51" Oven in France

[cnote]

Re: 51" Oven in France

i just hope your dad never stumbles across this site!! YIKES for you!

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Based on your above comments structurally you are GOOD, sounds like you have some good mortar (if it is truly a refractory product);

The biggest point - EVERY course needs to be "keyed" in with the last brick in each course fitting tight enough that it actually needs to be gently tapped into place...this is true whether you choose to taper/cut to fit or simply use the 1/2 bricks as they are.

RT

Regarding the mortar. It was given to me as specialty product for brick ovens and high heat need. Its good upto 1200 degrees Celsius. Quite a bit more then what the oven will come upto right? Its made by vicat (big construction trade supply firm over here). I also noticed when I used the diamond cutter on it, the internal structure was full of white small particles. It doesn't look like any other mortar I've worked with. It actually have a similar internal look to how the grind down brick looks like. Based on that I really think its refractory.

Regarding the key in place every course. I'm a bit confused here. I have not actually keyed them together yet as my oven entry was not done at that point. I was going to apply similar method of just putting the bricks as close together as possible and using the mortar to close the "vee" and key them together. Will that work?

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Hey Kosta,
I'm impressed with your oven. It seems really strong! Having a "keystone" or key, locks in each row so since you seem to have a good saw (since you plan on tapering) you certainly should be able to custom cut 1 brick to "wedge" itself as much as possible and still use the morter. It seems to me that this is more important as the dome starts to curve (not sure if you are demolishing a few rows or entire dome).

Also, I've had the pizza oven bug since seeing the stone and mud outdoor ovens MY Greek relatives used in Greece too but they just bake chicken and bread and think pizza is silly. What do they know!

Have fun with oven build, your doing a great job. You seem motivated so you'll be doing the fun stuff soon.
-Dino (my family in Greece also calls me Kosta)

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Yiasou Dino,

While I was living In San Francisco I knew a Greek guy Dino that owned a pizzeria. My full name is Konstantionos. Quite a mountful In Greece the short name for Konstantionos is either Kosta or Dino. Is your full name Konstantinos?

While I was planning to demolish the full thing to start over I quickly changed the plan after realizing its not possible to remove the bricks without destroying them. That means in order to start over I would have to replace about a hundred or so full bricks. My Italian wife would kill me if I did that

Fun meeting another Greek with the pizza bug!

Cheers,
Kosta

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Quick question to our knowledgeable members. This weekend I'm going to grout all the internal gaps and fill them with the special refractory mortar. But my mortar is quite dark in color (almost a light black). I wanted to have a lighter mortar and wonder if there is anything I can do about it? Can I add some pigment into the mix?

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

i just hope your dad never stumbles across this site!! YIKES for you!

No problems. He doesn't speak English but I've showed him the site many times. I've also said exactly the same things to him in person. Funny thing with my father is that he thinks things are easy. At the end after completing several courses and seeing the results I'm sure he now also would have preferred to taper the bricks for a more even look.

[Justin]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Quick question to our knowledgeable members. This weekend I'm going to grout all the internal gaps and fill them with the special refractory mortar. But my mortar is quite dark in color (almost a light black). I wanted to have a lighter mortar and wonder if there is anything I can do about it? Can I add some pigment into the mix?

How did this go? you my find it dries a lot lighter.

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Its difficult to work on the oven during the week since after work its already dark. Tomorrow is the big day and if weather permits I hope to rebuild the opening (it got demolished) and close up the 4 or 5 existing courses. Then hopefully I can do the sixth course on Sunday.

[Justin]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Sunset in Sydney Australia is at 7:45 tonight i love these long days for getting stuff done! Goodluck with the rebuild mate!

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Short update. I never went ahead with the rebuild. Nothing happened in the winter period and now when my father was back he was keen on finishing up. He managed to close up the oven in a few days time. Last weekend we put the insulation around the dome. 200mm thick rockwool. I was going for the round igloo look but last minute thought it would be to much work and changed for the square house enclosure.

Enclosure done with 7cm AAC which also privides some insulation but I only used it since I had plenty and though it would be a good material to afterward render it.

Curing fires were done this past week and today we did a big fire in preparation for our first pizza baking. Success

After about 1 hour burn (or maybe more didn't really time it) the oven burned off all the thick sot and turned white. I then spread the coal around and let it burn down most of the coal. Then pushed all the coal to the side and clean up part of the surface.

The first pizza's baked in less then 2 minutes and they were great. Crust was beautiful and crisp. Very windy outside today and I don't have any pizza peel tools so I was opening up the crust inside and putting it on my home made pizza peel, then run outside to put it into the oven. Fun for the fist couple of runs but got tired after a while.

I'm building the counter in front of the oven so in the future it will be more simple to cook right next to the oven.

Overall I'm very happy about the progress and the performance.

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Finished pizza.

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Finished pizza try 2...

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

Hi all,

A couple of questions for the existing pizza oven users.

As you can see from the below pictures I have quite a lot of black sot on my oven opening. The pictures shows the inner oven opening size and also the second arch that is actually higher then the inner arch. This my father did incorrectly but its not a big deal and I was just thinking of doing another arch in front that will be the same or slightly shorter then the inner arch (tilting the door slightly when needing to close up). This I hope will help capture the smoke and steer it towards the chimney stack.

I think the oven is drawing well but I'm not actually sure what "well" means. Should there be no black smoke going on the outside or is this normal even with a well drawing oven?

How is the exterior of your oven holding up? Black or clean?

[exipnos]

Re: 51" Oven in France

A second issue to inform the group about. As you can see from the above photo the brick floor is resting on a white surface. That is 10cm thick AAC block. Having read through some threads here it is supposed to be a suitable material. It can take the heat well and supposed to insulate well so quite similar to the vermiculite floor base but without the hassle.

Okay so I'm using this as my floor base and after my first real usage of the oven I checked at the end of the day the concrete floor surface on which the AAC block is resting on. It was warm to the touch. Not hot or anything like that but still warm. From this I can draw two conclusions.

1. 10cm AAC block is not sufficient insulation under the brick floor.
2. Since the oven dome was not covered during the winter months the floor received a lot of rain and AAC block sucks up water like crazy. This is normally not an issue and it eventually goes away without any damage to the material. So maybe the AAC block has not fully dried up yet and not working properly. More to follow on this topic later in the summer when I hope all the fires and dry weather will fully dry up the material.

Cheers,
Kosta

[dmun]

Re: 51" Oven in France

The AAC may be damp. Give it a a few firings. We don't have depth of experience with AAC, but 100mm (4") should be sufficient.

I have 2 1/2 inches of mineral fiber board, and my support slab stays cool while firing, but it's warm the next morning (that heat has to go somewhere).

As for the smoke issue, what is the size of your flue? How tall is it?