I am going to do one of our turkeys in the wood fired oven. I have been researching several sites, i believe i have a plan.
Pizza Wednesday night
Add a log when i go to bed, put door on.
Maintain a 450 degree temp on Thursday
take out the coals and place roasting pan in oven, put door on keep damper shut.
Rotate turkey every 20 min
What do you think? Not super cold here lookong at 69 degrees during the day (Also have 3 layers of insulation).
When i add the log at night should i close the damper all the way?
That sounds like a great plan. 450 might be a little warm for roasting but you’ll be averaging over a few hours and it will cool down.
I’d keep the damper cracked a bit overnight, because the fire will need oxygen for combustion. You won’t lose a lot of heat as an open oven mouth will pull in lots more cold air.
If you find you’re not at temperature on Thursday morning, you can start one more hot fire early in the day and let it die down. (channeling my grandmother now): and make sure those coals go into a fire-safe receptacle like an ash can!
I’m sure you’ve got this, and I think it’s going to be a very moist and juicy bird when done.
The coals will go into the adjoining fireplace, i will post pictures Wednesday night. I also thought it might be to hot. My oven really keeps it’s heat, i may start at a lower temp.
Well, it was the best turkey ever! Put it in at 425, left the door off and damper open to try to cool it down. Turned the pan every 10 min. Put the door back on at 375, continued to turn the bird. Took it out, let it rest. Took pictures of it in the oven, totally forgot to take some when it was out .
That turkey is a real “tease” in the back of the oven, and my (Pilgrim) hat is off to you, Norm! I hope these photos encourage others to try some of the extended capabilities already built into their BrickWoods. Thank you for sharing, and congratulations on a successful turkey roast.
Norm, great looking bird. Question on your enclosed front, it looks like you cut down either fire bricks or normal bricks for the inside perimeter? I am in the process of enclosing my Grande oven and am debating on placing firebricks on the inside of arch like yours, or on the end like I did on the back? Any thoughts from any readers? Thanks in advance. NG
@Norm-G can speak specifically about his process, but a couple of observations:
He almost certainly used firebrick cut in half, along with high temp mortar. Once the main barrel is in place, inserting a second arch is relatively easy because you have a mold in place for it. The trickiest part would be getting the “high end” of the mortar on the arched sections just right, but again, not hard.
This is an example of a very minimal closure. It is just enough to be effective. Note what he said above about how well his oven retains heat. Also, while there is evidence of soot directly up and across the face of the chimney, it’s not nearly as much as a fully open mouth would throw.
If Norm had used regular brick and regular mortar, they would start breaking down pretty early in the oven’s life because they are exposed to direct flame. The firebrick/high-temp mortar combo will last as long as the rest of the oven, which is much longer than any of us will be around.
Thank you, we enjoyed the turkey! I cut fire bricks in half and used tge fire clay mortar. I actually had my daughter get in the oven, i then placed a piece of plywood up and she traced the opening. I tgen took my cut bricks and put them about 1/2 inch below that line. I then drew my cut line. Results are good, i still get smoke rolling out the front, but not as much as before. I really liked the arch opening and didn’t want to loose that look.
Awesome looking oven, and turkey. We done our 2022 thanksgiving turkey in ours. On Wednesday evening I fired the oven for about an hour, and a half, once it was burned down to coals I put the door on and closed the damper. At 7:00 am. Thursday morning I pushed the coals to the back started another fire to for about 45 minutes to heat soak a bit more, then pushed those coals to the back put a 22 pound turkey in at 8:00 am closed everything thing up again and only turned the bird once an hour. By noon my probe thermometer read 160 degrees, by 1:00 it read 170 time to pull out and let rest. I did cover the pan with heavy duty foil to keep it from drying out. IN my opinion it was the best turkey I’ve ever eaten.
Any time Matt. Just thought I’d post that turkeys are nothing to be afraid of. All thought I did question my maiden voyage turkey for the biggest eating day of the year. Everything worked out perfectly.
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