42" In South GA

[mongota]

Two dozen pies! Quite the grand opening! Congrats and Happy Birthday (and happy pizza) to your wife.

[edonovan]

Thank you everyone…will definitely start reading up on the cooking threads and have already been watching way too much YouTube. Enjoyed the wood fire chef! I did have two questions come into my head following the party and a couple cooks prior to the party.
1) If I am not doing pizza, is there a rule of thumb of how many “cooking” fires you can do before you should “clear the dome” and get the soot off?
2) In addition to that question, do I ever “need” to clean the flue area, I would assume that you don’t ever want to get that area hot enough to “clear” but It sure does build up with soot…is this an issue or a non-issue?

[MarkJerling]

Thank you everyone…will definitely start reading up on the cooking threads and have already been watching way too much YouTube. Enjoyed the wood fire chef! I did have two questions come into my head following the party and a couple cooks prior to the party.
1) If I am not doing pizza, is there a rule of thumb of how many “cooking” fires you can do before you should “clear the dome” and get the soot off?
2) In addition to that question, do I ever “need” to clean the flue area, I would assume that you don’t ever want to get that area hot enough to “clear” but It sure does build up with soot…is this an issue or a non-issue?

To answer your queries:
1 - The dome will clear every time you get the oven hot enough to burn the soot off.
2 - Because of my oven's squirrel-tail flue design, I've worried about it filling up with soot, but it seems it gets hot enough for that to not be an issue. If your flue is always cool, then you may need to clear soot build up from time to time, but mine seems to get hot enough.

[edonovan]

MarkJerling Thank you for the quick response, I will keep an eye on the flue area, but would I want to avoid getting that area too hot and lean towards the side of just brushing it off when it is cool? Also, I understand the dome will clear when it is hot enough, but my question was just getting an idea if I just do steaks, roast some veggies, etc...say for example 5 fires that only get to 500 degrees...should I then do a hotter fire to clear it or is say 10 low temp fires ok? or do I just need to keep any eye on the soot build up and judge as I go?

[MarkJerling]

MarkJerling Thank you for the quick response, I will keep an eye on the flue area, but would I want to avoid getting that area too hot and lean towards the side of just brushing it off when it is cool? Also, I understand the dome will clear when it is hot enough, but my question was just getting an idea if I just do steaks, roast some veggies, etc...say for example 5 fires that only get to 500 degrees...should I then do a hotter fire to clear it or is say 10 low temp fires ok? or do I just need to keep any eye on the soot build up and judge as I go?

If you're doing a number of low heat cooking fires then, yes, you'll see more soot build up. But, there's no need to worry about that because, the first time you make a fire for pizza purposes and you get the oven nice and hot, that soot will simply burn off. There's no need for brushing or worrying about build-up of the soot.

Likewise with the flue: If you see it builds up soot, you may need to sweep it once a year or so, but, depending on the quality of the wood you use, it may never be necessary. If you use good quality wood, soot build-up will be minimal.

[edonovan]

Well, It is painted!! ANNND...Tarps have been down for quite some time! ....In time I will worry about a door, right now I really don't want to add bread making to my hobbies...though it is in the back of my head...just having fun learning heat management and doing roasted veggies, wings, steaks, garlic and obviously my pizza skills and loving learning how to use it better and better... as you all know I may be a bit of a worrier...and I am definitely no over worried, but wondering if this crack...especially where a chuck of mortar has fallen out should be re-packed at some point? I am sure I may be having some heat lose out of there, but not sure if by not attempting to fix it, it will get worse and worse? Thank you for any insight...and if I do have to fix it...I will then worry about find some little person to convince to wiggle into my oven! LOL

[UtahBeehiver]

I would not worry about it. At this point, any tucking and pointing most likely will not stick and the inherent shape of the ovens make them self supporting. The dome insulation will minimize any heat loss. You lose more out the front opening than the crack.

[edonovan]

UtahBeehiver Thanks for the quick response. I wasn’t really worried about anything structural and figured heat loss is minimal, but just for conversation sake…will the heat begin to “eat” away at the fire blanket? I didn’t realize that any tuck and pointing wouldn’t stick at this point (even with wetting it?) but good to know.
AND….looks like you are getting some good early snow at elevation!!

[UtahBeehiver]

The ceramic blankets have operating temps well exceeding 2000F and the ovens don't even come close to that temp. Plus the mortar joint gets quite large as moves from inside of the dome to outside of the dome. You can try and tuck and point but past experiences from other builders it does not hold.

The ski resorts did get 15" this last storm.

[edonovan]

UtahBeehiver Thank you! Good insight and info…I think that will save me from trying to figure out how I was going to get in there.