Stainless steel wood fired oven.

[Wayne73]

HI there,
I just brought one of those cheap Chinese SS ovens and thought I would share my experience so far.
We are currently renting so building a brick oven is out of the question and thinking about cooking pizzas at local parties and markets, so we need something portable.
Over the last year I have been doing plenty of research and keep coming back to the Chinese SS oven. Its large enough and very affordable for what we want, so two ticks there. On the down side I've heard that the floor can buckle from the heat causing the brick floor to become uneven and that's a very big negative, but the plus's over ruled the neg's and I went ahead and ordered one.

[Wayne73]

so here it is the oven unboxed. Looks really neat and tidy very happy first impressions, though I did turn the bricks around to so there was less edges for my peel to catch and in doing this I noticed the bricks were laid directly on a sheet of stainless..
I kind of thought this may have been the issue with the buckled floors I read in some of the online reviews. Anyway I cant live with that.
Time to operate and see what ticks.

[david s]

Oh dear, is there any insulation under the floor? Stainless is notorious for buckling under heat so this may be the reason for you having heard of that problem. Insulation under the floor is essential to hold any substantial heat in the floor bricks.

[Wayne73]

I've pull the outer case off to see what going on and David s .. there was just a couple of handfuls of ceramic blanket shoved randomly under there. also at the back the insulation had fallen down, leaving the back bare.
The blanket at the front of the oven is only half as thick also. pretty crap effort.
I've just ordered a roll of insulation and am thinking of cutting the stainless sheet out of the floor and just fill the cavity with a perlite concrete mix.

[david s]

This is quite interesting because I sold some blanket to a customer around a month ago who described the exact same problem of lack of floor insulation in their mobile oven. I met her husband at a Music Festival last weekend where they were cooking and selling pizzas in his recently reinsulated oven. It appeared to be exactly the same as yours although his had an Italian logo and I assumed it was imported from there. I’m not sure how he arranged the blanket under the floor bricks, because I would have thought it might compress the blanket, I think vermicrete would be a better solution. Also the bricks sitting on conductive stainless sound to me like a recipe for heat loss.

[Wayne73]

Hey David, was there oven mounted on a trailer or on its stand? What I had in mind was to use the stand it came with for the markets, but then realized that I would have to wait for the oven to cool down be for I could go home

[Wayne73]

today I cut the floor out of the inner shell, formed up and put down my perlite slab.. I'm hopeful that this will work.

[david s]

Hey David, was there oven mounted on a trailer or on its stand? What I had in mind was to use the stand it came with for the markets, but then realized that I would have to wait for the oven to cool down be for I could go home

Here is a pic from memory as to how he had it mounted. I did get his card but can't find it. Shall look harder and get back to you.

[UtahBeehiver]

The Vcrete layer will definitely help the heat retention in the floor. Let the Vcrete dry out before replacing the floor bricks and mounting the oven back on the stand. A couple weep holes would be good to in the stand floor. Lots of work for a new turn key oven.

[Wayne73]

Here is a pic from memory as to how he had it mounted. I did get his card but can't find it. Shall look harder and get back to you.

hey David thanks for the effort with the drawing, much appreciated.

[Wayne73]

The Vcrete layer will definitely help the heat retention in the floor. Let the Vcrete dry out before replacing the floor bricks and mounting the oven back on the stand. A couple weep holes would be good to in the stand floor. Lots of work for a new turn key oven.

Well its not that much work and I kind of thought I would have to modify the oven when going into this. In the end for a bit under $1600 im happy.

[Wayne73]

Top back in place, just have to weld it back together.

[Wayne73]

All back together now. I replaced the dodgy ceramic blanket and doubled it up on top and at the back, couldn't fit two layers at the sides. Forgot to take a pic of that.
We used it three nights in a row and I am more then happy with its performance. floor stays hot for well over two hours after getting to temperature.

[UtahBeehiver]

My guess is the Vcrete is still somewhat wet so as it dries out further the insulation characteristics of the floor will improve and the fire brick floor will hold a heat charge longer.

[Wayne73]

I'm not worried either way and I cant say how long the bricks held there temp for after I stoped cooking, two hours is all I need, I just want to use the oven to cook pizzas .
Though I did notice if the fire had died down at all the top of the pizza did not cook that well, put that down to no heat bank in the SS dome.