A bigger, hotter fire, started by spreading charcoal in 3 areas along the back of the dome, and adding sticks gradually until I reached 600F at the apex of the dome. This gave me a nice, even distribution, and an easier way to control the temperature climb. Still, it takes a while to soak the dome evenly (about 90 minutes fussing with the fire)...at the point the photo was taken, I had consolidated all the embers on the left side, and the apex of the dome, plus the entire right side of the dome was around 480F, and the floor was about 310F.
I'm not too concerned that some areas were hotter than 600, since I had already (accidentally and momentarily) reached this temperature 2 days ago. I was more concerned with minimizing the temperature variation across the entire dome, not having a huge hot-spot, and controlling the overall rate of climb.
There are NO areas where the soot is clearing out completely yet... I'm expecting to reach that tomorrow, at least in part of the dome, when I get to 700F. If you look carefully at the bottom edge of the dome arch, it's a little lighter than the top of the arch, but not much...
Every day I get more of a feel for how the oven works, so I think there is as much value in using the drying fires as a learning opportunity, as it is a way to gradually dry the dome bricks and perlcrete layer. The perlcrete got a little hotter all around - about 110f. Ambient temperature was around 70F.
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