Bathurst Build 100cm ish

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

Hubby has been hard at work over the last few weeks. Here are some pictures

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

And some more.

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

And some more. Smelling pizza now!!!

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

And now ready for the keystone, todays job yeah

[Greenman]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

Looking really good. I especially like the look of the last course. Now for the keystone!!

The smell of pizza in the air should be getting stronger by the minute.

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

Keystone and keystone cap have both been mortared in. Now we're just waiting for the mortar to cure before we can light her up and commence curing the oven!

[cobblerdave]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

G'day
Congratulations on hitting that mile stone!
Very neat work by the way, and all done with a drop saw. I'm impressed.
Regards dave

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

Started the first of the curing fires today!!

[Greenman]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

Smell the pizza yet?

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

So first few fires done. I think I hit 170 on the fourth fire. But I can still see that there is a lot of moisture in the insulating layer under the hearth. So I'm thinking it is going to go very slowly.

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

Rain and thunderstorms today so no fire

[cobblerdave]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

G'day
A wait I between fires is a good thing. The water has a chance to migrate from inside the brick to the dry surfaces left from your last fire. Then it's in the proper area to be taken out by the next fire.
Regards dave

[SpottedFrog]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

Just having some rambling thoughts on curing today. It seems to me that it is a three step process. Step one a chemical cure
Of the cement/mortar. Step two a heat cure of the refractory. Step three drying the oven out to get maximum saturation for minimum wood.
Step one check
Step two doing it now
Step three. After the storms just before the dome closed over its going to be a loooong slow set of fires.
Which made me think of another thing. Pine. It is a dirty word here in Australia when it comes to burning in a fire. We do love our hard wood. And I totally get that you wouldn't want to use it for cooking. BUT I'm sure I saw someone say they used it to get to temp and saturation then used their good wood for flavour and topping the saturation up. The reason I'm thinking about this is I'm surrounded by foresty pine forests. Oh there are also lots of orchards and some hardwood forests nearby. But I have access to a virtual unlimited supply of pretty much free pine off its post harvest. I am thinking I'll probably be able to pick up fruit trimmings pretty easily too. So will that work. Use the pine to fire things up the fruit wood for flavour and some real hard wood to keep the temp up long term.
Sorry bit of a ramble tonight. Was raining all day so no further curing could be done. Hoping the forecast is right and it is clear for the rest of the week.

[david s]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

You're on the right track. The best wood is free wood. After you've been using your oven for a year you will get less fussy about what kind of wood to use.
I enjoy getting wood.

[Sharkey]

Re: Bathurst Build 100cm ish

Use whatever wood you can get, it makes no difference at all to the flavor of most of the things you will cook in the oven.

Firstly, when you cook pizza at +350c there is no smoke and the cooking time is only about 2 minutes. When you cook something the next day you use the residual heat in the bricks and only have embers. So, again there is no smoke so the type of wood makes no difference to flavor.

If you do want to add some smoke flavor to a roast you can add whatever wood you like to the embers. I use different types of flavored wood chips that I buy in bags.