Where do you put your fire?

[danny]

Having had a couple of decent fires in my new oven, I am keen to learn your views on the best firing method. I see plenty of opinion on the way to light a fire but I wonder;
Where in the oven do you have the fire during the heating phase?
Do you move the fire prior to cooking?
Where do you have the fire during cooking, side or back? Why?

I look forward to your views. And I will add more pictures to the 'Durham build' thread. I can't from my iPad however and the pictures are not on my pc just yet.

Cheers!

[cec]

1st off , I light my fire in the center of the oven and then when it gets really going I push to the back , then just as I am about to cook I spread the embers round the sides aswel .

2nd from your iPad download the app photobucket ,open , then just pic photo from add to my albums , then there's a link to put pics on here .

[rivergirl]

Cecil did you get the photo of the clay cookers?

[cannyfradock]

Danny

I like cec's method of pushing the embers round the sides......never thought of that. It makes good commen sense. Here's what i normally do....

Light the fire in the middle. Build the fire up then after about 30/40 minutes (depends on your oven) I spread the ashes all over the oven floor. Then push the to the back/right-hand side.....this leaves me with a good area to work my peel....as I feed my pizza's in with my right hand, there is still enough space at the back incase the pizza sticks.

Just before using the oven I use a piece of copper pipe, flattened on one end to gently blow any remaining ash to the rear.

Terry

p.s.....the more I think about cec's method, the more I like it.

[danny]

Wish I'd thought of the pipe idea on the first firing. If all my pizza end up as gritty as the first one, I will end up with very stubby teeth in no time!

[cec]

May 24, 2012 13:13:09 GMT rivergirl said:

Cecil did you get the photo of the clay cookers?

No I dint get it , sorry I ment to tell ya .

I use a sweeping brush to clear any ash , just got to watch it doesn't catch fire , Iv tried blowing to clear but I get more ash ,
Next time I fire it up I will do a vid of everything , should be fun

[rivergirl]

I roll mine around and like Cec use a brush but I like Terry's pipe method! I use a branch to move everything around . Cec will try again.

[bookemdanno]

That pipe idea does sound good.
Must remember to take a breath then blow, rather than suck!

[jonnycj]

I tend to build the fire towards the front so I know that that portion of the oven is hot enough when I push the coals back. The rear of the oven is a heat trap, so can't let out as much heat compared to the front, so covering this with the first part of the firing makes sense and helps the pizza to cook more evenly by distributing the heat more evenly.

I too have a piece of copper with a flattened end - works a treat !

[DuncanM]

I guess this might depend on the type of oven and the size.

In my BVO I've tried embers at the side and at back. The back was much better.

In addition I've tried different times between moving from front to back. The best I've found is to actually move the fire back much sooner than I used to do which is in slight contradiction to jonnycj above.

I start the fire at the front using 2-3 towers of softwood which then has hardwood for the roof of the towers. I'll slowly add a mix of soft and hardwood for only 10 minutes before pushing back to half way inside my oven (moves the fire back about 18 inches or so). Start to increase the amount of hardwood (but still include softwood) then after 20 minutes push back to the far back wall. Add a few more pieces of softwood to get the flames going well and lots of hardwood. Here is where on occasion I break the 'feed little and slow' rule by dumping lots of wood on the fire which gives enough wood to heat it up to pizza temps in about an hour but more importantly it frees me up to go knead the dough and complete the rest of the preparation.

Using this method I don't find I have any problem getting the hearth up to required level of heat and it's no different when I used to leave the fire where the pizzas would eventually be for an hour.

[dougclay]

Yesterday I had the smoothest start up so far. 3 Hardwood logs side by side on the bottom, a couple of smaller ones on top of that and then soft wood layers making up the rest of the tower. I build the tower in the doorway then push it just inside the door.
30 second blast with the Weed burner to he top of the tower an leave it.. When the bottom of the stack is ablaze, start to push it backwards, laying new logs vertically at the front of the fire.
When the food prep is done, the last logs are left to burn down and the embers are pulled forward across the floor. when ready to cook, I push the embers to the sides leaving a channel down the centre. very quick sweep the the bassine brush and it's ready for cooking.

[Happy Baker]

I start mine with the 'box' formation, when it is burning bulk it with the small bits of hardwood to make a longer larger fire.
Keep building the fire up with small bits of hardwood, until larger bits are burning well. (You fallen asleep yet?)
When the fire has a really good base, we push it to the left hand side and then when we get flames they then go over the pizza from left to right when it's cooking. Pushing it to the back is not (in my opinion) as good because the flames would go from back to front.
Personally, I think as long as you start in the middle and heat the base of the oven up, it doesn't matter what you do with it!
Others, however, may think differently!

[beddy666]

I have tried to start two or three fires, mine seem to burn for about 15-20 mins comfortably and i start to load a few more bits of kindling and broken down hardwood, but can never seem to keep it going.
I start off with a U shape facing the oven opening with Scrunched up newspaper balls with kindling etc on top. It starts off great then quickly fade even though i start getting some hard wood small splints on top.
Really struggled...

[tonyb]

I've never had a problem with lighting the fire, though I have had a bad batch of logs that were just very slow.

I place a couple of split logs about 3-4" apart in parallel just inside the dome opening and scrunch up some paper and place it between the logs, then I put small pieces of kindling above the paper resting on the logs light the paper and gradually add more kindling, after about 5 minutes I push the small fire into the oven a bit and continue adding more and larger kindling and repeat until I've pushed the fire back to just beyond the centre and gradually build the fire.

At this time of year, particularly if its first few fires there is a lot of moisture in the wfo and fires tend to be a little sluggish.

[bookemdanno]

Look up "upside down fire" on the YouTube.
A bit like Tonys style, i make a hearth, put the paper (although i'm going to try planer shavings next time) between the small logs and a criss-cross pyre of smaller stuff on top. All in the entrance to the oven proper.
I pre-load the rest of the oven with "wristlings" as i call them.
Light the pyre, and walk away. No throwing logs into a fire, or smoky clothing.
The fire gets hot, burns the smoke, and stays hot with no choking of the fire through re-fuelling.
It just consumes what it needs and when.