Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

[southpaw]

Hi all,

can anyone please tell me how can I clean the oven dome & floor from the black smoke, the dome bricks are all black!!!

whats the easiest and fastest way to clean it?

i attached a couple of pics of what the dome looked like before & after curing the oven.

dose the black smoke thats stuck on the bricks effect the pizza or any food cooked in the oven?

thanks.

ciao

[jahysea]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

Hi there. Once you are fully cured, you need a hotter fire.

Every time I use my oven the initial fire gets the dome all black looking again, then the fire eventually burns away the soot and the dome looks nice again.

I retain some blackness around the entrance to the dome as it really never gets that hot, but I just live with that.

This is a pic I posted after a hot fire:

[jwnorris]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

Ditto what jahysea says. Part of the natural action, during firing, is for a layer of black soot to form on the inside surface of the dome. As the fire gets hotter, the soot burns completely off and you are left with a dome that looks like it did before.

You will start to notice the soot burning off directly below the fire. As the fire gets hotter and hotter, and the oven tempature rises, a larger area goes "white." By the time the dome is up around [and above] 900F and the floor is above 700F, the entire dome should be white.

You are heading in the right direction, just keep the curing fires growing each day and you soon get there.

And before you are ready to cook pizza, you will be ready to roast something - anything. Good Luck...

J W

[james]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

Agreed.

Carbon goes clear around 700ºF and its a lot of fun watching an oven dome go white.
James

[southpaw]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

yuor saying i just need to heat the oven till it reaches 900F & it will all clear up?

ive been heating the oven for quite some time now, more than 20 but still no sign of thedome clearing!!!!

why is that?

[james]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

Does your oven go clear when you are cooking?
James

[maver]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

yuor saying i just need to heat the oven till it reaches 900F & it will all clear up?

ive been heating the oven for quite some time now, more than 20 but still no sign of thedome clearing!!!!

why is that?

Variables involved here include how well cured your oven is (I understand you began curing over a month ago, but I found it took about 6 full fires after curing before the oven dome really began to heat up well), how well seasoned your wood is (less dry wood smokes more and continues to add carbon as it burns) and how big a fire you make (if you are not making a big enough fire you may never get the dome hot enough to burn off the soot). I think the last is probably the main issue. Do others have other thoughts on variables that affect how well soot burns off?

[jwnorris]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome & Cooking Floor

<snip> and how big a fire you make (if you are not making a big enough fire you may never get the dome hot enough to burn off the soot). I think the last is probably the main issue. <snip>

I agree that a large roaring fire is needed to get the dome up to temp.

And there is nothing like seeing the flames lick over the dome from the back all the way to the front of the oven. It reminds us of how powerful a fire really is.

J W

[southpaw]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome &amp; Cooking Floor

no i didnt cook anything in it yet!

I built a 100cm diameter 39.3'' casa oven, but ended up with 50cm dome height instead of 40cm, also the oven opening is 50W x 32H instead of 48W x 30H!

i insulated the oven with 1" blanket & 8cm of vermiculite cement (5:1)

will the difference in the sizes (interior dome height & oven opening) effect the heating of the oven?

will the oven ever reach pizza heat?

is it insulated enough?

i also installed a gas pipe almost half way threw the oven floor, is that enough for the size of my oven to heat it up?

the idea is to use gas to heat the oven & wood for taste.

[southpaw]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome &amp; Cooking Floor

Some more pics of what my finished oven looks like

[southpaw]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome &amp; Cooking Floor

i installed a 2mm metal vent & galvanize chimney but didnt insulate them, will that affect the heat of the oven? (escape)

also could u close the oven with (with for example a metal door) durring heating so it heats up faster, with ofcrse a small opeing for oxygen?

[maver]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome &amp; Cooking Floor

Nice looking oven. If the vent is in front of the oven opening per the usual pompeii plans, insulation is not needed (although it may help the oven draw). If your oven is fully cured, it's time to make some big fires. If you have not made a big fire to cook in it, then that is why you are not burning off the soot. As I said in my previous post, you may have a few fires before it really performs well (I felt I hit the sweet spot at six).

Will the gas pipe work? I don't know. It certainly could be used to help start fires with wood, and may work to help maintain heat, but you need a lot of BTUs for a pizza oven to get hot - as I said previously, I thought you probably have not had a big enough fire to burn off the soot and the information you have given us since seems to support this. As far as using wood for taste - that makes sense if you are cooking at lower temperatures, but in my oven the fire is so hot the wood burns pretty clean and there is no visible smoke, I think the taste from wood is hard to perceive, but that's probably just me.

Fire it up!

Marc

[jwnorris]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome &amp; Cooking Floor

Nice looking oven.
<snip> It certainly could be used to help start fires with wood, and may work to help maintain heat, but you need a lot of BTUs for a pizza oven to get hot - as I said previously, I thought you probably have not had a big enough fire to burn off the soot and the information you have given us since seems to support this.<snip>

I agree with Marc, both about this being a good-looking oven, and that you need to FIRE IT UP. I do not think that the gas that you have has sufficient BTU's to get the oven up to temperature.

That said, I would be interested in the use of gas to start the warming process and if it is able to maintaime heat once the oven is up to pizza themerature. Please keep us informed as you continue to experiment ? experimentation and the learning curve just helps us get better.

I also like the stand that you have built. How easy is it to move around?

J W

[wlively]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome &amp; Cooking Floor

By looking at your pictures I would tend to agree that the fires have not been hot enough. You can see that there is a square section of "clean" wall that corresponds to your buner placement. That would seem to say that piece of wall is getting hot enough to clear from the burners.

Do you have any way to measure temp? Would be helpful to see how hot your dome really is.

Yes, you can build a firing door. I will be building one with a 2 inch tall opening across the bottom of the door and a 2 inch opening across the top. Air in and smoke out. I believe someone posted a picture of one a while back, but I don't remember who.

[Spunkoid]

Re: Cleaning the Oven Dome &amp; Cooking Floor

When you first light a wood fire in the oven, the oven is cool and the soot builds up on the inside of the oven because the brick is cooler. After you get a good hot fire going and the oven comes up to temperature, the soot burns off leaving a clean brick. Also the oven gets hotter, you also have less smoke because of the heat of the wood fire. It takes my oven much longer than 20 minutes to get hot. I start with a smaller fire, then keep adding wood until I have a very hot, roaring fire. I usually light my oven 1 1/2 to 2 hrs before I am going to cook pizzas in it.
Once the oven is really hot, it will burn off the soot, this is also an indicator that the oven is getting up to a good cooking temperature for pizzas.
When the oven is hot, scrape all of the coals over to the side, let the floor cool for 10-15 minutes (it is actually red hot but you can't see that in the day light) and sweep the ash off the floor where you are putting your pizzas.
If you are worried about the oven not getting hot enough because of the door and oven height, no worries, just keep adding a few sticks of wood to the coals which maintain the heat of the oven.
Trial and error will teach you how to use the oven and get its best performance.