Author Topic: Homemade "HearthKit" (Read 44934 times)

gpaparo · « **Reply #40 on:** December 01, 2004, 01:43:15 PM »

That is the most perfect pizza i have ever seen. The crust is perfect. Just the way i like my pizza. Is it the dough you make, the oven or both that gave you this result?

Joe Pizza · « **Reply #41 on:** December 23, 2004, 12:38:11 PM »

What was the pizza recipe? Include everything from dough to cheese please

Steve · « **Reply #42 on:** December 23, 2004, 08:05:53 PM »

That pizza was made using my "standard" NY style recipe.

Jump to the main website (http://www.pizzamaking.com) and click on the NY style reicpe.

gpaparo · « **Reply #43 on:** January 03, 2005, 01:15:53 PM »

Thanks! I will definately try that recipe.

canadianbacon · « **Reply #44 on:** January 27, 2005, 01:42:11 PM »

Hi Steve,

what model of infared non contact digital therometer do you use ? ... I'm kind of hoping it's
less expensive than the raytec models I've seen listed.... nice thermometers but -ouch ! on the price !

Thanks in advance.

Model number also if you can

Steve · « **Reply #45 on:** January 27, 2005, 02:32:00 PM »

Look here:

http://forum.pizzamaking.com/index.php?topic=274.msg2085#msg2085

I think I paid ~ $75 for it.

ebpizza · « **Reply #46 on:** March 02, 2005, 08:47:51 PM »

ok, I have what is a stupid question.

Since most home oven can only be set to 550 max, is it bad for the oven to be that high of a temperature because of the heat from the tiles?

-ebpizza

canadianbacon · « **Reply #47 on:** March 02, 2005, 09:07:06 PM »

It's not a stupid question, and who knows... everyone who does it could be shortening the life of the oven,
not only the elements in the oven, but perhaps the wiring that powers the elements,

but...... having said that, if you have a self cleaning oven like I do, they are rated for 900 degrees or so, so I don't think
it's really a problem.

I don't really see a problem though even for a regular oven, but I have no stats to back it up, and I bet there is nowhere
that exist stats like that, as what we do is really not something the average person does.....

jeancarlo · « **Reply #48 on:** April 28, 2005, 02:02:24 AM »

Hey Steve, would the tiles work the same with a gas oven or should I do lie Rich and place a stone on the bottom of the oven?

Steve · « **Reply #49 on:** April 30, 2005, 08:20:34 AM »

Quote from: jeancarlo on April 28, 2005, 02:02:24 AM

Hey Steve, would the tiles work the same with a gas oven or should I do lie Rich and place a stone on the bottom of the oven?

I wouldn't put tiles on the floor of a gas oven... the tiles with superheat and the bottom of the pizza will burn. $:-\$

Bryan Chitwood · « **Reply #50 on:** May 22, 2005, 08:02:44 PM »

This is the only place I've seen a particular tile named, and it was a lifesaver. No one at Home Depot, Lowe's, local tile shops or the area brickmaker knew what I was looking for. Fortunately, there's a daltile warehouse here and they gave me enough for my convection oven as samples. Otherwise, I would have had to buy an entire case. They work very well in my 1.5 cubic foot Waring convection oven. I very much like the idea of building some sort of frame to hold the tiles so they can be installed vertically along the oven walls. Has anyone come up with a design? Also, I've read several articles that recommend using a stone or tiles above the pizza as well. By the way, I have a nice baking stone in my gas oven, and it's thicker than the tiles. I haven't been able to find a stone small enough to fit my convection oven, hence my search for suitable tiles. According to the good folks at Baker's Catalog, however, the stone could be cut down to fit a smaller stove. My neighbor thinks his wet tile saw would do the job. Bryan

skitchmo · « **Reply #51 on:** May 26, 2005, 12:42:47 PM »

I think this is a great thread of thought. I have had the best success doing something similar but using fire bricks. I bought a dozen of the half sized (1.5 inches thick instead of 3 inches) and line my oven rack with them for the base of my pizza oven. I then build up the sides with full 3 inch thick fire bricks in a sequentially narrower patern so that finally on top is a roof of two 15 inch pizza stones. The only problem is the amount of time all of that thermal inertia takes to heat up, about 2 hours!

Oh, and I once tried putting the bottom layer right onto my gas oven floor so it was right over the burners. I almost burned the house down because the wood floor under the oven got so hot. I now have a heat sheild under my oven for safety!

I am making pizza this weekend so will post some photos of my oven and results.

eric

skitchmo · « **Reply #52 on:** May 30, 2005, 10:48:17 AM »

Here is a picture of my homemade hearth kit, and a picture of last night's sausage and mushroom pizza from it. Even with 2 hours of preheating I am frustrated with my results since my oven barely reaches 500 degrees (even after recallibrating it that's the best it will do). It's on to a backyard wood fired oven for me.
Skitchmo

Pete-zza · « **Reply #53 on:** May 30, 2005, 03:06:59 PM »

skitchmo,

The photo of your setup reminded me of a piece I read recently at the website theartisan.net about constructing an oven within an oven (a standard home oven). To see the photo of the setup (as used in an electric oven), go to the above-referenced website, click on the link Bread Basics in the frame menu to the left and then the link Oven Humidity & Simulation of a Professional Oven. In the meantime, I have have cut and pasted the text of the article below (in quotes).

