Pizza Bob's 42" Build

[Tman1]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Ahhhh, the first pizza! How gratifying! How long did you heat it up prior to cooking the pizza? I think it best to get the floor even hotter than that (closer to 700-750). I did some pizza last weekend and my floor wasn't hot enough.. affected the taste negatively in my opinion.

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Tman1,
Thanks. Once the oven hit 900 degrees I kept it at that temp for about an hour. The bottom of the pizza seems to be cooked more than the top. If anything I want to lower my dome and I'm at 19 1/2" tall.

~Bob

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

The pizza looks awesome Bob. Your oven is retaining heat just fine.

I find that I re-charge my floor for a few minutes (rake the coals back over the middle for about 5-10 minutes, maybe add a smallish log) after 5 or 6 pizza's. I don't think I can go 12 unless the dome and side flames happen to reduce the perfect amount commensurate to the floor cool-off to compliment cooking the pizza (with the right toppings for that heat temp). Then it's just pure luck but I guess it could happen.

Anyway, that's my experience and I'm sticking to it.

Your ceramic blanket looks great! Nicely fastened to the dome too. You're going have a great time making pizza's and finding out how long you can heat load your oven floor. Besides, re-charging the floor is a perfect time to refill your glass of wine and find out if anyone has left the chef any pizza .

-Dino

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Thanks Dino! I look forward to those wine breaks!
I'm not too worried about how well the oven holds the heat. I went out today, which is 4 days since firing it for a few hours and measured the temperature with the laser gun. The dome was still at 105 degrees and the floor was 100!?! It's been in the 40's and 50's here at night and this thing is still warm! Unbelieveable.
We put the metal studded frame up today. A friend built the walls and the hipped roof in his workshop and then came here to assemble it all. He did a great job! Everything lined-up perfectly. It's looks a little taller than it looked on my CAD models and drawings but I think once the stone veneer and decorative arch are in place this will not appear to be so tall. We are also having retaining walls flanking both sides of the oven which will be started next week. These walls should make the appearance not as tall too. Other than that I think it looks great. The 18 gauge steel is heavy-duty and this will be used as our torando shelter!

~Bob

[eatingmorefood]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Pizza Bob,
Hello ! Your oven looks amazing.
I'm busy cooking and eating, all the time, but finally I am Builiding my first oven, likely a 36 in. ID Pompeii style! Slad in ground, my blocks are up getting ready to frame and pour hearth slab.
Wondering how thick my support slab should be ? Hearth is 48 x 48 in. and plan to use 10 pieces of 1/2 rebar in slab. Then a second slab of vermiculite - concrete mixture on top of the slab. Is this correct so far ?
Call me crazy, but I plan to recycle a large pile of pizza oven stones into this oven.
thank you !
Chef

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

I haven't posted for awhile and just wanted to get my thread up to date...

The enclosure walls are up and ready to be veneered. I ended-up using a material called DensGlass. I kinda' have had second thoughts about using it after I called Georgia Pacific (the manufacturer).

I asked them how this material behaves with heat and they recommended keeping temperatures below 125 degrees Fahrenheit. So I did a test firing Friday. I brought the oven up to 950 degrees and held it there for 5-6 hours. I wasn't concerned about the walls around the dome getting hot but more worried about the front wall above the oven entryway. The temperature never exceeed 95 degrees there! The DensGlass doesn't contact the front arch and I put some insulation between the arch bricks and DensGlass so I think that really helped. The vertical walls never changed temperature and the roof (angles and flat) never changed temperature. The problem with the DensGlass and high temperatures is that the sheets are made of gypsum. Gypsum is 20% water and if dried out they can start to deteriorate. I really had an AWESOME fire going in the oven! I had flames shooting up the flue - so cool! The reason why my walls didn't change temperature is because I have 3" - 4" of ceramic blanket and then we dumped in 80 cubic feet of loose grade A4 (larger size) vermiculite. It ended-up giving at least 4" of vermiculite at the base of the dome and about 6" on top. I don't have a door per say other than a thin piece of particle board which leaks but I used it to cover the opening only at night and left ot off during the day. I checked the oven temperature today, 48 hours after removing coals, and the temperature of the dome was 210 and the floor was 185.
I did also end-up cooking some pizzas. The first one went in when the floor was 800 degrees. It cooked/charred in about 90 seconds. I bought a mop to clean the hearth which works really well! It brought the temperature down to 750 degrees and a mozzarella/onion pizza came out great! I did a mozzarella/pepperoni after that which also came out great.

I'm really happy with the oven so far except for one thing...The cooking floor bricks seem to have shifted! I left a 1/8" expansion gap around the perimeter of the oven when I laid the soldier course. I think the bricks might have shifted because of that and now there is a spot in the middle of the oven that has a gap that is just less less than 1/8" wide. I also noticed a small chip in one of the bricks. Not sure if that was from the pizza peel or a large log that fell off the fire during heat-up. You can make it out in one of the photos in my next posting below. Is it possible to lay large 12" x 12" ceramic tiles over this floor? Has anyone ever tried that? I thought I might be able to throw down a very thin layer of sand/fireclay and then put these larger tiles on top of the exisitng floor. I don't mind the longer heat-up time and I can get the dome height down to 18.5".

