No Sticks and a Plan

The bake on Tuesday went pretty well. 10 pizzas, no problems with the red sauce ones breaking up or sticking. I got a late start firing the oven (LA traffic), and so I rushed that a bit with no major consequence except the heat on the floor was a little low for the last few pizzas.

Had some pears, so I capped off the night with a gorganzola, pear & leak pizza. Fantastic.

Cold Oven

Sadly, no pizza on Sunday.

Instead, pizza bake will be happening tonight!

Just mixed up 5 lbs. of dough. Giving it an hour to ferment, then a fold, another rest, then pre-shape, divide, shape, and into the retarder until 2 or 3 this afternoon.

I have the oven door all laid out, but not cut. I was hoping to build it today so I could bake bread for Thanksgiving, but sadly it may not happen. My plan is to make the door by sandwiching 2" of 2600° insulation between a piece of sheet metal (for the interior side), and a piece of plywood. If that design works, I'll upgrade the plywood to solid oak.

Pizza Pictures

Just a couple of pictures from last night. We made 11 pizzas in about 2 hours; could have made more if we had more dough.

I started the fire with three pieces of almond wood at around 3:00 in the afternoon. This has quickly become routine for me, so even though the oven was completely cold (60 degrees) I wasn't worried about having it hot by 4:30.

Pizza Encore

We had so much stuff left over from Friday night, that we decided to do another pizza night on Sunday. I had to make up a new batch of dough and prepare a couple of gluten-free crusts for some of our guests.

I was pretty much out of the (pricey) Caputo 00 flour and the only bread flour I could find in the neighborhood market was Gold Medal.

Pizza!

I spent Friday morning picking up last minute supplies: Surfas for a new metal peel, and a wire brush/scraper combo thingy; cheese, toppings, and firewood from the grocery store; Baller's for a dowel and hardware to extend the handle on my old wooden peel.

At around 1 PM, I mixed dough, then went back out to work on the peels and brush.

Final Test Firing

With a real pizza bake planned for tomorrow night, this was the last opportunity to test-fire the oven.Today's target: carbon burn-off on the entire dome. Supposedly, at around 700° the black carbon that builds up on the oven walls is supposed to turn white (clear). Once the whole oven turns white, you can bank the fire and start cooking pizza.

The oven was still at around 100° from yesterdays burn. I'd stacked my last 3 pieces of almond wood in the oven overnight to kiln dry. At around 11:15, I started the firing with kindling and 2 sticks of almond wood and a piece of 2x4 right in the center of the floor. It started out great, so i decided to throw the third log on, and almost immediately knocked the fire out (yay me!).

I rebuilt it with more kindling and a few pieces of scrap birch. It was quickly licking the roof of the oven.As the oven heated up, the fire changed from something akin to a standard fireplace to a fuel burn of turbulent flames rolling over the surface of the oven dome.

At around 11:45 I saw the first sign of "whitening" of the carbon that had built up on the oven ceiling. By 11:15, the entire oven except a couple spots near the opening had cleared! I was so happy, relieved, excited, whatever! The oven works! It really works!

I spot checked the walls and ceiling at 11:30; 750°+ on the walls, 800°+ at the apex of the dome, and 650° on the hearth! Amazingly, the outside oven temperature still at around 70°F! I banked the fire to the side and watched as tendrils of steam worked their way out of the insulation -- hopefully, that's the last of the water.

Tomorrow we bake!

Day 12: Insulation

I'm now planning to keep the igloo shape, and because I didn't want to mess around with the vermiculite cement stuff, I decided to insulate with Cerablanket.



It's fairly easy to work with. 50 SqFt easily covered my 45" diameter dome. The blanket is held in place with a few galvanized wire straps anchored with concrete screws. The blanket really changes the shape of the oven. During the test firing yesterday the inside temperature at the back wall was around 500° right where the fire was, the outside temperature at the same location was 81°.

Next is to figure out how to encapsulate the oven and its insulation in a waterproof jacket. I have three ideas in mind:

• Stucco; easiest to install, but perhaps the least interesting look-wise. I suppose I could cover the stucco with tile, brick, or...
• Metal; this appeals to me as it would keep things going in the "steampunk" direction style-wise. I'm looking at both steel and copper as possible materials. Copper is appealing because I have the tools to work it. Steel -- rusty with big rivets and metal bands -- really appeals to me aesthetically, but is clearly a lot more work and I think I would need help forming the pieces.
• An Andy Goldsworthy-style stone "pinecone."

Later Firings

I've been slowly building up the temperature with successive firings. I got it up to 350° average wall temperature in about an hour today. Hoping to have it at pizza-making temperature by Friday!

Books & Machines

Back in September I took an oven & pizza building class at Machine Project taught by sculptor Michael O'Malley. He recommended these two books:

They are both fantastic. I especially enjoyed the Hamelman book, Bread, because it explains how bread works. Michael was also using this interesting mixer:

It's called the Assistent made by Electrolux, Sweden. It's asymmetrical, space saving compared to a Hobart standing mixer, and has a built in timer instead of an on & off switch.

On the second day, the class built a temporary pizza oven on Alvarado Blvd. Video here, link to more photos here.