First Fruits

With the chimney up last night, it was time for the oven to start producing.

Regular readers will remember the mistake I made, when finishing the dome, of not covering the sand mold with a non-stick membrane. This resulted in some loose sand stuck to the roof of the dome. A wire brush on the end of the cordless drill seemed to work well to tidy this up. A good fire that creates plenty of air movement should get rid of any other loose bits of sand so that they don't end up in my pizzas.

Oven fired up nicely, chimney worked well. Little bit of smoke escaping out front initially, but once the chimney warmed up and started drawing nicely it seemed to be working very well (phew!)

It seemed only fitting that the first meal produced in the oven should be a Margherita Pizza. The traditional Neapolitan pizza. Cooked perfectly!

This was followed by one of Theo's desert pizza options, the Black Forest. Delish!

A bit of Cosmetic Work

Today my dad gave me a bit of a hand to start building a retaining wall at the back of the oven. This will become a herb garden where I can grow basil for my margherita pizzas.

I used the left over mortar to tidy up the outside of the dome. Because I'm not that fussy about how I split the bricks when making the dome, there was a few divots that needed filling up. There was also one small gap in the dome that I noticed smoke escaping from when I fired the oven up again last night. A screed of mortar has fixed that up. Now I've got a reasonably smooth dome ready for the insulation to be laid over.

I've learnt abit about applying (and removing!) make up as part of my work this year. I recon today's job on the dome is probably like applying a layer of foundation. Get this layer right and the finish should be fine.