Grilling Pit/Outdoor Oven project

[Mooseherder]

Only 3 hours as the crow flys. :D
Are you coming?  How far are you from Montreal?
Montreal to our place is about 7 hours.

[isawlogs]

1 1/2 hrs from Montréal to here.. but, I do a 1/2 hour hook south so that makes it a six hour drive to your place, that can be worked out easily.  ;)

Maybe sometime when you get up that way we could do a little side trip, never know.  :D

[Norm]

That turned out really nice Glenn!

Can't wait to see the first pizza cooked on it.

[Don_Papenburg]

Glen Do you have plans to insulate and cover the oven?  It will hold heat for a couple of days if you do .  We can cook for two days in our oven ,just have to adjust the food types .

[Mooseherder]

No plans to clad the oven over right now although that may be an option later.
I'll try it the way it is and determine if it is needed.
It sure would have taken less time to not clean each brick like I did.
I want the brick look and hope it is enough.

[Local4Fitter]

Moose the oven looks great. Nice neat job. Will be good for pizza as is, just dont put your beer on it after a couple hours.

[GoStumpy]

FOOD???

[Mooseherder]

I've been meaning to update about the food cooked in it so I guess now is a good time since you called it out. :D
As a pizza oven, this thing is a dud so far.
I can't get the oven floor hotter than 350 even with a roaring fire on both sides of a thermometer.
The chicken I have cooked on hooks from the rods is phenomenal so I'm considering renaming it Chicken pit. ;D
The fire goes out and smokes like crazy when I close the door.
The gas burner works great until I put the door up to keep the heat in.
Then it goes out.
I haven't figured it out yet.  I had put the burner in the day before vacation and since we got back I have been too busy with the hurricane and work.  I was out of town for work also. 
The first pizza stuck to the oven floor and ended up on the wood coals to hide the evidence. Pock pock, pock pock pock.  (that's a chicken)
Don't copy this design just yet. :D
Hopefully I'll figure it out.

[Magicman]

I would try regulating the wood fire/heat by covering the chimney top.  That is what we do with the barrel.


 
Just a thought.

[Mooseherder]

I will certainly give that a try next weekend.

[isawlogs]

 Magic, is that the secret top that dark crispy chicken  ??? :P

[Magicman]

Yup, the secret is out.  Not covering the top well enough allows too much heat and will add extra and much darker "crispiness" to the "chickin".  Some folks would even say it was a shade of black.   

[Dodgy Loner]

I would try regulating the wood fire/heat by covering the chimney top.  That is what we do with the barrel.


 
Just a thought.

Now that is some true Mississippi engineering right there 8)

[Mooseherder]

I did a little experimenting yesterday in the oven and had fun with it.
Bought a Chicken and cut it up for parts along with a piece of Beef chuck roast cut into boneless chunks and a whole slab of Pork backribs cut into portions.  Hung everything on both side rods.  The temperature got to 550 easily up there and I backed down the heat some. Rounded it all out with some baked potatoes and some broccoli that was cut into spears.  You can see on the left in tin foil.
Everything was cooked on a little bit of charcoal to start and 3 sticks of oak I split into small sticks.
Less than 1 round was used so it goes a long way.


  

 

Here is the chicken before saucing and the ribs with sauce on one side before going back on the rails.


  

  

 

The ribs turned out perfect, the Chicken and Beef was tasty but a tad overdone by I'm guessing a half hour.
My next experiment will be adding a brick shelf within then oven to get the Pizza higher into the high heat zone.

Blocking the chimney made the heat and smoke come out the front door so I'll keep searching for alternative solutions.
I'm hoping the brick shelf will do the trick.  The other option would be to build a hot fire in the center until it's mostly coals then move to the sides, blow off the ash and put the pizza right where the coals were.
I'm thinking the brick shelf will work though.

[Magicman]

Yup, you can't completely block the chimney, just restrict it.  That actually becomes your damper to prevent all/most of the heat from escaping.

That is some good looking vittles coming out of that oven.   

[Burlkraft]

Thanks...Now I gotta go dig around in the fridge  :D

[sandhills]

I sure didn't see anything there I wouldn't eat!  Why go fixin' something when it works that good 

[WDH]

Whew!  That looks good!

[thecfarm]

A little more than 12 hours later. having chicken and ribs for breakfast? That looks better than good.

[Mooseherder]

I cooked a Pizza on a brick shelf tonight and it was half decent but not quite there yet.
This thing will be figured out.   I had the fire about perfect but it started pouring rain as soon as I put the Pizza on.
That hampered me from perfecting some things but I have more dough for more trying. ;D

[WDH]

Hopefully you were using Morton Salt (when it rains, it pours  ;D).

[Mooseherder]

I was going to make tree (3) different Pizzas but the rain stopped me at the one.   I didn't want to deal with it going in and out of the house.
Matter of fact, I'm still hungry because of the DanG rain.  :D

[Mooseherder]

We celebrated Thanksgiving early because one of our Daughters will be out of town on Thursday.
I cooked the Bird in the Pizza oven for almost 5 hours.  It was very flavorful and juicy with a nice smoke ring but didn't taste smokey.
It was the juiciest Turkey I've ever made.



 

[Magicman]

Very nice.  I love a good smoked turkey leg.   

[thecfarm]

Well it works good for turkeys,how about pizzas?