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Re: Jamie's build
After my curing fires, I decided to go for the gusto and do the thanksgiving turkey. The meal was a phenomenal success... I'll probably post about it in one of the cooking threads soon.
In fact, it was such a rousing success, the friends and extended family we saw a few days later requested an encore. Yes, I cooked two turkeys in 3 days; I even had a third round with the rest of the extended family we visited on Sunday. I am officially turkey'd out.
Unfortunately, I found that after the second bird we cooked, there was a nice-sized crack running down from about 3/4 of the way up down to the floor.
Most of the way it zig-zagged along the mortar joints; but right where I had staggered the seams most effectively to prevent that sort of running seam crack, there was a split straight through the middle of the brick.
I had used a combination of two different colors of firebrick based on what was available and discounted at the time of purchase. They were both from the same manufacturer, both nominally medium duty, but different colors and textures, with a somewhat different density. I have a suspicion that the slightly larger, slightly rougher, slightly less dense yellow brick had a different expansion/contraction rate than the harder red bricks, and cracked during the cooling cycle. It was a chilly (although not terribly cold), windy day, and the temperature may have fallen somewhat quickly after the bird was removed (as I neglected to close the door back up afterward). I don't know for sure that this was the problem, but it is one possibility. The other possibility is just that there wasn't enough medium-heat curing time before my big fires, but I think that between the propane burner setup and the two days of high-heat curing fires I was probably pretty good. After all, it wasn't just the mortar that cracked, and it was after both high heat curing and cooking a previous bird.
After my curing fires, I decided to go for the gusto and do the thanksgiving turkey. The meal was a phenomenal success... I'll probably post about it in one of the cooking threads soon.
In fact, it was such a rousing success, the friends and extended family we saw a few days later requested an encore. Yes, I cooked two turkeys in 3 days; I even had a third round with the rest of the extended family we visited on Sunday. I am officially turkey'd out.
Unfortunately, I found that after the second bird we cooked, there was a nice-sized crack running down from about 3/4 of the way up down to the floor.
Most of the way it zig-zagged along the mortar joints; but right where I had staggered the seams most effectively to prevent that sort of running seam crack, there was a split straight through the middle of the brick.I had used a combination of two different colors of firebrick based on what was available and discounted at the time of purchase. They were both from the same manufacturer, both nominally medium duty, but different colors and textures, with a somewhat different density. I have a suspicion that the slightly larger, slightly rougher, slightly less dense yellow brick had a different expansion/contraction rate than the harder red bricks, and cracked during the cooling cycle. It was a chilly (although not terribly cold), windy day, and the temperature may have fallen somewhat quickly after the bird was removed (as I neglected to close the door back up afterward). I don't know for sure that this was the problem, but it is one possibility. The other possibility is just that there wasn't enough medium-heat curing time before my big fires, but I think that between the propane burner setup and the two days of high-heat curing fires I was probably pretty good. After all, it wasn't just the mortar that cracked, and it was after both high heat curing and cooking a previous bird.
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