Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

[christo]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Very cool Frances - take some video of your first big fire!!!

I catch a little bit of the excitement from that first fire everytime I watch it!

Christo

[sarah h]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Hi Frances,

Everything just keeps looking better and better - more finished and more fun!
Hold 'em back (the vultures ) though, next time, just long enough to get a pic of the finished product.

I can't wait till I get to where you're at - it'll be a while though ... in the meantime, Happy Baking!

Sarah

[gjbingham]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Great fire pics Frances. Can't wait to see the first yummy pizza!
George

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

"Goodness gracious, great domes of fire!"

Well I fired the oven today, kept on adding more and more wood thinking: How big is big enough? My kids didn't say cool, they said oh no, mummy's building ANOTHER fire. And my husband doesn't scare easily, or swear much, so I really had no gauge of how much wood to put on... but I stopped when I ran out space for fresh logs and when it got too hot to toss them in.

The oven wasn't really white yet, but I pushed the fire back with our garden rake and promtly dropped the first pizza on the ground in front of the oven. Note to self: do not try to carry a loaded pizza peel and take photos at the same time.

To my surprise, it all worked really well from then on. Our neighbour lent me a proper pizza peel and the pizzas slipped in and out of the oven with no trouble whatsoever. They cooked in about a minute flat and tasted delicious!!! Ok, I only did little bitty pizzas today, because my dough stretching technique is not very well developed, but it all worked so well!

I made the dough as described in the sticky thread at the top of the cooking techniques yesterday and put it in the fridge overnight. Well, except I used half and half whilte and wholemeal flour, and to my taste it needs only half the salt... so I added more of everything else and now still have enough dough to make pizzas again tomorrow (hooray!). But hey, it really streches out thin! And they cooked so fast! And were so good!

To answer an earlier question from Dave, I have no way of measuring the heat in the oven, but I like the idea of cooking by feel and getting to know the oven well enough to know what goes when without knowing the exact temperature... and if that doesn't work I can always buy a thermometer later on.

The dome was slowly starting to get hotish on the outside half an hour after I'd finished cooking Pizza, and the cracks in the mortar are no bigger than before. They are all over the oven, but nothing you could possibly see the fire through or anything like that. And the mortar is hard on the outside now, although it seems a bit brittle. Inside? Haha, it's still too hot to check, but I'll have a look tomorrow...

I made a sort of door out of an old floorboard yesterday... I think I read one thread where someone had a door out of wood, but if it burns I'll just take the handles off and shove it in the fire... (so my door is multifunctional, too )

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

one more of the door...

[asudavew]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

NOW THATS A FIRE!

Glad to hear your cracks got no bigger.

The pizza look delicious.

Congrats Frances!

[Ken524]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Excellent door, Frances. As thick as it is, I'll bet it will hold heat in nicely over night for cooking the next day.

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Thank you guys!

Two little details I forgot: we melted the bellows and at one point the peel caught fire....

[gjbingham]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Hahahaha,
An exciting experience in cooking it sounds like. That first pizza cost a lot of money huh?
G.

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Ha, too right! That made me laugh! I haven't been keeping track of how much this thing cost, because basically I'd rather not know...

After my big scary fire the weather has suddenly turned really bad here. Very wet, cold, windy and nasty.

The good news is that there in no longer any condensation on the tarp in the mornings. Seems the dome is fairly well dried out now - just in time, too So I feel safe not heating it anymore. After all the poor thing will have to learn to stand on its own two feet... er, its own foundation sooner or later.

The bad news is no more bakes until the weather clears up.

Six hours after my big fire, the top of dome on the outside was so hot I could just barely touch it and didn't dare put a tarp over it. So I covered it two hours later when it started raining

I'm thinking that if I get one or two days dry weather I could put one layer of insulation on, cover the oven really well with the tarp and cook with it for the rest of the winter like that.

Anyway I thought this is a good moment to wind up this thread here for the time being. And to say a big THANK YOU to all the peolpe (at home and on the forum) who have helped, encouraged, empathised and generally made it possible to build such a cool oven. These plans and this site are truely fantastic, and its been a wonderful experience building the oven, sharing progress updates with all of you and also watching other ovens take shape... I know I've been saying this a lot on this forum, but it is just soooo COOOOOOOOOL!!!!

[Ken524]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

I have to agree with Frances. Forno Bravo is the best online community I've ever participated in.

[asudavew]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

I have to agree with Frances. Forno Bravo is the best online community I've ever participated in.

Ditto

Congrats Frances!

[sarah h]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

I have just stopped laughing about the bellows and the peel so now I can say congratulations on the pizza and those fine doors - they both (food & doors) look terrific! And what a great idea to do two doors instead of one. I remember reading somewhere that to keep them from burning, you can just soak them before use, and the steam that's created is supposed to help in some way when cooking bread - I'd run that one by an experienced WFO baker though ... Jim??
Great to see you're having fun. I'll look forward to seeing what comes next!

Sarah

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

...well, actuallly the doors got charred as well when I baked bread yesterday .

I thought it was probably because I left the fire inside, but I'll certainly try soaking the doors first, sounds like a good idea. I thought maybe the wood would get brittle if it were continually being soaked and dried out, but that hardly seems to matter now. No worries though, once I've got it all sorted out, I'll make a new door out of the remianing bit of wood

Does anyone know of any other coating I could put on a wooden door to make it more heat resistant?

[asudavew]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Does anyone know of any other coating I could put on a wooden door to make it more heat resistant?

If you have any leftover thermal blanket, you can attach it to the inside of the door.