Oven Door

[marndin]

Hi all

I have built a 42" pompeii oven which works brilliantly. However, I have two remaining problems.

1. What is the best way to build a heat resistant and cheap door in order to 'close' the oven for cooking bread etc. I was wondering if tin foil around my wooden door would help/work?

2. How do I judge the temperature for cooking bread as I never get it right and the oven burns the loaf on the outside and undercooks on the inside?

Many thanks for any help with this.

Martin

I have attached a photo before I had finished it. I still have to waterproof render the outside of the oven, but I will wait until our winter has passed.

[SableSprings]

Re: Oven Door

Nice build Martin! There are several threads in the forum dealing with door construction. Many folks have settled on two doors for their ovens; an insulated firing door and a "lighter" cooking door. Most of the insulated doors use either ceramic batting or board in a sandwich of metal pieces. I had a stainless steel "hollow" door made that I filled with perlite. For my cooking door, a friend took a piece of sheet metal, gave it a slight x-fold for strength, welded in a steel rod handle/base so it will stand on its own, and attached an old coiled metal welder's tool handle. I can easily handle the door with one hand while checking on my bake. I've attached a few photos, one of the stainless firing door (up on bricks for draft testing) and two of the cooking door.

As to bread baking, I put a fire in my oven the night before a bake and then with three or four hourly wood additions the next morning I bring the oven up to 600-700F. Usually between 11 and noon, I pull out the coals and close the oven up to equalize for an hour or two. When the oven gives me hearth readings of 550-600F (IR gun thermometer), I swap out to my cooking door, and get ready to bake. I usually am putting loaves in between 2:30-3 pm. My baguettes go in first and their bake time varies between 15-20 minutes based on the hearth temp. I load my 39" oven with about 6 loaves at a time and will normally bake between 20-30 loaves from a firing.

I hope that helps. This forum has lots of great threads & info on baking bread...and lots of variety in how "we do it". Good luck & keep us posted on your progress.

[deejayoh]

Re: Oven Door

We should have a section on oven doors in the forum. That would be helpful.

As far as using foil on wood for a door - I think others have tried that and found that the wood gets too hot and catches fire. You really need to use metal. I built my door out of 16 gauge mild steel, welded together with 2" of CF batting. Works great. Others have built similar doors using rivets or screwed together that seem to work well if you don't have access to a welder. The plate steel is available pretty inexpensively through onlinemetals dot com. They will cut the pieces to square dimensions, but not to the arc of your opening. For that, you need a jigsaw with a metal blade. I had them cut the strips for the side of mine and it was a big time saver. Cost of the metal was probably less than $40.

[marndin]

Re: Oven Door

Great responses... Many thanks!

Martin

[CSpringsOven]

Re: Oven Door

I've just started my build, but have thought about the oven door (for my design this would be the inner door of two).

Has anyone ever "attached" (somehow) fire bricks (ie maybe split firebricks) and made a door like that? Maybe a (from inside out) fire brick, steel, wood combo door?

Would it be light enough and still retain heat?

[deejayoh]

Re: Oven Door

I think people have built doors out of brick but they are pretty heavy.

[Outeniqua]

Re: Oven Door

Nice looking oven Martin.

Have a look at post 17 of my link at the bottom of this post. This door works extremely well and is very light. You only need one flat sheet of stainless steel, a short piece of scrap aluminium angle, loose vermiculite, decorative wood for outside and handles. Most of the material you should already have. For me this was not expensive and the outer part of the door does not heat up at all.

PM me if you require any more info.