Starting up in or after the cold weather

[mrgweeto]

Happy New Year to all,
We are going through pizza withdrawal in New England. With the weather a brisk 30 or below we haven't fired up or oven since November. My question may be obvious but here it goes anyways:
Either this time of year or when the weather gets warmer; after the oven has been sitting for an extended period of time, should we bring up the oven temperature slower than normal. We usually get the oven up to temp in the warmer months in approx 1.5hrs. Any thoughts on this.
GG

[Jed]

Re: Starting up in or after the cold weather

Mr Gweeto,

We have a good bit of below freezing temps here and have had no difficulty firing the oven at any temps. I don't think the oven cares what the out door temps are...

JED

[Fairview WFO]

Re: Starting up in or after the cold weather

I agree. You'd have no concerns over firing it up at 60 degrees, so 30 degrees lower is nothing when you look at the entire thermal range of a firing. You could literally stick a light bulb in there for an hour and you'd be back to 60 degrees again.

Fire on!

[mrgweeto]

Re: Starting up in or after the cold weather

Thank you for the input. The weather is supposed to get up to a balmy 40 or so the next couple of days so I think I can start to smell the pizza cooking already.
G

[RTflorida]

Re: Starting up in or after the cold weather

Moisture is the only concern after an extended sit. If things are relatively water tight (or snow) you are good to go.

RT

[mrgweeto]

Re: Starting up in or after the cold weather

RT,
Our oven is built like a small home. It even has a ridge vent. Go to mrgweeto photos and you can see the finished product. That was my only worry. We have a few expansion cracks that occured the first coupe dozen firings. I spoke to someone that knows a mason that builds outdoor ovens and he is a firm believer that you should have bigger mortar joints between the fire brick for expansion joint cracks so tke cracks don't actually happen in the brick itself. Makes sense but I think that you would be more prone to mortar actually popping out. That's a moot point anyways because ours is up and running, has made about 100+ pizzas and is a real machine. Love it and have pizza withdrawal.
GG

[heliman]

Re: Starting up in or after the cold weather

A while back I let me oven stand idle for about 8 months. In getting it going again (it was very wet inside), I started with a process of continuous burning for 5 days. I started with a small fire then kept it going and increased the amount of wood gradually. the last day I filled the oven up and let it burn for 24 hrs.

It was good to go after that and as an extra measure I sealed the whole oven with several coats of brick sealer.

I would need to repeat this process again if the oven was left idle for more than a month or so (depending on weather).

Rossco

[mrgweeto]

Re: Starting up in or after the cold weather

Does your oven have a surround. In other words is the igloo exposed or is it in a stucture with a roof as ours is (see our oven on the photos in mrgweeto).
G