I'm getting closer to my Dome!

[Laurentius]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

Hi Aegis,

When I first started using my oven I burned a lot of pine and evergreen wood and my chimney was a mess. I did a long radical burn where fire was coming out of the front of my oven and that cleaned the chimney of the build up.

[david s]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

I sometimes get little flakey sooty bits falling down on my oven too. I don't think there's much you can do to prevent it. I tend to burn any kind of wood I can find (best wood is free wood) Maybe overloading the chamber with fuel is the culprit, so there is unburnt fuel going up the flue. I just blow the black stuff off with my blowpipe.

[SableSprings]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

You noted that you were going to do some temperature tracking on the oven with your fabulous heat retention. I've been doing some temperature tracking on my oven the last couple months and it has been very helpful in prepping for meals and bread bakes. I have to admit that pizza has not been a primary use of my oven...it's bread. Normally a neighbor comes down on Friday and the two of us bake 15-25 loaves in the afternoon. I started taking readings with my IR temp gun and noting them down on the hour. The next day I graph the results in Excel to get a feel for the oven heat signatures. I've attached the last oven bake graph where I put 24 baguettes through after the daily (morning) firing.

As you have noticed, I also sometimes get some black cinders on the landing (from the chimney). I just blow them back into the oven when I fire it up or brush them into the ash slot...no worries.

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

Creosote is produced from condensing gases in the smoke of a cool fire, or a hot fire but the smoke cools before exiting the chimney. It then sticks to everything. One way of reducing it might be to have an outer arch door that allows a draft to feed the fire as well as holds the smoke at higher temps, allowing the gases to remain hot as they go up the chimney. Even then, you will still get build up, and will need to occasionally brush the smoke stack. Just cover the hearth bricks before you sweep the chimney.

gene

I was afraid of getting that answer, another thing to build and still have to clean up! lol Thanks

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

Hi Aegis,

When I first started using my oven I burned a lot of pine and evergreen wood and my chimney was a mess. I did a long radical burn where fire was coming out of the front of my oven and that cleaned the chimney of the build up.

All hardwood was burned, but only one big fire so far. I'll fire up the oven this weekend and see what I can burn off! Gotta love playing with fire!

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

I sometimes get little flakey sooty bits falling down on my oven too. I don't think there's much you can do to prevent it. I tend to burn any kind of wood I can find (best wood is free wood) Maybe overloading the chamber with fuel is the culprit, so there is unburnt fuel going up the flue. I just blow the black stuff off with my blowpipe.

I know I need to try the top down burn to start the fire, which may help reduce the soot/smoke at the beginning. Some of the soot was from the many curing fires which were low temps.
Thanks for the insite

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

You noted that you were going to do some temperature tracking on the oven with your fabulous heat retention. I've been doing some temperature tracking on my oven the last couple months and it has been very helpful in prepping for meals and bread bakes. I have to admit that pizza has not been a primary use of my oven...it's bread. Normally a neighbor comes down on Friday and the two of us bake 15-25 loaves in the afternoon. I started taking readings with my IR temp gun and noting them down on the hour. The next day I graph the results in Excel to get a feel for the oven heat signatures. I've attached the last oven bake graph where I put 24 baguettes through after the daily (morning) firing.

As you have noticed, I also sometimes get some black cinders on the landing (from the chimney). I just blow them back into the oven when I fire it up or brush them into the ash slot...no worries.

Hi Mike, If your bread is close as good as your oven build is then you are baking awesome bread!
I will find out how good the heat retention really is with a pizza bake Friday night, some bread Saturday and a roast on Sunday. Heat retention is one thing, stored heat to bake 15-20 loaves is certainly another. Wow what thermal mass! My bread baking will be only 6 loaves this time!

