Installing and Curing Your Pizza Oven

Installing Your Pizza Oven

All materials for sticking and gluing the pizza oven dome are included. Bags are marked and labelled

Step 1:
Take the oven base and mark where the pizza oven will be placed.

Step 2:
Take the big bag of under base mix and add water, mix to putty consistency.
Now place the mixture where you marked the base out with a small fall toward the door opening so that if it rains the water will always run out of the oven. Make it level from side to side and compact it.
With care place your oven base on the insulation base screed that you just levelled and push some excess material underneath the base so that your pizza oven base is sitting steady. Stand on the base to see if it is secure and not moving side to side.

Step 3:
Mortar/floor glue mix. Mix with water and add 1/5 (20%) of the white bonding liquid, making sure it is well mixed and still putty consistency. Moisten your base only where the oven top is going to be placed. Now take the mixture you just mixed and place it 2-3mm thick around the base where your oven top will be placed. Now place your oven top on the base, ensure enough man-power to place neatly with no injury to unit or persons. Make sure the oven is placed exactly on the edges not overhanging. The base and oven should be a neat fit. Take the rest of the mix with a scraper and fill gaps if any on the inside of the oven and the outside, above and below base. Secure the flue top cap (black) in place with some mortar mix, ensure straight and aligned.

Step 4:
Use the grout/plaster and add water and the rest of the bonding liquid to a Polyfilla consistency. Then grout around your base of the oven and below the base to smooth out the bottom of the oven base.
Take a cloth and clean around the oven where you left clay or grout. Extra touch-up paint can be used as necessary to paint and touch up.

Congratulations you have installed your pizza oven.

You now need to wait a minimum of 5 days so all materials are dry, only then can you start curing your oven.

Curing Your Pizza Oven

Why is pizza oven curing important?
It’s important to cure your pizza oven because water is trapped in the oven walls when the oven is cast. To get rid of the moisture you want to gradually heat up the pizza oven and let it cool down slowly to get rid of the moisture. If you heat your oven too fast the moisture will set of steam and crack the oven. We recommend using an infrared thermometer gun to measure the curing temperatures or you can take your thermometer off your door and place it on brick inside the oven to measure your temperature

Curing
Add building or plaster sand on the oven floor 15 to 20mm thick, make your fist fire on top of the sand

Recommended process of curing your oven:

Day One:               Heat your oven to 140 °F / 60 °C for 2-3 hours

Day Two:               Repeat at 215 °F / 100 °C for 2-3 hours

Day Three:            Repeat at 300 °F / 150 °C for 2-3 hours

Day Four:               Repeat at 400 °F / 200 °C for 2-3 hours

Day Five:                Repeat at 480 °F / 250 °C for 2-3 hours

What about cracks

Due to heating and cooling of the pizza oven hairline cracks may appear. These cracks are normal, as all refractory materials crack because of thermal expansion and contraction but this and won’t affect your pizza oven performance. The floor may also get hairline cracks but this isn’t a concern, because we add stainless fibre needles to prevent the cracks from moving apart keeping the floor intact.

Do & Don’ts

• Never wash your pizza oven or oven floor with excess water or any liquid soap, this will cause the oven to absorb moisture.
• The pizza oven maximum operating temperature is 400 degrees celsius; you would never have the need to heat the oven to this temperature either. 
• Never throw wood into your oven this might crack your pizza oven walls. Place them and move into position

How do I build a fire in my pizza oven?

To build a fire in your pizza oven, stack your wood in a square in front portion of your oven adding your burning fuel in the middle, put another piece of wood at the bottom and push your firewood to the middle/back of your pizza oven.

Operating temperatures for baking pizzas is around 300 to 350 degrees celsius. If dry firewood is used the pizza oven temperature would be ready to use within 30-45 min after starting the fire. The internal of the oven should become clear with the black burnt off to indicate the oven is ready

Cooking a pizza takes between 2-3min. Make sure you have a constant flame in the pizza oven to bake pizzas evenly from to the top and the bottom via the heated base and reflective heat from the fire. One normally rotates your pizza once the bottom has sealed to ensure an even cook

For dishes that require roasting or slow cooking and baking bread, you only need a bed of hot coals in the pizza oven. Remember to close the pizza oven door to retain the heat and inside temperature.

Have fun cooking!!