Bakers Pride PX16

[oniondip]

I've been experimenting with the 120 volt Baker's Pride PX-16 and just a basic round pizza stone on the metal rack and I must say so far I'm quite impressed with this oven. It heated up to the max in about 45 minutes and the fresh dough pizza I made came out great in just a few minutes. Unfortunately the tray door doesn't seal very well and lets out alot of heat, so I'm going remove the tray and build an insulated door with hinges. Also I'm going to cut and fit a full size 17 x 17 inch cordierite stone in it similar to what Barryvabeach did on his PX14. http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,15947.0.html

I'm only looking to use this oven for small parties where I'd bake about 4 or 5 pies. I love that it's big enough to make 16" pizzas yet it's portable enough to put in the trunk of my car and bring to a friend's house and plug right into a standard outlet.
I have a few questions though:

1. Where do I get insulation for the door?
2. Why do you suggest hinges at the top and not at the bottom?
3. Are the elements suppose to get red/orange because they never did?
4. Am I better off with a 5/8" or 3/4" cordierite stone?

I will take pictures and try to post updates on my progress.
Thanks

[barryvabeach]

1.  I bought high temp wool insulation from Axner -  if you have a local supplier of kilns and kiln furniture, they may supply it as well  http://www.axner.com/superwoolfiber-1thicksoldpersqft.aspx

2 In a pm, I suggested hinges at the top because I screwed up.  Hinges should be at the bottom.  The best way to do it would be to build a bracket at each side, locate the pivot point of the hinge as far from the front of the oven as possible so that the door will stay closed without the need of any catch, and then if you want a a stop system so the door will stay horizontal when opened, work that into the bracket.  That is the method used on my latest oven -  the outer bolt is the pivot point for the door - the inner one rides in a slot that stops the door at horizontal when open. photos are below.

3,  Scott likes the burners to glow red or orange - I am on the fence.  In my prior ovens, they did not glow - in my current one, in which I replaced the element with a higher wattage broil element it glows a very bright orange -  the problem is that I have had trouble with burning the cheese on a 2 to 2 1/2 minute bake.  While the thermocouple for the oven may be set to 600 degrees, it takes a while for it to sense the temperature - and the broil element is well over 800 - which is giving me very fast bake times - but in some ways too much heat.  So my long answer, if you get the surface brown in a time that works for you, don't worry about the color of the element

4 I don't know.  The thicker the stone, the more thermal mass you have.  Some suggest you get a thick stone, they say the temperature will drop less with each pie that comes off the stone than a thinner stone - which is true. My question is how long will it take to reheat the entire stone back up once it has dropped to a temperature that you think is too low to use, and at that point, wouldn't a thinner stone reheat quicker.  On top of this issue, you have distance from the upper element - the closer to the upper element, the more browning you will get in the same time, and for the time that there is no pie in the oven, the upper element will be putting a little more heat into the top of the stone than if the stone was thinner and a little further away.  You are only talking about a 1/8 inch difference - though it will be 20% thicker -  I would probably go with thicker - but if it is much cheaper in shipping charges, I think you would be happy with the 5/8

[barryvabeach]

I also suggest you take out the crumb tray as well, and make a door go the full width,

[sub]

Hi,

For baking Neapolitan I'll do this:

order a 1/2 inch stone, no need for thicker ones they need a lot more of preheating.

put the thermocouple probe under the stone so the thermostat controls only the lower element.

PX16 1800W= 2 X 900W ?

order a 1700w heating element for the top, you need a lot of watts for a quick baking time

the upper heating element controlled only by a power on/off switch, I'll check the stone temperature with a laser thermometer.

[scott123]

Chris, it really depends on how you define Neapolitan pizza, but if your goal is a 60-90 second bake, a 1700w top heating element won't achieve it.

We're not really to a point where we can say that X amount of watts will produce 60-90 seconds bakes, but my guess is that it's at least 3500 for an oven of this size.

[sub]

Yeah your're right !

Sorry for the mistake, the baking chamber is bigger than the PX-14  !

Effeuno P134h 13.7"x16.14"x3.54"   1700w on top.

Baker Pride P22

20.75" x 20.75" x 3.250"  2900W on top.

[barryvabeach]

Sub,  I got a new top element for a chinese pizza oven,  IIRC I got a 2000 watt 240 volt broil element, and it is too much heat.  My oven has 2 thermostats,  and the broil element gets well over 800 degrees ( the element - not the chamber ) and I have a problem with the cheese burning in about 90 seconds if I leave the element on that long . I am thinking of getting a lower powered element ( it originally had an 800 watt element, and that is too weak, so maybe a bake element in the range of 1500 watts)  or coming up with some way to diffuse the upper heat so it doesn't burn the cheese and crust.  Right now I am playing with turning it on a minute before the pie goes on, then turn it off so it is cooling down when the pie goes in, but it is not working ideally.  Any suggestions?

[sub]

Hi Barry,

Normally the cheese don't have the time to burn with a cooking time of 90 sec, you must be very close to the heating element.

If you look on my previous post, the P22 has a round firewall / heat spreader  made with a stainless steel lid, it will solve your problem (you need to let 1/2 inch free space beetween them)

For a quick cooking with great aesthetics, your top heating element should be always ON (bypass the thermostat if you have to) and bright red, the air temperature should be as hot as the stone, so let the door of the oven open the less time possible when you put the pie in.

[scott123]

Barry, while I don't have any answers for you on the electrical side (somewhere, my electrician ancestors are shaking their heads), I have two other workarounds you can play around with.

Though a pain in the behind, you can always stand there and turn the broiler off and on, over an over gain.  There should be a magic frequency where you can get exactly the top heat you want, in the right time frame. I might start with 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.

I know we're talking about different wavelengths here, but I believe infrared radiation can be filtered in the same manner in which sunglasses filter sunlight. While a pizza screen might block a little too much radiation, something along the lines of diamond mesh work:

http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=11811-46086-715169&langId=-1&storeId=10151&productId=3374310&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1

Two caveats. First, this may be steel coated with the dreaded zinc (or it could be aluminum). I searched for a while and couldn't come up with a non galvanized mesh. If it's aluminum, that's ideal.

Second, you should be able to double it up to block more radiation, but you might want to be careful as the mesh will bounce some radiation back at the burner, which might, to an extent, make for a hotter broiler area.

[shuboyje]

If it was my oven I would put a Triac based motor speed controller in series with the broil element, you will then be able to use that for infinite control of the top heat.

[barryvabeach]

Scott,  thanks,  I was thinking pizza screen myself, since I am not sure I have enough space to put in a solid stainless steel disk, and keep it from touching the element, or getting too close to my hands.