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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: Homestead <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] Outside pizza oven, tiled
  • Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:30:48 -0700

Yesterday I saw an oven like what we have been discussing. It was unique in that it was mounted on a trailer and it was covered with ceramic tiles about four inches square.

The man making pizzas had two young people making the skins, pitiful, thin, white flour things, another teen throwing on the toppings, and his young grandson cutting them with a wheel and taking the money. The man is chef and restaurant owner Vincent Guerithaul who owns Vincent's restaurant on Camelback Road in Phoenix, a genius both in the kitchen and at the business desk. I suspect the reason he was personally making pizzas at his outside farmers market/Saturday brunch extravaganza is because he was making money faster there than at any of the other food stations. He had a temperature "gun" and showed me that at the back of the oven the temp was over 1,300 degrees. Just inside the domed opening it was 850 on the floor and 550 about six inches higher in the air. He said it took about two hours to get the oven fired and ready to go. Once he started making pizzas he never used the door.

I normally bake my thick pizzas, with pre-baked whole-wheat skins, at 500 degrees for about 12 to 15 minutes on a pizza stone. Vincent was cranking out these thin things in two minutes flat, the bubbly dough and cheese visually delighting the customers. At seven dollars per puny little pizza he was making money at a rapid rate. He usually had two in the oven at a time. He was using those long pizza peels that are flat, thin metal shovels attached to a five-foot sturdy wood handle. He showed me how he turned the pizzas around at about forty seconds, so they did not burn on the side toward where the fire wood, red and smoking was pushed. There was a flu near the middle of the domed opening; the entrance dome was perhaps fourteen inches deep. I couldn't tell what the floor was made from, perhaps a custom fired tile. It was about a half inch thick.

He said that he bought the inside metal shell--it looked ash gray and bumpy inside--and had a tile guy mud it over and add the tiles. I put my hand on the tiles and they felt cool. A few inches inside it was over a thousand degrees.

The main reason I share this is because it occurred to me that a tile covering would be one way to make the outside waterproof, so our homemade clay ovens wouldn't melt if left out in the rain. That would allow full latitude on where we build ours and would obviate the need for a roof or tarp. The guy who tiled this one made it square. A domed shape would be so much prettier and would shed rain even better.

I took a bunch of digital photos but someone needs to tell me how to get them onto a site where you can see them.
From becida AT comcast.net Sun Feb 17 13:45:02 2008
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Subject: Re: [Homestead] Outside pizza oven, tiled
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At 2/17/2008 10:30 AM,Gene GeRue wrote:
Yesterday I saw an oven like what we have been discussing. It was
unique in that it was mounted on a trailer and it was covered with
ceramic tiles about four inches square.

The man making pizzas had two young people making the skins, pitiful,
thin, white flour things, another teen throwing on the toppings, and
his young grandson cutting them with a wheel and taking the money.

I 'think' the thin crust, really hot oven is called a Napoli style pizza, like 2 or 3 min tops to cook it.
For the wood fired outdoor oven you really need to take a look at the book "The Bread Builders".
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Builders-Hearth-Loaves-Masonry/dp/1890132055
Dan Wing (one of the two authors of the Bread Builders) has an oven on a trailer and had some good advice (somewhere) on building one of those.

Rob
becida AT comcast.net


The
man is chef and restaurant owner Vincent Guerithaul who owns
Vincent's restaurant on Camelback Road in Phoenix, a genius both in
the kitchen and at the business desk. I suspect the reason he was
personally making pizzas at his outside farmers market/Saturday brunch
extravaganza is because he was making money faster there than at any
of the other food stations. He had a temperature "gun" and showed me
that at the back of the oven the temp was over 1,300 degrees. Just
inside the domed opening it was 850 on the floor and 550 about six
inches higher in the air. He said it took about two hours to get the
oven fired and ready to go. Once he started making pizzas he never
used the door.

I normally bake my thick pizzas, with pre-baked whole-wheat skins, at
500 degrees for about 12 to 15 minutes on a pizza stone. Vincent was
cranking out these thin things in two minutes flat, the bubbly dough
and cheese visually delighting the customers. At seven dollars per
puny little pizza he was making money at a rapid rate. He usually had
two in the oven at a time. He was using those long pizza peels that
are flat, thin metal shovels attached to a five-foot sturdy wood
handle. He showed me how he turned the pizzas around at about forty
seconds, so they did not burn on the side toward where the fire wood,
red and smoking was pushed. There was a flu near the middle of the
domed opening; the entrance dome was perhaps fourteen inches deep. I
couldn't tell what the floor was made from, perhaps a custom fired
tile. It was about a half inch thick.

He said that he bought the inside metal shell--it looked ash gray and
bumpy inside--and had a tile guy mud it over and add the tiles. I put
my hand on the tiles and they felt cool. A few inches inside it was
over a thousand degrees.

The main reason I share this is because it occurred to me that a tile
covering would be one way to make the outside waterproof, so our
homemade clay ovens wouldn't melt if left out in the rain. That would
allow full latitude on where we build ours and would obviate the need
for a roof or tarp. The guy who tiled this one made it square. A domed
shape would be so much prettier and would shed rain even better.

I took a bunch of digital photos but someone needs to tell me how to
get them onto a site where you can see them.
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