Fire in the hole!!!!!

Today we "test fired" the pizza oven. As the clay was still damp in areas it was started off gently. The fire is built to one side so that you can fit a pizza into the main part of the oven. The heat of the fire draws air into the oven which then rises as its heated and washes up under the dome and then down and out of the front.

After about 10 minutes, the heat is such that it burns off any smoke before it escapes from the front. As the fire had only just been lit in the pictures, the temperature had not got hot enough to burn off the smoke.

After about an hour the top half of the oven was very hot indeed and had caused some minor "scabbing" of the clay inside which can easily be patched up with fresh wet clay/sand mix. It appeared that the top of the oven was leaking smoke but it was found to be steam as the clay was drying out with the heat.

Next time its full on "cook a pizza" trial.