OctoForno

[oasiscdm]

Re: OctoForno

Hi John

Yay......... Congratulations. Crank it up slowly over a long period you have been patient so far. I've been firing mine since 15.12 only just got to to the roaring point New year's eve.

Personal thanks for your assistance it was fun doing the front entry with you. The angled flue a real b....h

[mrchipster]

Re: OctoForno

Remember you are mixing a lot of outside air with the oven heat as it goes up the flue. I think if you would be measure the temp of the back of the flue it would be hotter. Also the stainless seems to have a reflective surface that does not give a good read with the IR gun.

That floor looks almost to perfect to cook on.

I have seen the vortex in the front of the oven just below the flue. I also experience the clear air below about 8 inches with dense smoke above that.

Beautiful as expected, and congrats on your first fire and food.

Predicted -23F on Monday morning high of -11F and I will be. Smoking ribs in the oven, you can cook all year long.

[deejayoh]

Re: OctoForno

Congrats! All first class, as usual.

My guess is that the flue will get much hotter than 120F - especially close to the bottom (my oven is often 600 or higher at the top of the entry arch.) Looks like it is single-skinned, so I think the IFB were a good idea. With a full temp oven, the gasses at the top are probably hotter than 120...

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: OctoForno

John,

Congrats on the your firing. It has been a long haul for you but you are there now. Look at all the tapered arches you have inspired.

[SCChris]

Re: OctoForno

Bit by bit, it gets done! Very cool John!

Chris

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: OctoForno

Got a fair amount of progress made on the oven over the holiday and happy to report got it fired for the first time.

Finished the vent and although it was tedious to get four curving planes to merge in a trapezoidal shape, I'm satisfied with the way it came out. Got my flue (34?) back from the fabricator and I'm hoping the unrestricted flow and vent depth (7") work well together.

I was able to source 20ga steel studs (local drywall distributor was inexpensive and amply stocked), tapcons, insulating firebrick, three rolls of 1"-thick CF blanket and some Inswool CF caulk.

I've never worked with steel studs previously but found that my angle grinder and a metal cutoff blade worked a treat. It was easy and quick and I did not cut myself once! It also helped to have locking clamps to hold everything in place while screwing in self-tapping screws.

I used the IFB to 'hang' my flue (12ga stainless - 34lbs). All of the flue weight is supported by the studs and the entryway vault is free from any load whatsoever. I used the Inswool caulk to seal the perimeter of the dome/entryway heatbreak as well as the flue/IFB.

Half of the insulating blanket was good for two layers, three in some places. I just wanted to check for any cracks before installing the rest.

My firing schedule was performed with a great deal of anticipation and worked beautifully for the most part. Knowing my oven was completely dry, I heated the oven walls and ceiling up to 300F over the course of an hour, moving the fire from the left side to right. I raised it 100F over the next 30 minutes, then again another 100F the following half hour. I stopped raising the temp once it got to 670F (fire side of dome), 660F (ceiling) and 490 (floor). I am pleased to report no dome cracks!

However...

Upon my initial lighting, I was overanxious to see how my vent performed and had the fire closer to the front than the middle of the oven. The flames (just for a minute) started lapping at the arch and the resultant crack (front and center - where else! ) appeared. This promptly bummed me out, but there?s no one to blame but me. As of this morning it hasn't closed up so maybe I'll try to fill it. There is a tiny hairline crack one brick high behind the offending arch brick, but no other cracks throughout the dome.

When the oven was running comfortably at 550F (no flames licking the ceiling) I baked my first pizza, as promised to my daughter for her help along the way. I would say it came out average, and definitely needs a hotter temp to be called real. One thing I noticed is that the floor took quite a while to come up to temp. I'm guessing that I will need to run an aggressive fire for close to two hours to bring this puppy to full saturation and respectable pizza temps.

An interesting note is that even after two hours of steady firing, the flue never got over 120F. Is this possible? If so, I'm thinking the IFB might have been overkill. Another curious thing that happened was that a sequence of small whirlwinds began dancing around my entryway floor directly below the flue. I'm guessing it was caused by the merging of outside cool air (it was about 6pm) and the oven exhaust heat. Has anybody else seen this? I'll try to post it to YouTube from my camera video.

I'll post some more pics once I get the rest of my enclosure steel erected and concrete board/granite cladding installed. Below is a pic of what its supposed to look like when its completed.

Happy New Year everybody.

John

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: OctoForno

Hi Joe,

I didn't mortar the oven/entryway arches together. In an effort to minimize the contact area between the two, I angled the entryway arch bricks so they barely touch. When I get back home I'll post a pic from the outside of the oven so you can see the 3/16" heatbreak gap this created.
I considered doing it the way Colin did his (oasiscdm) but eventually went a different direction. Seeing how nicely Colin's turned out, I should've gone it like his.

Your oven is coming along nicely, BTW.

John

[Breadjunkie]

Re: OctoForno

John,

I'm a first time poster on your thread, but I studied your detailed photos while building my oven over the course of the last year. It really helped me to visualize the arch transition joinery. Thanks for all your many detailed photos.

I have a quick question about your outer arch. Did you mortar the outer arch to the dome arch or is it just a dry joint?

Regards and looking forward to seeing more progress on "Octoforno."

Joe

[SCChris]

Re: OctoForno

I still using up my last 25Kg bag of Caputo, so I haven't tried the Central Milling flours, but expect that this is where I'll end up..

There are 2 CM Type 00 flours;
Organic Type 00 Normal, Pizza Flour 11.2% and Organic Type 00 Reinforced, Pizza Flour 13.5%. It seems to me that there is a bit of a magical cloud with Caputo and I think CM is an option. I'm comfortable that I can trust CM, there Organic Artisan Bakers Craft Blend, is a very nice flour. My bet is that they understand the requirements of WFO Pizza every bit as much as the other flours.

Of course I need to try a side by side and verify but my bet is that the CM pizza flour will be less expensive and every bit as good if not better than Caputo.. I might be wrong but we'll see. James carries the CM flour as well as Caputo so if you're curious order up!

Chris

[UtahBeehiver]

Re: OctoForno

SCChris,

Which Central Flour do you like for pizza? After a google search I was surprised that the flour is made in Logan, Utah abt an 1 1/2 north of Salt Lake City.

[SCChris]

Re: OctoForno

My contact info has messaged to you.



Chris

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: OctoForno

Thanks Chris,

I'll take you up on both the CM flour and the sourdough starter. I'll PM you to figure out a time to meet up.

John

[oasiscdm]

Re: OctoForno

Hmmmm retro fitting a floor, food for thought.

[stonecutter]

Re: OctoForno

3cm and virtually no veining whatsoever. (Pic on OctoForno post #12)I put the one vein in the front middle of the oven so I could replace it when needed but hopefully that'll be in a few years.

BTW, since I started this build (no real prior masonry experience) I'm hooked on working with brick and stone and very impressed with your skillset, not to mention you get to build stuff with real granite, not just the polished stuff

Thank you. Funny how many people say stuff like that when they build with masonry and stone, it can be therapeutic.....especially so if you are doing it for yourself and not for clients.

That appears to be a nice slab...the floor looks dynamite.

[SCChris]

Re: OctoForno

John,
Les's build was the Pompeii version of a strip tease that carried on for many months. I think you and your oven have exceeded Les's tease time.. I'm looking forward to seeing what you pull out of the oven. Anytime you need a bit of sourdough starter, need a source for Central Milling flour or want to try some of the flours that I'm using, just drop a line.

Again.. Welcome back!

C