Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Hey Mark (exceloven) I've got 3 more bottles of Opus. My salary used to keep up with my wine but the wineries got greedy so I'm sure box wine is right around the corner for me. I keep my cellar listed on cellartracker.com and if you search opus one, I should be the top review for a few days and you can check out my cellar wine inventory. I'm sure yours is pretty good.

Les: I needed something good to drink after needlessly woring about that big crack. I'm so glad cool heads like yours are around in this Forum to keep us psycho oven builders from jumping off a bridge over cracks.

Mike, notice how the woman in the short skirt is being taken away by the hand of the dude, but her head is distinctly tilted toward the oven. She is clearly conflicted and who could blame her; I think she'll dump him for the WFO in no time. Stay tuned..., Dino

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

I made pizza a 2nd day: used my overnight batch of dough and it really did taste better. Made a cheese pizza with hint of blue cheese and fresh basil, it was stunning. Afterwords, we stuck 2 LeCruset pots in there overnight, 1 was Tuscan bean stew and the other was Oso Buco (sp??) we seared it 1st on the stove. Both were put in the warm oven overnight. Got up at 5:30 the next morning and it was awesome. Having made these dishes the night before allowed me to work until late tonight to get the insulation on the dome. It is 2 and 1/2 boxes of FB Blanket: 2 layers around the lower sides and 3-4 layers on the shoulders and top of the dome. 1 layer at the arch walls. I can't wait to light another fire with the insulation on it. Cheers, Dino

[bbell]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Let the meals begin!

[Bandrasco]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Sounds great Dino. Nothing like cooking in the WFO!

Bill

[smuth10]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino, the oven looks great! I can't wait to get to the point of cooking. How about you send one of those extra Opus One's my way. That would be great for my ceremonial first pizza.

I thought I remembered reading in your thread you used a 36" vent pipe for your oven. Do you think I could get away with a 24" pipe for my 36" oven and still have it draw properly?

Thanks, Scott...

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Scott, it's great you're already thinking of 1st pizza wine! I can relate to that

RE: 24" or 36" vent pipe: I don't know, like you said, my oven has the 3' pipe and for months I've felt it was too tall, but after my firings (1 week curing and 3 REAL oven firings) I'm soooo thankful my draw is great, not a hint of smoke escapes. I've got a fairly tall transition too and I'm now happy with the size of it for both looks and it's ability to vent.

Your 36" oven would LOOK good with a 24" vent and my GUESS is, that if you do NOT have/make an abrupt transition to your anchor plate, 24" should be OK. I hope others with a 24" vent chime in and let us know how their 24" vent draws and what size oven they have.

Bill (both or you): Cooking is so awesome: I've got pizza dough rising now, going to refridge/retard rising overnight for a firing after work tomorrow. I've got squash blossoms in the fridge so pizza's should be fun. It's a weird time in the WFO build, cooking and still framing at the same, kneading dough with hands full for nicks and cuts from the steel studs. I'm enjoying every bit of it. Dino

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

I've got most of the steel stud roof on today. I was really woried about the flexing on the bottom track with the vertical studs attached to them, however as soon as I put on the top plate (or top track) and tied it all together, it's as strong and solid and unmovable as I was hoping for. Then I made all the trusses on the gound using a triangular piece of plywood (I think Ken did that?) so they are all identical. I'm holding the outer truss that will be cantelevered in the pic.
Had a 12 pizza, party last night using 3 batches of Caputo floor recipe: same day dough, overnight rise and a 2 day retard becasue I needed that many pizzas and I wanted to see the difference in the doughs. The overnight rise had the best workabilty with complex flavor. Then, my oven was still 425 deg this morning! We baked a chicken and potatoes. I am not used to this retained heat cooking yet so I don't plan very well. I was shocked at how much wood it ate up last night and pleasantly surprises at how much cooking I could have done the next day with NO wood. So much going on, lots to learn, really a lot of fun. Thanks, Dino

[Lars]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino,
Wow, 425 deg. the next morning?

I am getting ready to insulate, and since my project is sort of remote, I don't see myself doing a lot of baking out there, Maybe only in the summertime (when we eventually live nearby) so I am thinking about just a 4" to 6" layer of the vermiculite/portland around the dome. ( I have 2.5" below floor).

I found some great ceramic blanket for something like $50 ( should be enough to add 2" over my 39" inside diameter dome) but I am not sure I like the idea of that stuff getting all compressed and sopping wet when I add my vermiculite/portland layer.

To, all, thoughts?

L.

[bbell]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino, I'm very impressed. You continue to build though you can already cook in it! It's looking great.

