Starting the Cure

Final oven specs - 19" wide opening, 11.75" height, internal 20" high, 39" widest internal, depth is 42" (cooking door brick inside edge to rear wall), 11" inside entry brick to edge of ash slot, 3.5" x 22" ash slot, and door height to dome height ratio = 59% . (My original target for the opening/dome height ratio was the “prefect” 63% ratio, but additional 0.75" at opening height was not in plan specs–I think, along with others, that the 63% is a guideline and the igloo/Montreal/beavertail style shape changes the flow dynamics. Bottom line is that when I fire it up I’ll find out in a hurry about if all’s well.)

After cleaning up the area and returning the tile/brick wet saw to our neighbor, we decided to make our first curing fire into a party. So, mid-morning on September first we made a few calls to friends and folks involved in the building process to the initial lighting of the oven. After dinner about 7:30 pm, we poured a little White Lightnin’ on some newspaper and put a match to it while our dozen guests watched (and I’m sure wondered what the big deal was...). I fed the fire an occasional twist of newspaper to keep some flames going and after about 30 minutes the dome was registering about 200F (IR gun reading). No problems showed up and the chimney/vent system seemed to pull the smoke up & out just fine.

I’d made some whole wheat bread in the house oven, sliced it up into little strips and put them on a baking sheet. Added salt & pepper, a slice of pepadew sweet pepper, plus a few shavings of Parmesan drizzled with EVOO and put ‘em back in a 425F oven to crisp up a bit and meld the flavors. Brownies for a sweet touch of dessert and our first WFO party ended after a couple hours and a lot of laughs (and obviously no pizza).

After a week of gradually increased firing times & heating of the oven, I got a center top section that started to turn “white” where the soot burned off (~700-800F). Continued for several more days bringing the oven chamber up to high enough temperature to clear the soot off the inside surfaces. My cooking floor bricks were the last to come up to temp...I’m sure it was because the perlcrete was still getting rid of the last of the water in that bottom insulation layer. Several little cracks open up on top of the dome during firing...pretty small and fairly normal from what I understand. Initially when the oven curing process started to actually expand the dome, those cracks would be steaming. Amazing how much water needed to get driven out of the bricks, mortar, and hearth insulation during the curing process.