"Simulation of a More "Complete" Masonry Oven

Kenneth Sole

Using both a high quality mercury calibration thermometer and a "contact" thermometer of the sort used to measure the surface temperature of a wood stove, Mr. Sole had determined that he can achieve temperatures of about 700° in a standard home oven set to 500°. How is this achieved?

A ring of fire bricks are stood on end on a soapstone baking sheet. An opening is left in the front wide enough for the peel. The oven heats until the oven thermostat tells it that the air within is 500°. It then shuts off the gas, and start to cool. The air cools much more rapidly than the mass of bricks. Assume that the oven thermostat has a "swing" of 50°. When the air in the oven drops to 450°, on comes the gas to heat the oven once again. At that moment, the bricks would be significantly hotter than the air. The gas keeps cycling on and off in this fashion, each time increasing the temperature of the bricks.

At the point when the bricks and air reach the temperatures defined above, the dough goes into the oven. Mr. Sole states, "...The results astounded me. I have used today's recipe for years, but the spring this time was perhaps 50% greater than ever before..."

The Artisan Baker has built and used this simulated masonry chamber in an electric oven, and it works as well in this situation as in Mr. Sole's gas oven. The photo depicts the setup in an electric oven. As can be seen, the weight of the bricks on the rack causes the rack to sag a bit toward the enter. We suggest that prior to using this setup, a call be made to your oven manufacturer to ascertain the estimated weight load that your rack can handle. Lighter refractory brick may be used to obviate this problem, but they are more difficult to obtain. Half thickness brick are available, and would probably work as well if they are not thinner than the spacings on the rack itself. For example, in the oven depicted here, the rack spacings are approximately 1 inch, but the thinner bricks are about 1/16" narrower, and fall through the spacings.

The fire bricks used in the oven on the photo were obtained from Pacific Clay Products, Inc., located in Lake Elsinore, California. They may be contacted via email at Pacific Clay, or visited on the Internet at http://www.pacificclay.com."

Peter

skitchmo · « **Reply #54 on:** May 30, 2005, 11:56:37 PM »

Fascinating! I can imagine how that might work with an electric oven with the element right there above the simulated oven (the fire bricks). But with gas it would seem to break the laws of thermodynamics. Heat (energy) goes from heigher heat to cooler temps, and if the oven never goes above 500 degrees where would the extra heat come from? If you have your heating element within your "oven with an oven", and your thermostat sensor outside of the "oven within the oven", you could fool the thermostat into producing more heat inside of the "oven within the oven" than it should given your temp setting.
Anyway this is all hyperbolea (sp) since today I started excavating in my backyard for an outdoor Neapolitan wood fired oven. I am going to try some Roman pizzas later this week and will let my oven warm up for 3 hours to see if it makes a difference, but it doea better with the thinner crusted pizzas anyway.
Skitchmo

Rubino · « **Reply #55 on:** November 09, 2005, 07:52:08 PM »

Steve,

Sorry if I missed this somewhere in the thread, but why the double stack of tiles on the bottom?

Pizza looked great, by the way.

Thanks,
Michael

dkipta · « **Reply #56 on:** November 10, 2005, 08:40:39 AM »

Fantastic! Thats almost how I did it. Except I put an additional layer of tile on top. Works great doesn't it? I would think the thermal mass is greater than that of a Hearth kit.

Well done grasshopper!

Steve · « **Reply #57 on:** November 10, 2005, 08:59:24 AM »

The double layer of tiles was to increase the thermal mass of the oven.

dkipta · « **Reply #58 on:** November 16, 2005, 08:23:13 AM »

Wow! Amazing! Using my Kenmore gas oven with no top broiler, I was able to achieve temperatures over 600 degress from the layer of tiles I placed on the middle rack used as the ovens ceiling. The temperature was only set at 500 but the tiles still superheated!

5hortbus · « **Reply #59 on:** December 03, 2005, 12:50:26 PM »

Hey there,
I'm breand new to this, and pretty new to pizza in general. I've put together my "homemade hearth" using quite a bit more in the tile department.
I used two boxes of 6x6 unglazed quarry tile from Home Depot.
-I split most of the first box to fit on the bottom of my elecrtric oven around the element and stacked the sections 6 high to fit right under the bottom rack and support it. (The first go 'round I used two layers on top of the rack, and the rack became pliable enough under heat to bend and fall to the bottom of the oven- hence the support).

THen I use two layers of tile on the rack itself 3 across and 3 deep. I haven't figured a way to get the tiles to stay vertical along the sides, although my first experiment was using the other rack to hold them up.

I don't have a fancy thermometer yet but it doesn't take all that long to preheat (45min or so?) But that's the air above the tiles as I only have a oven thermometer sitting on the tiles. I can get it up to around 650 (therm only goes to 600 so it's a guess)

Here's my question, am I going crazy with the amount of tiles? Using so many on the bottom doesn't take up any space in the oven itself, so I'm thinking more is better.
I'm, sorry I don't have pictures, but my camera is broken. I'll take some shots next week when it's fixed.

Also, in regard to temp, my oven (old GE self cleaning wall oven) has two dials, one for bake/Broil, Clean/Time bake?/Off, and one for temp that runs from 200 to Broil, then clean. I just set the selector to Bake, and then turn the temp up past Broil. The bake element still heats, but it keeps going to well over 600.

Thanks for all of the ideas. I'll take a pic of a 'za when the time comes.

Any questions, input, comments or smart remarks are welcomed.]

Thanks,
Ken

Author Topic: Homemade "HearthKit" (Read 44934 times)

Joe Pizza

Bryan Chitwood