Spring Drying Ritual

Spring arrived and I unwrapped my oven to find the inside pretty much soaked even though the oven was tarped over the winter. I did NOT want to start building big fires for fear that it would be too hot and damage my bricks. Perhaps I’m overly conservative: Others can comment.

What I did was put a space heater in the oven and let it run for an afternoon. The temp got to just a little over 100F.

The result was a nice dry oven. Even so, I built a low fire to further dry it out. This got the oven to a little over 200F.

Viola, ready to cook. What do others do?

I ran an abbreviated version of the initial curing fires. By day 3 I was dry.

Honestly, I just missed burning wood during the no-pizza season.

The little heater is a great idea.

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Since spring is right around the corner I thought that it would be a good idea to comment and bump this thread.

This was the first winter for my pizza oven, and I didn’t cover it until the end of December. There is a bit of dampness in the front, so I plan to take @bikerbudmatt advice and do an abbreviated 3 day series of curing fires to slowly dry things out. I definitely want to avoid cracking my oven by heating it up too fast in the presence of moisture. I just need a few days of dry weather now! :sunglasses:

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Spring is always a dicey time in Michigan. The drying fires are going to have to wait a bit…

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We finally got some decent weather in the mid Atlantic. Made the first pizzas of the season yesterday!





San Marzano tomatoes are a game changer, definitely worth the cost.