December 11, 2016 - 11:52am
WFO - outdoor, loosing heat
Hello everyone !
Before i start i would like to say that i'm not professional baker. I work as a chef (time to time at wfo bakery and baking every day at home for family).
I'm planning to build a WFO at my garage but i don't have mch space to fit there big oven. I thought maybe i could build the oven outside and load breads from the garage as i tried to show you on the picture.
So here comes my question. Because is east Europe winter is really cold. Have you got any idea how quick heat can be lost and what solution is the best to prevent this. I will say the winter can be between -20C to - 30C max.
At this point guys, your opinion will be crucial for me.
Thanks a lot !
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on the outside of the oven. I don't know what kind of plans are you going to use, but this is really not important. Definitely I would build an outer wall from gas concrete and then fill the gap between the dome of the oven and the wall with some insulating material like Vermiculite or stone wool or whatever that has high insulating capabilities. You can also put insulation on the outside of the wall like any facade on a house. More you insulate, better for you.
I have insulated my oven with stone wool and built it with gas concrete. You can see it in this post. I can use oven for hours and the hottest spots are only about 40dC. Usually I do insulation like this (on top of dome wall): alu-foil, stone wool 10cm, Vermiculite mixed with cement and reinforced with rabbit mesh (approx 7cm) and then the final coating. If I would be building it like you I would use even more insulation and definitely put a wall around it to prevent loosing energy during cold winters and probably fill the empty space with stone wool or dry Vermiculite. Don't save money on insulation because your oven will be baking longer when well insulated.
The oven on this picture has this kind of insulation. Unfortunately the insulation layer cracked because I had left no place for expansion of smoke chamber. You can see the whole blog post about building them here and here.
Hope this will give you some ideas. Happy building with your WFO and baking,
Joze
Thank yo guys so much for that answers ! Now i have better picture of it. I'm going to build 4x6 feet WFO of alan scott project with twists i've seen at traditionalovens.com too.
If interested check my bread instagram @remifetzki
I have an outdoor oven and here in northern Minnesota it is at least as cold as it is there. I used ceramic fiber blanket (3 inches in total) and I've never had a problem retaining heat in any weather. The average night time weather here in winter is about 5 F, and in the summer it's closer to 60 F. 55F is not a huge temperature swing when we are considering how fast a 700F oven will cool down. I have noticed no difference in cooking on a particularly cold weekend (-16F) or in the summertime.
Great site with lots of WFO info is www.traditionaloven.com it's an Australian site run by "Rado" who has sold his plans to people all over the world. His ovens work really well, we built one at the college I worked at ! His web site has great information on all things WFO things like insulation and bricks etc well worth a visit
reards Derek