It still amazes me that so much heat is retained. Mine was still mid 400's yesterday AM after pizza on Saturday. I hate to have it sitting there empty!

Actually Saturday, I wanted to roast lamb and serve with homemade pita bread so srted with a small fire, got it to around 450. Added the boneless leg of lamb rolled with garlic, herbs, fennel inside and tied into a roast (lambchetta?). Added a chicken to roast and pulled them out after about 1 1/2 hours. Then cranked up the fire for pizza and pita. Left overs for the week.

[christo]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Sounds like things are going very well, Dino.

I used to be amazed about the amount of wood it took, too. I found that we started to make pizzas during one burst and tried to time the oven heat up to max out at that point. Also - feeding small blocks of wood to keep the heat up helped a lot, too.

My door seems to keep the heat in my oven quite well, too - we had about 500 degress at thanksgiving and had to leave the door off for a while to let it cool down before we stuck the bird in.

Keep the pictures coming!!! I need to organize my pics and make a post - not much progress lately, but things are starting to come together.

Christo

[mluttropp]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino,

Roughly how much wood would you say you used? 1 cubic foot, 5 cubic feet .....

As always thanks for the details on your build it has helped me a lot. I am just about to wrap up the construction of the cinderblock portion of the stand. I hope to pour the oven slab next weekend. I am well on my way but I spend a lot of time second quessing myself.


matt

[dmun]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

I found some great ceramic blanket for something like $50 ( should be enough to add 2" over my 39" inside diameter dome) but I am not sure I like the idea of that stuff getting all compressed and sopping wet when I add my vermiculite/portland layer.

It's pretty standard to put a layer of vermiculite concrete over your blanket. It's not that heavy so it's not going to compress the blanket, and it shouldn't get it more than damp. No problem.

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Lars, I did not use any vermiculite/conc on my oven so I'm not familiar with it but like David-dmun said it wont get wet like you think. Great price on the insulation too!

Thanks Christo, we're still learning how best to feed the fire with wood, do yo wait until it's time to top off your glass of wine or wait until you refill it but use larger pieces of wood? Maybe it has nothing to do with drinking at all ....?

John: your lamb roast sounds fantastic! I feel I have not yet experienced the big "O" in WFO cooking until I roast a lamb, make a pizza with those REAL anchovies packed in salt from Spain and make oysters Rockefeller in the oven. I like how you roasted your meats 1st then cranked it up for pizza, I'll have to try it that way too.

Matt, about the wood for my 4-5 hour fire: I guess I used about 12-15 3" max pieces of lemon wood, some thinner, most 1-2' long. But I definetly could have been more consistent in feeding the fire (see my note to Christo above) Thanks everyone, Dino

[SCChris]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Dino,
I have a question on a couple of things.
First, Did you cut the bricks for both the latitude and the longitude of the oven? Some seem to just accept the pie shaped mortar.
Second, How much Mortar did you finally use?
Third, those look like Pacific Clay fire bricks, are they, how did you find the consistency of these?

Thanks in advance!

SCChris

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Dino's 42" Pizza Oven Starts

Hi Chris, congratulations on starting your build!

Yes, I cut the sides into pie shapes and yes, I tapered the bottoms 3-6 deg's to get my inward tilt as I went up. I did not try to go mortar-less but wanted to avoid using expensive mortar thickening towards the back of the brick for tilting them. LOTS of others do that, it's a good way, works fine.
You could taper the sides (and do the compound side taper as well to reduce the inverted V's) and not do the bottoms but be sure to use some sort of "indispensable tool" or small brick wedges to keep your bricks level around each ring. When you tapper the bottoms, you rely less on mortar for tilting and the thin mortar you place on the brick bottoms will not throw you off level. I did 2 rows using the mortar to do less brick cutting on the bottoms but could have done a better job at keeping them level.

Mortar: I ordered FB's Refmix, 4 bags (they are 25 or 30 lbs each ? Can't remember) and would have used another 1 1/2 bags but FB temporarily ran out and I bought home brew mix (fine sand, fire clay, Portland cement, lime) a bag of each and have used 25% of it to finish up. I've heard HeatStop 50 comes in 50lb bags so a smaller oven might get by with 2 of those. I love the old Refmix but would build again with home brew anytime.

I used Muddox bricks, I really like the brick composition for some reason. I'n not thrilled about its slight "wavy" sides but it worked fine but gave me bigger floor gaps. Here is a link to what I said about it, about 3 posts down.

http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f8/f...tion-6810.html

Gook on your build, it's going to be great. Dino