June 9, 2014 - 7:16pm
Wood oven survey.
A couple things I've been wondering about other people's wood ovens.
Is there an approximate way to measure a wood oven's efficiency?
1. Roughly how large is your oven.
2. How much wood do you burn per firing.
3. How many loaves do you bake/how much food do you cook per use.
4. How long does it take to reach baking temperature.
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I have a cob oven. I don't know if you're wanting info on this type but here goes.
1. It has a 32" dia. cooking area
2. I burn approx. 25 small sticks (wrist size thickness) dried oak or almond to heat the oven.
3. I can bake 4 to 6 loaves easily depending on size and can do two batches maybe three.
4. It takes 2.5 - 3 hours to saturate the oven about another hour or so to cool to bread baking temps.
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If wood and dough go in it, and bread comes out at some point, i'm interested.
Thanks for specifying wood type, it's an extra handy detail.
About how much would the wood weigh?
I don't actually have the info I requested, about my own oven, yet. Im still in the testing phase, but it has been taking about 3 hours to get to around 400f mark.
I'm totally guessing but only about 20 lbs or so. It's real not that much.
Pompeii oven design (hemisphere)
1. 43" diameter cooking surface
2. I've never counted how much wood I use. I go through about 3/4 of a cord per calendar year. Red oak, sometimes birch.
3. 18 small boules at a time (550 g loaves). In any case about 10 kg of dough can fit in at once, regardless of size. I prefer to do 2 bakes, but can do 3 and I have done 4. Oven drops about 100 degrees after 3 loads.
4. I like to fire it up for 5 hours the night before and let the coals smolder overnight. After 9 or 10 hours with the door mostly on, the surface temps are between 550 and 600.
That oven is a real beauty!
Hi,
Answers as follows:
1. Size - 44" cooking surface (Forno Bravo Premio 2G)
2. How much wood. It takes about a Radio Flyer wagon full of Almond wood to fire it until the walls are clear of carbon, for pizza. Since I maintain a pretty strong fire while cooking pizza, it sometimes takes more during the evening
3. We normally do Pizza on Saturday night then bake bread on Sunday morning. I have baked upwards of 16 loaves, but probably could have done more. Oven is used for the next few days to cook. Sunday afternoon we do chickens, roasts, cakes and cookies (temp is around 350 ). Monday, normally throw something in that roast all day. On Thursday, we make yogurt when the floor temp hits around 120 F.
4. Baking temp. Can't help here, since we fire for pizza then let the oven cool overnight to baking temp. Its usually around 550, when I get up on Sunday morning.
For the OP: masonry ovens perform best when brought up to pizza temperature and then cooled down to bread temperature.
Love the survey and answers-Good information!
I really should add my info, seeing as how I started this whole thing.
46" deep 21"wide 10" high baking chamber.
46x21x10 = 9660cubic inches divide by 1728 (inches in a cubic foot)... 5.59 cubic feet of oven space.
A typical batch on baking day is 8, 700g sandwich loaves, a baker's sheet of croissants, and 2kg of french bread or the like.
Over 3 hours I'd burn 13 to 14 kg of wood. to get it up to 550f, but after that it would stay around 300f for 6 or so hours.
I'm planning a rebuild with half the thickness of firebrick, which will cut down the amount of heat retention, but also hopefully cut down on the quantity of fuel used to get it hot.
info in the posts above. My #s are as follows:
1. Roughly how large is your oven.
The cooking surface is 40 # 40 inches. The door size is 15" high by 10" high.
2. How much wood do you burn per firing.
Hmmm... I don't know how to measure this. I can tell you we burn much less when the wood is really really dry. We fire it up on average maybe every three weeks, and we go through about 1/2 cord of wood per year.
3. How many loaves do you bake/how much food do you cook per use.
Well, this, too, is all over the place, because sometimes we fire it up for a party and keep a live fire going to do pizza for hours on end, or we'll do a couple of days of firing and refiring for a holiday cooking session, sometimes just for bread and other food. I'm learning that the bread baking is much better when I wholly load the oven, so that means about ten good sized loaves per bake, and I can usually get two loads of bread done per firing. Before bread, we sometimes do pizza; and after bread, we almost always do some over night cooking, very often ribs (poached eggs and ribs for breakfast, anyone?), maybe a bean casserole or two, whatever food we have on hand. For the last couple of winter holidays, we've cooked EVERYTHING, from cranberry sauce to ham/cornish hens/turkeys, all manner of side dishes, rolls, and desserts (pies, tarts, etc.).
4. How long does it take to reach baking temperature.
For a typical session, we'll fire it up for a good six hours, the last one of which we partially close it up; then we totally shut it up with the hot coals for another hour or so, clean it out, and in an hour we're down to pizza temps (750-800F), another hour and we're at bread temps and on we go.
Thanks for posting this question. It's so useful to see what others do.
I have a 40" Pompeii oven. It takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to heat to pizza temps. After I am done with pizza I will throw a few more pices of wood in and place the door partially in the vent to reflect some of the heat back. As that burns out I will place the door back in place and the next morning I will have temps around 650F to 700F. I am not sure how to say how much wood I use but it is not that much I don't think. If I leave the insulated door in place it will stay above 200 for 7 days. I may have over insulated a little bit. ;o)
Randy
1. 22 inch cob oven.
2. About a five gallon bucket of oak.
3. Six loaves works well. I could probably do nine but it would be pushing it.
4. Two hours.
1. 22 inch cob oven.
2. About a five gallon bucket of oak.
3. Six loaves works well. I could probably do nine but it would be pushing it.
4. Two hours.