~Bob

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Here are photos of the raging fire and pizzas. If you look closely at the first fire picture you can see flames going up the flue!
Also look closely at the picture with the fire pushed to one side and you'll notice the small chip in one of the bricks and how clean the mop gets the bricks!
I also notice I don't get a BIG bed of coals! The picture below is the result of burning a lot of wood for 6 hours! It's all oak but I thought I would get more coals.
Also...It's amazing how the ENTIRE dome gets cleared of black soot and turns back to the brick color at 900 degrees! The black soot at the vent area (inner arch) started to turn like a white color that I never saw! The dome went from black to brick color but the inner arch went from black to white powdery looking color. You can just notice the white it in the third photo below...

~Bob

[fxpose]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

The enclosure walls are up and ready to be veneered. I ended-up using a material called DensGlass. I kinda' have had second thoughts about using it after I called Georgia Pacific (the manufacturer).
I asked them how this material behaves with heat and they recommended keeping temperatures below 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

125F seems awfully low for a building material. I would think it can tolerate higher temps.

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

George,
I thought so too. This material is thier 5/8" DensGlass which they call FireGuard! It's used on commercial building exteriors all over the country and temps in Arizona and Florida push this material over 125 degrees! I'm not as concerned after the high heat test I did. I am having the oven veneered with thin stone this week which I believe should help the situation. Georgia Pacific also gurantees this material to be exposed to rain/moisture for up to 12 months prior to applying a veneer or stucco. I thought this was the best material for me to use until their engineers told me to keep it under 125 degrees...Oh well. It's not coming off now...

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

The oven will be getting stone veneered this coming week. I picked out the stone but still haven't decided on a stone for the front entrance shelf. What have others used? I'm worried about staining and how hot it will get. I fired my oven for six hours this past Sunday at the vent area floor bricks got up to around 250 degrees so the heat shouldn't be too much of a concern.

Here are some pictures from this past weekend. The eggplant pizza was really good!

~Bob

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Eggplant pizza looks delicious. Your crusts have good color too.

Regarding shifting bricks: I wouldn't worry about it at all. I have 1/8" gaps too but I bet when its 700 deg, they are gone although I can't get close enough to it at that temp, oops, there go my eyebrows .

Chunks of ash will fill it after 3 or 4 fires and even if you vacuum it clean (when totally cold of course) it still compacts and wedges in there.

That brick with the tattered edges: I would think it's more likely a slightly malformed brick (at the factory) and it only took some heat or scrapping of a shovel to make the edge deteriorate. Again, having 30-40 bricks on my oven floor, I'm sure I may also have a "bad" brick somewhere that wasn't compressed and fired perfectly at the factory. I just don't see it. Unless it taters or deteriorates, I would also live with it and replace it only if I have to. I would not put something else over the floor.

Can't wait to see the stone veneer Bob! Good job, the ovens looking great, it's holding heat well and the food is looking good.

take care, Dino

[tdibratt]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Looks good. Can't wait to see that stone veneer on.

[ggoose]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Hi Bob,
Was just perusing your thread and I noticed what a fine job you did on your arches. I also saw what appeared to be a HF 10" wet saw in a few of the pics. Is that the saw you used to cut the faces of the arch bricks (the wide side)? Did you have to flip the bricks to cut all of the way through? I've asked this question on a few other threads just to see if its possible to face cut a 4.5" wide brick with a 10" wet saw.
Thanks,
gene

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

Gene,

it is NOT possible to cut 4.5" cut with the Harbor Freight 10" saw. I cut one side and then flipped the bricks over to complete the cut. The blade really seems to pick-up the initial cut and the brick cut face comes out much smoother than I anticipated. The Harbor Freight saw has been a godsend. I cut compound angles on all the dome bricks. My oven is a 42" diameter so there were quite a few cuts and I'm still on the first blade!

~Bob

[pizza_bob]

Re: Pizza Bob's 42" Build

It's late in the year in Connecticut for doing outdoor masonry but it looks like the oven will get stoned before the snow! As I mentioned in earlier posts, my two year oven building process has been handed over to a mason. I just didn't have the time to veneer the oven myself with a two year old child demanding my attention and a little sister for him that the "stork" will be delivering around January 8th!
The masons have been working on the oven and retaining walls for a couple weeks now and have made great progress. I tend to worry a little about temps dropping around and below freezing but he assures me that it's not a problem... They applied tar paper (moisture barrier) and wire lath around the Densglass enclosure and then a scratch coat was grooved to help retain the stone veneer. The retaining wall they built is New England field stone and the oven stone veneer is 150 square feet of New England ledgestone and 150 square feet of Old Country ledge stone. The border located at the beginning of the hipped roof angle is green granite. This green granite will also be the working shelf all across the front of the oven at hearth height. The green granite will also form a border around the top edge of the roof and be used for the large counter tops that will flank both sides of the oven. The counter top to the left forms an "L" shape and is 30 inches deep. The "L" shape lengths are 5 feet and 4 feet. The counter top on the right is 30 inches deep and 5 feet long. The finish on all counter tops is called a torch finish which is formed with water and a flame. It creates sort of a semi-rough "pebbled" type finish that is not polished but will be sealed. It's not too rough - definitely smooth enough to put a wine glass or beer on! All of the exposed edges of the granite have a rock edge that the mason formed with a chisel. We found the arch stones in the woods around the oven and the mason worked them to what I had envisioned for the past year! I just need to decide what to do for a chimney topper and this should be done soon! I will also eventually put wooden (teek) doors on the opening under the oven.

I'll post more pictures in the next thread...

~Bob