How thick are the tiles? While I was building my real oven, I also used my regular gas range . . . I used "half fire bricks" they are about 1.5" thick about 9"X4.5" or so . . . I put the bottom rack as close to the bottom as I could, and then the second rack up high, and put the bricks on each rack, left the oven at 550 for about an hour to get it heated up all the way through the bricks! I had a top of the line Amana oven, I ended up breaking the inside glass on the door . . . it had 3 layers all together!

The day I baked those first loaves in my real oven, I went down to my friends at the bank to give them a sample (they were my taste testers!)
and one lady had been after me for quite awhile to add some sweetner to my breads . . . I even had organic honey, from my own hives, but I said "no"! Well I take down these loaves, made with the same recipe I had been using all along, and they all thought that I had finely given in and added honey . . . well I gave them a loaf from the VERY SAME BATCH that I had also baked in my regular Amana range to compare, they just could not believe the differnce! Did the same for my Dad!

If you look back to the first post, and scroll down to the picture of the coals in the oven, you will notice no soot in the back corners, that was normal, most of those pictures were taken when I was just experimenting with the oven at first, and I did not know how much fire to put in it . . . or for how long . . . (I just was very excited!) but yes you can also make round ovens, but long rectangle seems to be more effecient, in both burning, and loaf placement . . .

No I never used caputo flour, I would just use some extra Pain au Levain dough . . . still was awesome . . .

I have thought of building a smaller oven and put it on a tandem trailer, or in the back of an old school bus . . . and go around the county, and sell bread & pizza . . . still haven't done anything yet . . .

The tiles I use are 1/2" thick and 7.5" square. They come in various widths. They are the tiles you see in commercial kitchens. They are made my Versatile, out of Ohio. I use to get them at Lowes or Home Depot but they stopped carrying them. Then I found them at a local business called Architectural Clay Products. I am sure you can find them at a place that carries building materials for commercial buildings. I am attaching some pictures. I think the bricks you are using in the Amana oven are way more mass than you need to bake a pizza. You don't in this case need to hold the heat for hours like in your brick oven because your Amana oven will come back on and heat them up again. I bake a pizza on these tiles in about 8 minutes. If I have two racks in, the top rack will radiate heat down and cook the pizza on the bottom faster. This method is a step up from using a pizza pan, but I don't think it comes close to what you have been doing in your wood fired oven.

Caputo comes from Italy and a local Italian market here carries it. But I think that King Arthur's "00" flour is quite similar. It is worth trying but keep in mind that its best qualities will come out with a wood fired brick oven. I don't know if you have tried King Arthur's Sir Galahad flour but if not, it is well worth a try. It has a higher protein content and makes a much more chewy crust and crumb. Shipping of course can be prohibitive when ordering flour, but if you get the King Arthur credit card and use it on an order of $100 or more, shipping is free.

The travelling oven sounds like a great idea. You could have a catering service. Awesome. The thing would weigh a lot. Based on the materials you used and their weight, do you know how much a small oven would weigh that you would build in the back of something like a school bus? You might need a beefed up suspension.

When I lived in VT, KA was 35 mi up the road from me . . . I used Sir Galahad and liked it, KA Artisan Organic was the best for my type of breads (that KA carried) . . .I ended up using Champlain Valley Milling Meadow flour, for artisan naturally leavened loaves a lower protien flower like in the 11% range . . .

Traveling oven should be in the 5,000 - 6,000 pound range, I would not build on as large as the one I built in VT.

Edited to add: Right now, since I have just my GE Profile double oven, I have a "Pizza" setting in the upper oven, I pre-heat the oven and a "Pampered Chef" stoneware pizza round which is about 1/2" thick, then I slide my pizza onto that . . .it 's OK, but not like we had in VT!

It hit me in a flash when I woke up that I mistakenly said Sir Galahad. KA's high protein flour is Sir Lancelot. Sometimes I can't keep those knights straight. Sir Lancelot is up in the 14% range.

I remember reading about a guy who converted a gabage truck into a camper. This might be the ticket to support a travelling pizza oven.
http://23b.org/gallery/v/23b_members/flea/fleas_misc/fleas_garbage_truck_camper/

You'd have to disguise the garbage truck look though. It might hurt your food business image.

Well . . . I only remembered it as "Sir Something"!;)

I do have access to school busses . . .since I'm the transportation director at our school . . . I'd probably pass on the garbage truck idea . . .:eek:

I used KA Artisan Organic for my bread at first but ended up switching to CVM meadow organic mostly because I hated the bags KA used for the artisan flour, those rediculous little pour spouts . . . CVM I just yanked a string . . .

Forget the stove and cook everything in that oven can save you $$$ in gas or electric bill's, how much did it cost to make that oven?, my mom and dad are hardcore bread bakers but unfortunately we don't have space for a commercial oven :(

Well . . .I spent about $4500 to build it . . . don't have it no more, sold it with the house.

My next one will be smaller, and about 1/4 the cost, but 1/2 the size!:D

I used about 1 cord of wood a month for the oven, and more to heat my house! Cut about 20 cord a year . . . that will keep one warm for awhile! My wood was free, except for gas & oil, and well my labor . . .

Were you able to redirect any of the heat from the oven back into your house in the winter?

I could, if I left the door open, but it cooled the oven too much . . . If the oven was down to about 325 - 350 I only needed to fire it for about 14 hrs 3 times a week . . . otherwise the mass storage would take too long to heat up evenly, if the oven mass was hotter than you wanted to bake at, the baking surface would cool faster than the mass, so you could continue baking, as the mass would supply the heat to bake with for hours if needed . . .I wanted to see about 600 degrees and climbing in my mass (past the fire brick, into the concrete . . .)

Here is a graph . . . it is a small oven, and not enough insulation . . . I only fired mine once from, cold . . . then just kept it hot! Just before I sold the house I was done with my bakery, I opened the doors and that kept the house about 80 -85 for 4 days in November with out any other heat source!

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...Oven/graph.jpg

Shawn, from the numbers you are showing here, the outside of the oven is around 300 F at the point when you refire. And it goes up to around 450 F.

I live in PA, and the following idea might not apply to Arizona, but it certainly would have applied to Vermont. The idea is that if I was going to build an oven like that, and the outside was going to be 350 to 450 F, I would try to design a way to capture that heat and pump it back into my house. Maybe a sheet metal box surrounding the oven with a fan on a thermostat. Maybe use it to preheat the water headed into my hot water tank. Maybe run a small steam turbine that can run a generator and charge batteries to run my lights. One would need to do some serious engineering, maybe consult some mechanical and electrical engineers, but you could save a bundle in utility costs, even pay for the oven in a few years.

You got me thinking here.

Some fellows bring a brick oven of sorts on a trailer to some of the fairs in Eastern Wash. People really like the pizza they make in it.

Clear as mud!
 

Yeah, but . . . those numbers are inside the insulation! Those are not my numbers I copied them out of a book . . .

I just remembered that I had recorded my own numbers . . . when I was just getting started, (#9 probe is the outside of my concrete clading or mass, then there was 11" of insulation on top of that, then probe #12 the ("real outside"!)here they are:

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...OvenTemps3.jpg