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

I had all intentions on doing a heat study this weekend, but a major thunder storm interrupted our pizza party and subsequently heating the oven to max. temps. The pizza party was still almost perfect tho, pizza dough was the best I ever made, thankks to Rossco's thread. The lightning came just as I pulled the last pie from the oven (my dinner) then the down pour. Of well I'll go out now an read the temp of the dome and hearth and edit this post with results.
I did get cement board on the sides but no roof yet, so it was a major scramble to get the trap up over the steel studs. I also filled the enclosure with coarse vermiculite, so I needed to hurry so that didn't get all wet! Argh! If it ever stops raining long enough I can finally have a roof! Sheesh!
Hearth Temp @ 7:30am 538 F
Dome Temp @7:30 am 564 F

Hearth Temp @ 7:30 pm after bread bake & Dinner 422 F
Dome Temp @ 7:30 pm ---------------------------------461 F

NEXT DAY

Hearth Temp @ 7:40 am 361 F
Dome Temp @ 7:40 am 368 F
The above was the last cool down temp. Wife wanted to cook some chicken dish that required a hotter oven. Threw a couple of small logs in and started a fire. Within 20 minutes the oven was back up to 510 F and I had to break up the fire so it didn't get too hot.
Chicken came out great!

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

Back to construction - I finally got the roof sheathing on and some paper on that to make it close to water proof. Or at least I feel comfortable enough not to have to struggle with the trap on and off during our unusual fall monsoon weather. Now to get facia boards and soffits on then the slate can go on! Today however, since rain is in the forecast I will be polishing the granite and travertine counters. I can almost see some light at the end of the tunnel! Cooking pizzas now is making the job go a lot smoother!

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

First mini-pizza party! Had 10 people over for pizza and other than running out of toppings, things went great! The dough was almost perfect for our taste, light, crisp crust and a little chewy inside. My wife made a fantastic sauce and the oven performed beautifully even with the repaired crack! We are going to try some steaks next, anyone have some pointers with doing steaks in the oven on a tuscan grill? How far into the oven to have the grill, how close to have the coals to the bottom of the grill. How hot to get the oven? etc.
Thanks to all that helped make my first pizza party a success. Let me start with hmmmm oh yeah it is everyone on this forum!
THANKS
John
ps I would have posted more pics but the wife had a bit of wine and the rest of the pics came out like the last one posted here...LOL

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

Ok I have been off this site and internet for awhile due to hurricanes and snow storms! No power! But we did enjoy some great food during that time with our wfo! It was the only thing that kept my wife sane durin that time! The food list was long so I won't bore you with that, but the best was home made apple pie!
Now as to oven performance, without power I finally finished hard wiring the thermocouples to the control box. This allowed me to use my handy dandy wireless remote transmitter to my laptop. Of course I had to hook up a battery back up to the unit during out week long power outage. Here is a chart from yesterday's firing. I started recording after it was up to pizza temp and we were done cooking pizzas. At 9:30 pm I raked the coals over the floor and closed the door for the night. Outside air temp was also recorded to show the differential. I am VERY pleased with this oven's performance! Thanks to Pizza Bob. Dino, and all the other excellant builds on this site for the information and help with my build. I'll keep the recording going until temps get down to 200F. Today will be some bread and dinner. 8:00 am temp is 650 degrees F

[SCChris]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

5 degrees / hour after 9pm.. Great work..

Chris

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

5 degrees / hour after 9pm.. Great work..

Chris

I am wondering if the coals were still smoldering and giving heat. Here is the latest data which I would have thought the slope would be decling not increasing. btw I haven't opened the door yet. Present temp is 628 degrees F at 11:16 am

[SCChris]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

The coals would tend to flatten the curve, and I do see a bit of an increase in the slope at about 2:30 or so, but you still have 5 degrees per hour. It looks like you'll be about 100 degrees loss in about 18 hours, just off 5 degrees/hr average. The 550 mark starts to open your window to hearth breads. I'm guessing this temp will arive about 6:30pm.

Chris

[Aegis]

Re: I'm getting closer to my Dome!

The coals would tend to flatten the curve, and I do see a bit of an increase in the slope at about 2:30 or so, but you still have 5 degrees per hour. It looks like you'll be about 100 degrees loss in about 18 hours, just off 5 degrees/hr average. The 550 mark starts to open your window to hearth breads. I'm guessing this temp will arive about 6:30pm.

Chris

Hi Chris,
I usually open it up and get the ash out and mop the floor a bit and I am usually ready for bread around 4:00 - 5pm

My hearth is usually around 520 and the dome 540 or so when I bake.

We'll see what happens.
Have to get back to flashing the chimney and ridge.

John