Kiwi pete'soven

[KiwiPete]

Last night we cooked our first pizza in the oven!!!!!

I made a fair bit of dough, and made some mini-pizza shaped balls, so I could have a good "play around" and see how it all works.

Got the hang of of moving the fire around and managing all that stuff and got the the oven up to the "0 Mississippi" stage.

Here is a picture of the fire:



and here is a picture of one of the first mini-pizzas cooking:



and the finished product, ready to sink our teeth into... (it beat the take-away pizza from the other night by a country mile )

[KiwiPete]

And since we had some dough left, we decided we'd better use it up...

The 20 year old son came home and had a go at cooking a pizza too. He was more than happy with results of his efforts...

For your information: the pizzas took approx. 2 minutes to cook.



and here is Sam's pizza:

[KiwiPete]

I am pretty happy with the performance of the oven, but since I don't have any sophisticated thermometers, it's all on a "by feel" basis. I can certainly get to the "0 Mississippi" stage without too much trouble.

The extra thick insulation blanket seems to be doing the job just nicely: After getting the fire hotter than ever last night, I could not detect any warmth on the outside of the dome at all!

So there still a number of things to do, but they are all in the "making it pretty" category:

1. Do a decorative arch using a nice coloured brick.

2. Once the arch has been done, cover the remainder of the vent and part of the arch with Perlite.

3. Finish the area in front and to the sides of the hearth and landing with tiles.

4. Stucco the outside of the dome and base.

So far, we are really happy that we got this far, especially having had absolutely NO previous experience with this type of project and not being exactly your home handyman type guy..

The internet in general and this forum in particular have been a fantastic resource and I would like to thank everybody on this forum, for sharing their info and views because without that it would have been waaay harder.

Hopefully some of my experiences may be of help to some one else.

[KiwiPete]

Haven't done a lot on finishing the oven lately because the brick saw was gone for repair and because this was over Xmas, it took a while to get sorted.

Have done a bit plastering and also made some tools as you can see on the picture further down:

an embers hook out of aluminium based on pictures I have seen here.. Indispensable tool that one..

also needed a small (8 inch) paddle for moving the pizza around in the oven. A friend of mine who runs a laser cutting business cut the blade for me out of stainless steel and I mounted it on some aluminium tubing.



Happy some people around for a pizza party last night. Young Sam made his own pizza and and here is a picture of the mighty fine result:

[Fudugazi]

tHANKS FOR THOSE GREAT PHOTOS DO YOU HAVE ANY pICS OF WHAT YOU PUT ON TOP OF THIS REF

Here is the manifold in place, from a few different angles.

Also managed to a few more courses of bricks in place!!

Next I'll be looking to cast the actual vent part.

Front View:


Top View:


Side View:

tHANKS FOR THOSE PHOTOS DO YOU HAVE ANY PICS OF THE MANIFOLD THAT HOLD S THE CHIMNEY COLUMN WAS THIS CEMENT OR METAL tHANKS

[james]

Good-looking tools

Pete,

Glad to see that you were able to find a good solution for your tools. Very crafty. Everything looks great. Congratulations and here's to years of great cooking.

James

[CanuckJim]

Re: Kiwi pete'soven

Kiwi,

This is nice work getting on. Congratulations on it. You should have one sweet oven when it's finished. Keep up the good work. All of us ex-colonials should stick together. God save the....

Jim

[Wildflower]

Re: Kiwi pete'soven

Hi there,
I am in Nelson and sourcing materials....where abouts did you get your Rockwool blanket from, and what did you use for your under-hearth insulation? You've got a great looking oven (and cat!)!
Cheers,
Zoe.