Patio/Outdoor Kitchen Project

[polo1665]

I wonder how well an outdoor oven like this will stand up to the cold we get up here? Normal temperatures in Jan-Feb are -5c (23f) to -30c (-22f) at the extreme. I wouldn't want to take this on and have it crack on me. Some serious research will be required before taking this one on but love the idea.

Not to hijack the thread, this is our indoor pizza oven that is part of our masonry heater. It works awesome and heats the whole house so well we have yet to turn on our back-up furnace. We can cook many things in there, pizza, bread, stews, etc. I`ll need an outdoor oven for the summer!

Yup, if you look through the masonry heater site listed above you can see other examples of these masonry heater and oven combos. Pretty cool if you ask me, but not really feasible for me. Once you get into inside installations all the rules change and things can get much more complicated and expensive.

Your heater/oven is beautiful and I'm sure you can vouch for the awesome taste of breads and pizza out of a wood fired oven.

 

[polo1665]

OK, now I'm back home and have access to my pics. Here we go, back to oven building.

At this point the oven has had 3" to 4" of concrete cladding added and the curing process has begun. I kept the concrete wet for the first few days and then allowed the concrete to cure for a little over two weeks. After a couple of weeks I started lighting small curing fires.

It is extremely important to start out slowly and work the temperatures up with successive firings. I had installed three thermocouples during the building process so I could monitor temperatures. #1 is located one inch deep in the middle of the hearth area, #2 is one inch deep into the arch brick, #3 is at the junction of the firebrick and cladding.

 

[looknlearn]

OK, now I'm back home and have access to my pics. Here we go, back to oven building.

At this point the oven has had 3" to 4" of concrete cladding added and the curing process has begun. I kept the concrete wet for the first few days and then allowed the concrete to cure for a little over two weeks. After a couple of weeks I started lighting small curing fires.

It is extremely important to start out slowly and work the temperatures up with successive firings. I had installed three thermocouples during the building process so I could monitor temperatures. #1 is located one inch deep in the middle of the hearth area, #2 is one inch deep into the arch brick, #3 is at the junction of the firebrick and cladding.

Wow! that looks like that was a project. A rewarding one at that though. How do you hook up thermocouples? I am trying to come up with a cheap 3 ft probe thermometer and was wondering if it would work to put a thermocouple on the end of a rod with it able to plug into a display?

 

[polo1665]

After the oven was sufficiently cured I turned my attention to the oven's enclosure. I built the frame from metal studs. Once the frame was up I could wait no longer, I had to get a fire going to bake some bread.

 

[polo1665]

The firing process for baking is fairly simple, but it takes a while if you don't know what your doing (me). Build a fire at the front of the oven and gradually push the fire to the back. Allow the fire to burn until the arch is cleared (soot is burned away and bricks are white again). In my case the oven is heated to about 650 degrees. Put the oven door on and let the fire die out.
After the fire is out and only coals are left, remove the door and rake out the coals. Once the coals are out, put the door back on and allow the oven temperature to stabilize to the temperature you require. In my case I bake starting at 500 to 550 degrees.
Slide the loaves into the oven, apply steam and put the door back on. In order to create steam I bought a garden sprayer and spray water mist into the hot oven ever couple of minutes for the first ten minutes of baking. The loaves take about 25 minutes to bake.

 

[polo1665]

Wow! that looks like that was a project. A rewarding one at that though. How do you hook up thermocouples? I am trying to come up with a cheap 3 ft probe thermometer and was wondering if it would work to put a thermocouple on the end of a rod with it able to plug into a display?

It depends on the temperatures you are going to be measuring. The thermocouples I am using are type K and are accurate up to 2200 degrees, that's a bit of overkill if you are reading lower temperatures. I'll look up the website I bought some of my supplies from and post it. There are a couple out there. I also have access to some supplies from work. For instance, the thermocouples I am using were used in a firing furnace and were changed and thrown away after routine maintenance. Picked them right out of the hopper and took them home. Probably would've cost me at least $25 a piece new.

OK I looked up the sites where I purchased thermocouple supplies. I got the meter from http://www.professionalequipment.com/xq/ASP/qx/default.htm? cid=PEBPGGL&CMP=KNC-Google&gclid=CObO54CN96YCFUdrKgodaE6eCg

The other stuff (thermocouple wire and plugs) I got from
http://www.omega.com/

 

[dcyrilc]

Yes there was a thread referring to this as Tractor ****, lol. My wife has been giving me some grief, "Are you looking at those tractors again!":thumbsup:

Tell her, "Nope. Oven **** this time!"

 

[dcyrilc]

I wonder how well an outdoor oven like this will stand up to the cold we get up here? Normal temperatures in Jan-Feb are -5c (23f) to -30c (-22f) at the extreme. I wouldn't want to take this on and have it crack on me. Some serious research will be required before taking this one on but love the idea.

I would think that if it was in a covered area it should do fine. As long as you don't get moisture in the brick which would freeze.

 

[looknlearn]

It depends on the temperatures you are going to be measuring. The thermocouples I am using are type K and are accurate up to 2200 degrees, that's a bit of overkill if you are reading lower temperatures. I'll look up the website I bought some of my supplies from and post it. There are a couple out there. I also have access to some supplies from work. For instance, the thermocouples I am using were used in a firing furnace and were changed and thrown away after routine maintenance. Picked them right out of the hopper and took them home. Probably would've cost me at least $25 a piece new.

OK I looked up the sites where I purchased thermocouple supplies. I got the meter from Gas Detectors | Thermal Imaging Cameras cid=PEBPGGL&CMP=KNC-Google&gclid=CObO54CN96YCFUdrKgodaE6eCg

The other stuff (thermocouple wire and plugs) I got from
Sensors, Thermocouple, PLC, Operator Interface, Data Acquisition, RTD

Thanks for taking the time. I'll look into those further later.

 

[bironacad]

I wonder how well an outdoor oven like this will stand up to the cold we get up here? Normal temperatures in Jan-Feb are -5c (23f) to -30c (-22f) at the extreme. I wouldn't want to take this on and have it crack on me. Some serious research will be required before taking this one on but love the idea.

Not to hijack the thread, this is our indoor pizza oven that is part of our masonry heater. It works awesome and heats the whole house so well we have yet to turn on our back-up furnace. We can cook many things in there, pizza, bread, stews, etc. I`ll need an outdoor oven for the summer!

Yes Sir can get cool
Bancroft+More info
Past 24 HoursRadar ImagerySatellite ImageryCurrent Conditions


-20 ｰC Observed at: Bancroft
Date: 7:00 AM EST Tuesday 8 February 2011
Condition: Not observed
Pressure: 101.1 kPa
Tendency: rising

Temperature: -19.6ｰC
Dewpoint: -22.6ｰC
Humidity: 77 %
Wind: N 15 km/h
Wind Chill: -29