that it only holds as much heat as you load into it, and just getting up to pizza temp alone doesn't fully load my oven with as much heat as it will hold. To do that, I have to fire it longer, spread the coals out, yadda yadda. That said, if I am firing it for bread, I heat it up to pizza temp, spread the coals out, let it sit at least 1/2 hour (door on), then I clean out the coals and ash and wait until it gets to about 600. At that point, I'm about ready to bake.

If I heat load the oven fully (by doing several pizzas and having it going full bore for at least an hour or so) then with my insulated door, the temperature goes down gradually over the course of several days. The colder it is outside the faster it happens, but since it's pretty well insulated, that's still pretty slowly. I can get temps the next morning over 500, the next evening at 300, and so on. I usually try to plan out meals over the course of several days to take advantage of it- pizza one night, roast a chicken the next day, put in a stew that night for the day after that.

[bankermason]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

I have a 36" pompeii that sits on a base of 80" x 96" . I have my wood storage at the rear of the oven which I like but my back yard is so small that my friends nicknamed it 'the bunker'. That being said my next oven will be smaller 28" for faster heat up ..under an hour would be preferable and I know I would use it more often.

[bankermason]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

I have a 40" WFO that I built on a trailer. It takes a minimum of 1.5 hours to get up to pizza temps with a big fire...I usually allow 2 hours. The one item that has made the difference in usable cooking space is a fire holder I cobbled together out of some angle iron.

I build the fire in the center of the oven and later push it over to the side and place my wood holder against it, then add wood behind the wood holder from then on.

One weekend a month we haul the oven over to our local park for Market Days and make pizzas. The wood holder allows me enough space to cook as many pizzas at a time as I'm capable of making. A bigger oven would do me no good because there are only so many pizzas I can manage at a time...for me that is 4 or 5 going flat out assembling them and managing the oven.

The last pic is after using the oven for 10 hours straight making pizzas...a lot of wood was burned.

Very impressive oven!

[Grimaldi]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

I have a 40" WFO that I built on a trailer. It takes a minimum of 1.5 hours to get up to pizza temps with a big fire...I usually allow 2 hours. The one item that has made the difference in usable cooking space is a fire holder I cobbled together out of some angle iron.

I build the fire in the center of the oven and later push it over to the side and place my wood holder against it, then add wood behind the wood holder from then on.

One weekend a month we haul the oven over to our local park for Market Days and make pizzas. The wood holder allows me enough space to cook as many pizzas at a time as I'm capable of making. A bigger oven would do me no good because there are only so many pizzas I can manage at a time...for me that is 4 or 5 going flat out assembling them and managing the oven.

The last pic is after using the oven for 10 hours straight making pizzas...a lot of wood was burned.

[Lburou]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

My oven is quite small 21" in diam actually. My first oven was actually even smaller. For the life of me I can't understand why you'd want a huge monster that takes up most of your backyard. The smaller ovens can cope quite easily with a party of 20 or so guests. They also consume far less fuel. Fuel usage is directly proportional to oven volume. As most of us cook one pizza at a time a large diam. seems a bit pointless. I can fit 3 nine inch pizzas in mine at a time if pressed. Having said all this there are times when I wish the oven were bigger, but there are more times when I am grateful it's small, we use it more often.

Glad to hear that you have the right oven for your needs. I'd like to see a picture. Did you build it? Makes me wonder if I don't need two ovens

"kindled with zeal and Fired with Passion" I like that!

[mn8tr]

Re: Poll: How big is your Wood Fired Oven?

I would much rather have built a larger oven but I did not want to visually overpower my back yard. My 32" floor should work just fine for our needs. We seldom cook for more than 6-8 people at a time. I can easily fit two 12" pies.