How to get brown bottom baking in the wood fired oven?

[Fatima]

Hi everyone! Or whoever can answer this simples question.
I have a newly assembled wood fired oven made of pre-molded refractory concrete. I make a mega fire for hours, but the floor doesn't seem to get hot enough. The floor was laid with less than an-inch refractory brick over a refractory concrete. The pizza cook very quickly on top, but the bottom gets undone. Once I had to place the pizza pan on top of hot coals in attempt to cook it. It worked. But I don't want to continue doing it. I also don't have peels to place the pizza straight onto the floor, besides, I don't get to clean out the ashes very well. What happened once, I tried that and it was a complete disaster. The pizza didn't slide well (no peel, remember?) off a short handle wooden board, besides, the bottom was full of ashes, and it didn't seem to cook well either. Therefore, I use a regular aluminum pan to cook my pizzas.
My problem is: how do I get the oven floor hot enough to cook the pizza synchronized with the top?
In case I never get it right, what alternative do I have to fix the uncooked bottom? Different recipe? Par-bake?
Obs: I am in Brazil and have not found a pizza screen to buy. It's seems like it is a novelty here.
I plan to serve pizza for 20-30 people this Friday and I am fricking out. Ok, OK, I know I should not have that many people. Actually, I don't even know how many are coming, but maximum 30. It should be a quick snack after a meeting.

[JConk007]

what is the floor made out of ?? take a few pics and post. If you have a mega fore going for hours that should heat the floor to temp you need also do you have an infrered thermomete so you can read the temps on the hearth and inside the dome?
John

[Jackie Tran]

I suspect you need to fix the oven, not the dough.  As John said, pictures and temp readings will help solve the problem.  Please list all the layers between the floor and concrete base and how thick each layer is including the floor and base.

Chau

[Fatima]

Thank you John and Chau,
I've just lost the reply I had written to you with the photos. To tell you the truth, my message couldn't be sent due to my pics being too large. When I hit the "back" buttom, I lost them all. My apologies. I am learning to use this site and to resize my photos. About the oven:
1. Assembled oven made of refractory concrete, glued together with refractory cement
2. Base built with 2 layers of brick on top of a wood board. Red clay with cement used as a mortar.
3. In attempt to improve the oven, I had laid less than 1 inch thick refractory brick, used refractory cement underneath and in between.
The refractory brick is usually used to build BBQ grill internal wall where the coals go. Nobody that I know use for ovens.
4. Outside covering made of red clay (anthill earth), cement, brown sugar, and fresh cow manure.

Might the refractory brick be the problem? Are they dissipating the heat too quickly?

Will have to finish writing on another post. It seems like this one hit its limit.

[Fatima]

The only two times that I got the pizza bottom browned were when:
1. I placed the pan on top of hot coals
2. After a third pizza was loaded into the oven. It took a lot longer to cook (several minutes with the door closed), but it cooked evenly. The variable here were two: it had a thick layer of toppings (I wanted to use up all the ingredients), which may have slowed down the cooking on top; the dome temperature may have dropped, perhaps with hot coals, but not blazing flame. But this is not the kind of pizza I want. I want the 90 second type.

How to get a brown bottom pizza cooking on a pan? Is it at all possible?

Obs: where I live there is no pizza peel, pizza screen, steel brush, infrared thermometer for sale- even over the internet.
Small towns like mine have only pizza place open for dinner. But I am lucky. They are all baked in wood fired oven and hand tossed. But even so, I want to choose my style and my ingredients. I don't enjoy much Brazilian style pizzas.

[Tscarborough]

It sounds as though you have no insulation under the floor, so your heat is being sucked away.  Use the pan for a minute or 2, then slide it off onto the floor.  That will help, but the reality is that with no insulation under the floor your oven is fatally flawed.

[buceriasdon]

Fatima, I use this free program for resizing   http://www.imageoptimizer.net/Pages/Home.aspx
I admire your enthusiasm however to hold a pizza party in just a few days when you don't have your oven completly mastered and what I believe are serious problems that need to be addressed is to me rather unrealistic. There will plenty of time for pizza parties without the self imposed pressure you are placing on yourself.
Don

[Fatima]

Tscarborough,
Thank you for your input. It never came to my mind that I needed an insulation under the floor, as we, in Brazil, build brick ovens with brick floor over wooden base. I guess people do not use it for pizza making, but for bread baking and meat roasting. Being so, hot floors are actually not desirable, I guess.
Well, I am going to keep trying until I settle with long cooking pizzas or do something else. Ciao!

[Fatima]

Buceriasdon, Don, right?
I really appreciate your reply. It is, yes, unrealistic to make pizza for 30 people under these circumstances. Specially for being a 30 minute event at the end of a meeting. But I really wanted to do something nice as people are coming to my farm in the evening, under the rain, while they could be watching soap opera. After much thought, I have decided to pre-bake the crusts ahead of time, have a neighbor help me with the oven (she is familiar with it), another person to cut the pies. I will be topping them. Besides, we are going to have some pizzas light in cheese done beforehand for immediate serving (while the new ones are cooking in the oven). To make sure nothing is going wrong, I am going to have a conventional oven pre-heated just in case. It is a lot of compromise, I know.
Thank you for the photo resizing program. I am going to check it out later.