Installation guide

Pompeii Oven Instructions
© Forno Bravo, LLC 2007. All Rights Served. Ver. 1.2 56
17. Curing Your Oven
Although it may seem that your oven is dry by the time you
are finished with your installation, there is still moisture in
the oven, mortars and concrete that must work its way out.
It is important at this point that you cure your oven slowly,
by building a series of seven increasingly larger fires. If
you begin building large fires in your oven right way, you
could compromise your oven's longevity and ability to cook
well, and even cause damage.
Curing your oven is an important step in the installation of
any brick oven -- whether it is a Forno Bravo precast oven,
a Forno Bravo Artigiano brick oven, or a Pompeii brick
oven. Heating up your oven too fast can lead to cracks.
You have invested a great deal of time, money and energy
in your oven, so go slow, and cure your oven properly. If at
all possible, don't schedule a pizza party the weekend
your dome is finished.
After you have installed your oven, there is still a great
deal of moisture in the mortars, hearth concrete,
vermiculite, and the oven chamber and vent. Each of
these oven components was recently produced using an
air-drying, water-based process. Simply letting the oven
stand for a week does not "cure" the moisture out of them
oven. In fact, the Forno Bravo precast oven producer
recommends letting the oven stand for a week after it has
been assembled before "starting" the curing process.
Thicker sections of concrete can take many weeks to cure.
You are trying to avoid two problems. First, any mortar or
concrete that dries too fast shrinks and cracks. These
cracks can let hot air and/or smoke escape from the oven
chamber. Second, if you bring your oven up to heat while
there is still sufficient moisture in the oven dome or
mortars, you will actually create steam, which can produce
hairline fractures, or even cracks in your oven. I have
heard a story from an installer who used to work with one
of our competitor's ovens, where the homeowner lit such a
large fire in a non-cured oven that a chunk of the oven
dome actually blew out the front door.
Also, using a space heater can help, but only so far. It is
not an alternative to fire curing. We ran a space heater in
an assembled Forno Bravo precast oven for two days,
then quickly heated the oven up, (don't do this at home -- it
was an experiment to see what would happen to an oven
that we have here) and we found that we created a very
large amount of steam from the oven, mortars and
vermiculite, which went on for hours and hours.
To be safe, here is a good curing schedule.
1. Let the oven sit for a week or so after you have finished
the dome.
2. Run a series of seven fires, starting with a small,
newspaper-only fire.
3. Increase the size of the fire each day by about 100F
200F
300F
400F
500F
600F
700F
800F
4. Let the oven fall back to cool as soon as you reach the
temperature you want. It is important to bring the oven up
to heat gently, then back down to cold, each time.
If you don't have an infrared thermometer, try this
schedule:
Newspaper only
Newspaper and a little kindling
1 stick of 2"x3"X16" wood
2 sticks of wood
3 sticks of wood
4 sticks of wood
5 sticks of wood