Pizza oven cooking

[Pete Mazz]

[dacolson]

Looks so good.


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[Big T]

[towtruck]

We saved all that food for tonights dinner and it was great. The meat was moist and full of flavor, the potatoes were perfect with a delicate flavor and the gravy really set them off. Next time I cook this dish I will use the correct carbon steel pan with 3" sides. The only thing lacking in my cook was the bird did not get the skin browned enough for a great presentation. The meat was packed full of flavor from the veggies and wine. The wife loved it.

This oven is a blast to cook in!

[towtruck]

Got country style pork ribs in the oven today. Recipe calls for 3 hours at 300 covered and then sauced and 1 hour uncovered. I have the pan in the doorway to get the temps at 300 until it settles down a bit......I like a nice fire!!!



Here they are after 3 hours......135* internal temp...


And here they are at 3.5 hours, .5 hours uncovered.....165* internal temp...


30 more minutes until they are done....easy peezy..

All done...came out well...


The wife informs me one will get cut up into pork fried rice and the other will get chopped up for bbq pork sammich's.

[Big T]

[tinspark]

Sounds like a good plan..
Looks good.
Also, I Noticed a crack along the back wall, is that just the mortar?

[towtruck]

Sounds like a good plan..
Looks good.
Also, I Noticed a crack along the back wall, is that just the mortar?

Yup, just the mortar. There is one in the center on that back wall and one in the corner by the fire. The entire outside brick work has a crack horizontal all the way around the oven about the height of the opening. The whole oven heaves up when hot and settles back down when cold. If I had used a batting or other insulation to isolate the cook chamber from the exterior brick it would not have cracked....but I used a perlite and cement mixture to insulate so it made everything one giant rock!!!

They are going to crack no matter what....I let my OCD go on this one and see the cracks as badges of honor

[tinspark]

horizontal is not too bad. It's own weight should help to keep everything together nicely. It sure is pumping out the food already. Your smokers might be getting a little jealous from the lack of attention... HAH!

[towtruck]

Tomorrow morning I will be cooking in the oven again. The wife is having me make another whole chicken like the last one and a big roast. I will cook the roast like I did the prime rib...hot and open for 5 minutes per pound then wrap until 135* internal temps. I am doing the chicken in the cast iron dutch oven and the roast in a smaller frying pan.

I really need to get a set of carbon steel pans with loop handles so I can spin them easier than a frying pan.

[towtruck]

Okay, more pizza oven cooking. This cook was similar to a couple others. I built a hotter fire and got the oven up in the mid 900* range. I pre-warmed the dutch oven that had the spatchcocked chicken resting on olive oil, wine, onions, tomatoes, and thyme next to the door opening. I had a 3 lb roast that I seasoned up and placed in the frying pan. That roast went in the oven bare for 6 minutes per side to crisp up the outside before wrapping in foil and moving to the oven door area to cook at 400*.

The dutch oven was placed in the oven to let the heat swirl cook from the top and the front side and bottom. I rotated that pot a few times for 25 minutes. I pulled it out at the 25 minute mark and check the skin and it was brown and crispy. The dutch oven lid was getting hot enough to burn off my seasoning. I then placed the dutch oven in the doorway for 10 minutes to get the breast meat up to temp without further cooking the skin.

The wife wanted that roast done medium so I cooked it to 139 and pulled it. It came out super tender and very flavorful with the rub I used.

Here is the fire warming up the dutch oven..


Everything cooking away


And the chicken....


I really need to get a carbon steel high sided pan to do that chicken in so I don't have to run the temp so high with the dutch oven.

[tinspark]

I built a hotter fire and got the oven up in the mid 900* range.

The food looks really good!!

Man, I would be tempted to heat some flatbar in that thing and do some forge work.. LOL!!
Add a bellow and I am sure you could get it up to 1200 degrees f.. (a little tongue in cheek() , I May have binge watched a little too much "forged in Fire" during the pandemic.. I have CAD plans for a steel one with pizza stones (very similar to pics below) .. A shop teacher built this one. He claims that he got the pizza stones up to 900 deg f. We will see if I ever get around to building one.. the smoke and heat are directed around the stones and change directions 3 times, transferring heat to the stones before discharging out a few slots out of the top back of the unit. This one was made from .25" plate

[towtruck]

That is a nice looking cooker. One of these days I will cook another pizza in mine

I don't eat a lot of pizza so I have not spent much time doing it. I will get on it this fall though and make my dough again and do them right. I was too hot my first time, had crap dough the second time....third time is a charm....when I get a round to it!!!. That fire above was too hot for pizza but by the end of the cook it was just right. Need to get the oven up over 900* and then let it settle in with a good bed of coals and a flame, clean the floor and toss those babies in!

[tinspark]

The teacher that built the one in the pictures mentioned that once his pizza stones reached 900deg F that it only took 3 minutes to cook his pizza.
Seems like raw dough on a 900 deg surface would burn super quick, but truth be told the only pizza that I have ever cooked was a Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza in our kitchen oven, set it at 350 deg and good to go in something like 15-20 minutes..lol!!
But I am interested in maybe building a bigger version of teh one that he has here some day..

