Hearth advice

[ianel]

Hi
I am building my first wood fired oven for pizza to start but hope to make it so I'm able to do other foods once I get used to it.

Built up to hearth height now. I will have concrete lintels supporting concrete slabs on top of these I'm thinking 4'' of perlite/cement mix.
I then have some storage heater blocks to use as the cooking surface these are 45mm thick.
Question is, will 1 layer of these be suitable or should I make the cooking surface 2 blocks thick?

Anyone used these or any advice welcome.

Ian
North West UK

[fox]

Do you mean storage heater bricks?
You may get away with them laid on their side to get more mass into the cooking base but i doubt if the storage bricks will stand up to 500c for long.
75mm fire bricks would be ideal.

[ianel]

imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/2803/AtmWXS.jpg
imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/119/Bdwf8z.jpg

These are the brick/blocks I have.
Will they work as the fire/cooking surface?

[oblertone]

I used storage heater blocks (laid flat) in my WFO and they’ve survived quite happily for four years. A single layer works sufficiently well for extended pizza sessions followed by bread and a roast the following day. Just bed them corrugated side down on fine dry sand and you’ll be fine.

[ianel]

Sept 16, 2020 8:38:44 GMT oblertone said:

I used storage heater blocks (laid flat) in my WFO and they’ve survived quite happily for four years. A single layer works sufficiently well for extended pizza sessions followed by bread and a roast the following day. Just bed them corrugated side down on fine dry sand and you’ll be fine.

Thanks for your advice good to know.

I am going to have enough of them now to try and do a single layer on all the inside surfaces if I can get them to stay in place.

Did you cut them if so any tips on what to use?

Ian

[oblertone]

I cut mine using a diamond blade in a tile cutter; not recommended as I had to remove the guard which is also the spray deflector so I got pretty filthy.