Ash dump

[prairiemountainmasonry]

Hey folks, i am currently designing a pizza oven for a small restaurant. For the most part won't be reinventing the wheel, but one of the first details that struck me was to add a cast iron ash dump grill in the opening to the oven so that ashes can quickly be raked out of oven into the chamber below oven(with a metal ash box to be removed every few days). This allows for no messy transfering ashes through the food prep area. The only draw back i can forsee is the oven landing being a busy workspace, but the grills i've used on other projects sit flush. I assume there is a reason why no other ovens use an ash dump so i am curious to hear peoples opinions

Matthew

[Laku]

Re: Ash dump

Some builds have incorporated ash dump in their oven landing. There's no reason why you should not be able to build one as well.

[DrakeRemoray]

Re: Ash dump

For a pizza oven, there is just not that much ash to dump. After a long pizza firing you are left with very little ash. If you are going to empty the coals to bake bread or something, then you have to move a lot more ash. I think that is why you see it on the traditional bread oven (vault oven) design. I don't think the commercial ovens they sell on this site have ash dumps....

[Les]

Re: Ash dump

I assume there is a reason why no other ovens use an ash dump so i am curious to hear peoples opinions

Matthew

As mentioned, they have been installed. I considered putting one in but at the end of the day the payback is minimal. I went this route; Shovel it out a few inches further and slide it into a bucket.

[SableSprings]

Re: Ash dump

I bake primarily bread (and as Drake noted above) and decided to incorporate an ash slot & bin into my oven design. I wanted the ash dump system for exactly the same reason you stated...I didn't want to have to deal with ash "transport" when I had guests.

When I do pizza, again as Drake mentioned, normally the ash build-up is minimal and it hasn't been a problem. I'm more lazy than Les and don't like to deal with the ashes until I have to...and my wife didn't like the open bucket approach because when the wind blows there was an ash path where ever I went. I've attached a few pictures of my "closed ash dump" and landing space for your entertainment.

The first picture shows my slab with the ash slot void. Just in front of the carpenter's level (in the oven construction shot) is the ash slot and then the bull nose bricks which provide plenty of landing area. The third & fourth pictures show the completed oven with the ash bin mounted below the slot. The black bin is mounted on rails and has a cover. When I want to clear out ash/coals, I pull the cover out about halfway to open the bin, sweep/pull ash into the slot, ash drops into the bin and I then slide the cover back into place (to kill any coals) before continuing with my bake. After several firings, I simply slide the entire bin out and dump the ash on my compost pile when I've got the time.