[tinspark]

Here is a picture of the heat flow of these things, The door is off of the thing so the heat would escape out the front. But there are a couple of openings above the top stone that turns the heat/smoke one more time over the top stone to force it out the back once the door is installed further heating the stones (heat sinks) .

[towtruck]

The teacher that built the one in the pictures mentioned that once his pizza stones reached 900deg F that it only took 3 minutes to cook his pizza.
Seems like raw dough on a 900 deg surface would burn super quick, but truth be told the only pizza that I have ever cooked was a Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza in our kitchen oven, set it at 350 deg and good to go in something like 15-20 minutes..lol!!
But I am interested in maybe building a bigger version of teh one that he has here some day..

Go back and look at my first pizzas I cooked. I had the oven too hot and the dough and toppings were burning quickly. If the floor/stone is hot and the temps are right it will not burn. 3 minutes seems the right time.....mine were burning in under a minute. The second cook. (first post in this thread) I had the temp right just not the dough.

First few pizzas...notice how everything is burning not just the edges.....way too hot on the oven and fire

[tinspark]

A few of our local pizza joints throw a little corn meal in their ovens each time and before they drop the dough on the hot surface. This seems to minimize the sticking and burning and adds a nice texture to the bottom of the pizza….

[towtruck]

Baked a cross rib roast and baked scalloped taters after the oven cooled to 450*. I seasoned the roast and wrapped it in foil and brown paper then more foil and cooked it in a 600 degree oven to start and temps dipped to 450 at the end of the three hour cook. Everything came out pretty good.....wife was making noise about cooking pizza next...The taters came out better than they do in a conventional oven so the wife was impressed with that.

I'm still just playing with this oven to see what it will do. I had a dream last night of cooking a roast like in a deep pit bbq. I only need a few things and I think I can do it in my pizza oven. This cook was a way to check cook times and three hours was the number....I want to get that to 12-16 hours.

[towtruck]

More pizza oven goodness. Today I started with a 4 pound pork butt and fired off the oven to around 500*. I seared the outside of the roast then pulled it to the doorway to cook around 220-250*. Once the fire died down I did a combo of in the doorway, in the oven, door on, door off, to keep it at the optimal temps. Not a whole lot of fussing really.
Here we are cooking in the door while the fire was dying out....


And here it is after 7 hours and at 195*......Mmmmmmmmmm!!!




The last four hours were the easiest as I never touched anything. I had the door on and the oven was at 225 or so and it just did its thing.

I chopped it all up and there were very moist areas and a few dryer areas but for the most part it came out great. All mixed together it is very tasty. The wife is making carnitas tonight with it!!

[SheffSmoker]

That looks great! Is the door on / off to regulate the oven temp?

[towtruck]

That looks great! Is the door on / off to regulate the oven temp?

Yes, I use it to help snuff the fire/coals out then use it to control the temps in the oven. I use an infrared thermometer to check my temps. On this cook I used the door to knock the fire down while the roast was inside. Then I opened the door and moved the roast to a spot that was 220-250* in the oven. Once the temps dropped I put the door back on to hold the heat in and let the roast finish out. The brickwork holds a lot of heat and once the brickwork was around 300* on the walls I knew it was safe to walk away from it and let it finish cooking. Most of the cook time the meat was in the doorway to keep the cooking temps low enough after I seared the outside.

24 hours later the oven brick are still 120* in the upper half and down in the 75* range at the door with my outside temps in the low 60's. I did not bring the oven up to full temp (900) as I did not want the brick work that hot for the long cook. I shot for 500 to sear then let it die out so everything evened out around 300. I smoked/cooked it for 7 hours and it worked really well.....and I used a total of four fist size splits and the starting kindling total for fuel.

[SheffSmoker]

The engineering part of me would want to make a control system for the door, like a portcullis on a chain or a rack and pinion setup, linked to a stepper motor and controlled by a Raspberry Pi linked to thermocouples.

It's something I've been mulling over for a stick burner too, just need to build one big enough next that I have room to manouvere with.

[towtruck]

The engineering part of me would want to make a control system for the door, like a portcullis on a chain or a rack and pinion setup, linked to a stepper motor and controlled by a Raspberry Pi linked to thermocouples.

It's something I've been mulling over for a stick burner too, just need to build one big enough next that I have room to manouvere with.

Half the enjoyment of cooking on the wood fired oven is being with it and watching things cook and tending to the fire and moving the food where it needs to be.

If I want absolute control I could have tossed it in my smoker with a snake of charcoal and walked away until it was done.

[SheffSmoker]

You're right actually, I enjoy tending the fire when doing a cook... As long as there's plenty of beer to hand.

[tinspark]

Half the enjoyment of cooking on the wood fired oven is being with it and watching things cook and tending to the fire and moving the food where it needs to be.

Its a great time of year to keep warm by the evening fire too!! Fall weather has finally arrived (west coast)