As you would expect, the colder it is outside , the more wood and time it will take to get your oven to cooking temperature.  I add at least one more charge of wood , adding another 45 mins. your actual firing time as they say , will vary. The ambient temperature of the bricks also comes into play. Just like the thermal mass and insulation  of your oven holds the heat , it  can also hold on to that record cold snap for several days afterward.

To stop thermal shock on your ice cold bricks  [ i.e. bricks/refractories breaking]  you need a small and slow warm up fire.. I start a small fire of kindling in between two lengths of wood that won’t ignite quickly and put a wider piece of wood on top to deflect the flames away from the dome, usually for 45 mins. to an hour. The lower inner bricks should be warm to the touch before you start adding wood to make your main fire.

Using your best, dry firewood will help to generate the BTU’s you will need to get your oven hot.  As the coals build up I rake some of them towards the door to pre-heat the cold air entering the oven along the floor. Even though your oven will look and seem hot, the outer surface of your liner bricks against the insulation will be cool, and unless you lengthen the main fire time your oven will cool off quicker than in the warm weather.

OK, so all this seems like even more work, there must be some redeeming aspects to this winter cooking. …… Well there are.

For starters, your beer will never get warm!

When you burn yourself on a hot pan you will have a ready supply of snow to put on the burn.

There are no annoying insects!.

You can use the snow to stop something like roasted coffee from over roasting by placing the pan on the snow.

Your beer will get even colder!

FYI, your beer will freeze at -5C, and your wine at -14C

Tim
timstorey.ca

Hello to all, this oven design is FANTASTIC to say the least. Here’s a few shots of the oven, pizza, leg of lamb, YUMMY! I am SO glad I went with this, I fire up at 10:30 Sat. Morning after coffee, get things ready for pizza at noon, prep the bread for after pizza time while the wife gets going on what she wants to roast for dinner. Cooking time well organized. It is so easy, and the cooking time with all the insulation effort has been well worth it. After cooking dinner one Sat., I closed the oven door, Sunday, LATE afternoon, around 6 pm I went to the oven, opened the door to check the temp, it was still at 250 degrees Fahrenheit = 121.1 degrees Celsius, that was 31 hours after firing, a good size arm load of wood!!! If you let it cool a bit, you could dehydrate fruits and veggies real nicely!!!

Rado,
I’ve thanked you several times for your help and quick response when I was a bit puzzled on which way to go. And thanks for the opportunity to share such a AWESOME design with me and who ever else was smart enough to order your CD. It’s a great guide to perfection. How you were able to respond to me so quickly was beyond me, it was like you were sitting at your computer waitng.

Folks,
I went with the Masterly Tail (fire chamber size and firebricks structure) but as you can see I used what was given to me for the Facade. I also found several deals at the brick yards clearance section which most brick yards DO have. If anyone needs help of any kind I would be glad to assist. I would like to build another one just for fun.

As you can see, cooking in this oven is a GREAT time!! We just finished pizza for lunch, and after letting the oven cool for an hour or so, I put two loaves of bread made with half Spelt flour and half Bread flour. They will cook for about 40 minutes and then I will load three LARGE chicken breast’s that we will eat for dinner, OH, the wife just asked me to put in a few cookies ( on the pizza stone) for Grandma to have with her coffee. HA! What a BLAST!!! If any one is thinking of building one of these ovens, think no more, get busy, have RADO send you a cd, You won’t be sorry!!! FOLLOW HIS PLAN!!! You will LOVE IT!!!

I’m located in North Fort Myers, Florida.

Rado, your design is by far the best I’ve seen, I researched this for several months before ordering your cd. Now I can’t say I made it as perfect as yours ( because you are the man!!) but it works fine, it takes one and a half hours to get to pizza temp. Easy to do. With seasoned oak firewood or gum branches, etc. I’m SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy!!!

Thanks once again.

Greg