I’m having fun working on this ! I have a question looking for advice on possible vent in the rear wall thinking near the top , any success with vents in past builds?
Thanks
Hey Steve,
Great photos, and it does look like fun!
As for a vent near the rear, I offer you an unequivocal “no.” While you might think, for example, that you’d be creating some kind of convection effect to fan flames and make the oven hotter, in fact the opposite would happen. You would be pulling in cold air and cooling your oven in the very spot where you want it nearly white hot. It will also carry any additional heat generated by fanned flames forward and up the chimney.
A genuine convection oven has a heating element or heat source to pump hot air into the oven cavity and across your food.
The barrel design does that from the front, and keeps the cold air low until it hits the flames at their base. A rear vent would disrupt that flow as well.
I really like that you’re thinking this through, Steve!
2 Likes
Your brick and mortar work looks flawless! I am building my oven now too (bricking the hearth frame now). I’ve not seen the back of the oven bricked like that, I usually see rear bricks that are flush with and completely outside the barrel. Is there a reason you bricked the back this way?
1 Like
Thanks much foot your comments, I chose to be different, I didn’t like the idea of having a running mortar joint all the way around the circumference, was shooting for more interlocking bond pattern, it was a difficult task
1 Like