Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

[Tapir Force]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

Work resumes! I have had an electric heater sitting on low inside the dome for ten days. It stays around 94 Degrees F. I am beginning the process of insulating and finishing out. As I stated earlier, I am going to make an enclosure and encase the entire oven in vermiculite. That said, I also have a 25' x 2' roll of 1" thick refractory insulation blanket that I will be wrapping the dome in before putting in the vermiculite. Any tips?

[Tapir Force]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

I have framed in the enclosure around the dome. Included are a few pictures. I will finish the fill with vermiculite in the morning. Found a guy willing to sell me 6.5 / 4 cubic foot bags of vermiculite for $110. It has gone over $30 per bag in the nursery supply houses.

The ceramic blanket went in very easily. Wearing the respirator was the biggest hassle.

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

Looks great. Your chimney went in nice and you've got the insulation blanket on. I don't think there is anything special to do to it than what you've done. It's heavy enough so it lays fine. The vermiculite is a great insulation addition.

Regarding the small voids you want to fill: Can you just make up more high-heat mortar and sponge it in, then clean the brick and let the mortar fill in the spaces? If it will be too 'fussy' I'd avoid doing it at all. I don't think it's important with all the mortar behind the brick, the insulation blanket and the vermiculite you have.

I've been cooking in my oven since friday and will heat it up again tomorrow for a small dinner party with beer-can chicken (since it was still 300 degrees yesterday). You're going to really enjoy having all the insulation where you can keep cooking for days with just a little additional wood.

[Mike D]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

Tapir Force, nice work. That is some serious progress. I was looking at your flue, How did you do it. What size pipe did you cut? How tall is it?

Is that enough questions, sorry. But I am ready to do my vent.

Mike

[Tapir Force]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

Finally got the last of my vermiculite poured into the oven enclosure. These pictures, while not very exciting, are a benchmark for me. The rest of the work falls into the category of cosmetics. A good feeling.

Mike, the flue tiles I used were standard 8x8x24 chimney pieces. I split two of the tiles so that I could get to the 13.5" width I had in my entrance opening. It decreases to 8x8 at the top of the pictured flue. I uploaded pictures in the earlier parts of this thread.

Robert

[Tapir Force]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

My wife and I took our first vacation in twenty years. It took me away from my project for long enough that I am now able to only work in warm weather. As a result, I am making good progress on the cosmetics and finishing details. I will finish roofing this week and my chimney cap with a spark arrestor is in the mail. Should be cooking in a week. Completely finished in two weeks. I have a Weber grill ordered to go next to it and a little more paving. I need to finish grouting as the pictures will attest.

[Tapir Force]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

I finished my third curing fire this evening. Only one hairline crack that I can detect. Can anybody recommend a list of basic tools to get started with pizza and round loaves of bread. I will expand my breads after getting a handle on basic bread. Also, is there any reference to using a grill inside the oven instead of grilling on a traditional BBQ grill?

Robert

[azpizzanut]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

Hello TF,

You'll need a wooden peel with a long handle. You can add a handle to one of the wooden peels available at big box stores. Your custom length handle can be determined with a little practice in front of your oven. You can place bread and pizza with a 14" wide wooden peel. That's a good size for most oven needs. The length of my peels average about 42 inches.

Next you might want a metal peel. There are some fancy ones but you may be satisfied with a simple square or round peel of 12" wide. Shop eBay for one the size you want but with a short handle. (You pay shipping on the length of an item too). So, buy a short handle peel and put your own long handle on it. I got handles at ACE Hardware and replaced the short ones that came with those I bought on eBay.

Next you will want an 8" turning peel. These little tools are really handy for placing small pizzas and turning large ones. The handle on a turning peel doesn't need to be quite as long as the bigger peel handles. Well, that's my opinion simply because it worked out that way for me.

You can grill inside your oven with a Tuscan grill. Search eBay or Amazon for a Tuscan grill. I got one for about $25 and it is a real handy tool for grilling meats over coals or you can put a pan on top of it and fry/cook inside your oven.

For long shaped bread you may want a narrow wooden peel. Either make your own or modify one of the 12" wood peels to the width you need.

Cheers,

[gt40]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

Congrats on getting to the finish part. You should be very proud

[Tapir Force]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

There were times, when I really did not have faith in the final outcome. The 42" Pompeii oven which I started so many months ago is not completely finished. I am installing a concrete tile roof and have some slate and grouting work that remains undone. That said, the internal organ, the heart of the oven has been done for some time now. My curing lasted for over a month. I gave the dome 28 days with an electric heater to keep the temperature at 90℉. I made all of the progressively hotter fires for six days. Then, last night, I decided to burn the oven white. It came up to over 1000℉ in a little under 2 hours. I sat like an expectant father staring in at the soot covered walls hoping that everything would be okay; that it would not fall in on itself; that fatal cracks would appear; etc. But none of that happened. It did everything that it was supposed to do. It burned clean, the creosote disappearing to reveal my oven walls that I had struggled so hard to keep clean. And there were the cracks that I had so feared, like the lines in my face hands, marks that distinguished it from other ovens, but nothing that kept my temperatures from soaring to their prescribed levels.

I closed it up last night at dark and put in both of my newly crafted doors and went to my computer to start reading in earnest about the cooking. Pizza was to be the first dish this afternoon. Dough was made, sauce was readied and I went to bed. I opened the oven this morning, some eleven hours since last night's right of passage, got out my infrared thermometer and after crossing my fingers took the temperature. 520℉! I was blown away at the notion that I was, with just a little prep, close enough to actually baking bread, a half a day after firing! The baking cycle was no longer a myth. You could make pizza one evening, get up in the morning and bake or cook or whatever tickled your fancy.

I could not resist. I ran inside, and scrounged together enough of the ingredients to make a loaf of whole wheat almond bread. My wife had to show me most of the steps, because, while I can build a house, build an oven or make a spinning wheel, I have never baked a loaf of bread. She was skeptical of the process as she normally bakes in her oven at lower temps than what I had in mind. I cleaned the oven up, and let it sit open until I got down to 425℉ and using whatever cooking logic I have garnered from this site and a couple of books, determined that it would work anyways. I was going for a more solid crust with moist crumbling in the center. I know it was just blind luck, but it came out and it was delightful. Perhaps to the well versed taste buds of a master chef, it would have been an abomination, but to me, it tasted...like a beginning!

[azpizzanut]

Re: Tapir Force Steps up to the plate!

Hi TF,

Yah, that's how ya do it. A journey begins with a single step.

Best,