Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

[sarah h]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Wow!! You're moving right along and it really looks great!
Does this mean fire photos are next?
(I've been stalled but that will end in three hours' time - then I get back to work mine ).

Sarah

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Fire, fire, burning bright,
In the forests of the night.

The really difficult bit about curing your oven is being able to stop again. All day long I'm going: HOW long until I can light the next one...??! But it is soooo COOOL!! (Or did I mention that before already?) Oh, and check out all the wood which was delivered yesterday.

One priceless pearl of wisdom I would like to share with my fellow oven builders is this: Don't make the outer arch higher than the inner one, otherwise the smoke will not all go up the chimney. On the other hand you won't bump your head on the doorway quite as often, so its ok really.

Btw, after a lot of thought I've decided not to put any cladding on my oven, because the mortar I've got doesn't work on surfaces (it'd just crumble off), and covering my cement-free dome with a cement-based product would seem to council out any advantages this mortar may have. At least that's what I thought.

Still pondering the chimney hight. But I can add on another flue bit anytime...

Hey, does anyone know where to buy pizza oven accessories in Switzerland? No, me neither.

[gjbingham]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Frances,
The oven turned out wonderfully. I can't wait to see the mosaic finish.
What do your kids think of this whole project? Around here, they just look at me like I'm crazy.
George

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Thanks George. Haha, crazy, that's too right!! Intrestingly enough though, my kid's friends are really impressed...

[sarah h]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

WOW! Frances, that is just so cool!!! I love the way you stacked your chimney blocks in a spiral - I have similar plans for a brick twist - and it looks like your cast vent works well too. Just beautiful - both the oven and the fire!!

Have a blast cooking and be sure to post more photos!

Sarah

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

The dome got warm to the touch on the outside after today's fire and tiny (cold) wisps of smoke came out through the top of the dome from time to time.

Thanks to Dave's question on his thread I checked the mortar consistency (now, why didn't I think of doing that before now??)

The Mortar on the inside is getting nice and hard - but intrestingly enough on the outside its quite a lot softer than it was before... Had me puzzled for a while until I realised that it must be because the water is working its way out of the dome. Less on the inside, more on the outside. Well, I thought that was pretty weird anyway.

[asudavew]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Mine is still a bit "soft" on the outside too.

But the inside is very hard. I know the inside has gotten much hotter, so I assume more vitrification of the clay has occurred. It will be really interesting to see how your dome performs. Hopefully you will get no more cracks.

Another interesting thing... when I tap on the dome now, the "tone" I get is much different before firing.... I'm musically impaired, but I would say the tone is higher pitched and more hollow sounding. More of a ring than a thud, i guess.

[vtbread]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Gruezi Frances,

Haeussler in Schwaben has what you are looking for:
https://www.haeussler-gmbh.de/shop/welcome.do

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Jä stärneföifi nomol, I thought I was the only Swiss person around here!

Thanks vtbread, good address, I hadn't seen that one. So what is your affiliation with Switzerland?

In the meantime I called a Pizzaria and asked where they got their stuff from and ended up with this address:

Hotelbedarf Basel Geiger GmbH - also seems quite promising.

Oh, and the song for today:
"baby baby light my fire,
let me see the flames go higher..."

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

"Da da daaaa da da dadaaaaaaa
Smooooooooke in the chimney,
and fire in the doo-ome"

I baked my first bread today, hooray!!! Tiny little cinamon rolls, because I wasn't sure how the long the oven would stay hot, or what heat it was at. They were delicious and it was sooo cooool!! Unfortunately they got eaten up before I could take a picture of them coming out, but I'll do better next time.

I found out today that it is a lot easier to light a fire with bellows , and built myself a pizza shovel - just until I get the real stuff.

The dome is now sort of crackled all over, but without any large or long cracks, certainly not anything you could see the fire through - well, I should hope not, I haven't even got to the big fires yet. I'm still trying to brace myself for maybe having to rebuild the dome with different mortar (but I'll get at least one pizza out that oven before then, I swear)

And then of course I keep banging around on it to see what it sounds like, that'll do it a lot of good.

Oh btw, Sarah, the twisty chimney I nicked off your link to the Jamie Oliver oven, so I'm glad you like it, and thank you for the idea!

[asudavew]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Your pizza peel looks great, and I love that bellows.

Your fire looks like it burned well. Did you have any way to check your temps?

The cracks don't look severe to me. Is that mortar getting harder?

[Dutchoven]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Frances
Only reason I say this is because I read the post about wisps of smoke from the top of the dome...they were most likely not smoke from the fire but rather steam from the mortar...there is a lot of moisture in the mortar that has to come out...did you mix your own mortar?...as for the cracks I think you should continue to cure the oven and as it cures I think the cracks will stabilize and then you could coat the oven with a relatively thin coat of the refractory mortar to seal them up...I don't think you should need to rebuild your dome
Best
Dutch

[Frances]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

Thanks Dutch. Steam, yeah that sounds a lot better than smoke, doesn't it? You're propably right. I certainly hope I won't have to rebuild the oven... just call it pre-bigfire-nerves.

Talking of which, I got the first bit of white dome today! Hey people, it actually works! It really does burn white! I was so surprised.

Tomorrow (weather permitting) I build my scary fire...

[Dutchoven]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

I might suggest marking some of those cracks and while you are agressively heating your dome check them and see what is happening...
Good luck!
Dutch

[vtbread]

Re: Pompeii oven in Switzerland: pics

you are, I bin a muenchna, war zum schifoarn scho amoi in da schwyz, davos, moritz, lenzerheide for fuenfazwanzg jahr.

Now I am in VT go figure. Nice here though.