Pizza!

Here it is, the first pizza to come from the oven. This is the payoff from five months of weekends working on the oven and it was all worth it. I could do with a better food stylist for the pictures, though. This was a basic cheese, tomato and mushroom pizza, by the way.

It doesn't look great, partially because it had already been attacked by the resident pizza monsters that hang around my house. But I will point out a key attribute from a wood fired oven pizza - slight charring on the rim and browned edges. You can't tell from the picture but it had the crunch on the crust that I had not been able to achieve with my regular oven.

The most satisfying part of this is that it came out good and I know what to work on to make it better. If the first pizza had been a total disaster that would have been a major let down. As it was, the pizzas got better as the night wore on.

Anchovies with Cheese and Tomato

More Anchovies and cheese. This was actually one of the better pizzas of the night, nicely browned edges, even cooking. Practice makes perfect I guess.

I made eight pizzas tonight, more than I have ever done before. Because the oven performed so well, it was quite easy. With the high temperatures the pizzas cooked in 5 minutes or less, depending on how hot it was. Peak temperature in the oven was over 800 degrees.

Overall, things are performing as expected. It takes about an hour to get to cooking temperature and it looks like it will hold the temperature well. When I quit for the evening, the bricks were still registering a temperature of over 500 degrees Farenheit after the fires had been banked and it was just the coals inside.

I am quite happy with the first pizza run. I've made some mental notes on things to improve on to get even better results. It is so satisfying to have things work out fine after working on this since July, not knowing how it would come out.

Pizza day has finally arrived and it was a success!

Fire In The Hole!

Its not the nicest picture, but this is the first fire lit in the pizza oven! Dec 7 goes down as the date of the first fire. We're not yet at pizza stage but we are getting there.


All the elements are coming together. I got a delivery of wood last week, so it's stored under the oven, waiting for the big day.


The following pictures are from the second firing, which I just did today Dec 9.

Loading up the oven (just kindling wood and paper this time).


Rafael getting ready to light it up!











Flame ON!

These are still pretty small fires to slowly break in the oven. I need to run a series of seven firings, before it can handle pizza temperature. Each firing I target a temperature higher than the previous one, until we get to 900 degrees F. The first fire went up to 200, the second one up to 300, and so on. At this rate we'll be ready to really cook by Sunday.

Also you'll notice that the finish on the oven is still quite rough. I need to smooth the finish and work on the stucco look; and maybe paint it too. But all of that is cosmetic touches.

Its been five months since I started this project in July and now this oven is ready to bake!

Vent and Chimney Done!

The vent and chimney went up on Saturday and the oven is looking ready to go!

Last week (Nov 22 amd 23) was devoted to making the vent. It was actually a challenging task of making the form - masonry speak for the wood shape that the concrete will be poured into - and pouring the concrete. It took the better part of a day to put the form together. I made it using Hardiflex fiberboard, instead of plywood, screwed on to metal strips called furring. Once the form was done, I mixed up the concrete to pour in. I realized just how back breaking this work can be. It is a very strenuous task to mix up a batch of concrete and I had to make multiple batches.

So if you remember from the last post, there was nothing on top of the bricks in front of the dome. The white structure beneath the chimney is the concrete vent. The other surprise for me, was just how much the thing weighed! I could barely move it across the lawn by myself, let alone lift it up into place. Must have weighed about 50 kilos. I had to enlist the help of Rafael and the driver next door to get it into place.

The chimney was much easier. Very straightforward brick laying. A welcome change from the last phase of the bricks on the dome. You can see the completed chimney in the next picture.



This is the state of the oven when I left it today. I finished placing the insulation (that's the white stuff all over the dome) and the wire mesh around the insulation. I also started the first layer of concrete to seal up the whole thing. I had originally planned on finishing the first concrete layer this long weekend, but I under estimated the work.

Mixing cement is a real pain! I mix bigger batches now but it is very taxing. I would have wanted to go on to do some more, but my back and leg muscles were screaming. Oh well, at least this work is not complicated so I can do a bit more at night to catch up on my timetable.

I know I said first week December and I was hoping to fire up after next weekend. But it looks like it might be pushed back a week, but no more than that.

RFP is getting really close. I can taste it already!