I live by the tagline on this blog, yet I'm not a perfectionist. Developing an idea, for me, is a practical matter. Get the job done as good as I can given the timeframe. 80% of ideal is good enough - time to move to another project. Sometimes I wish I were a perfectionist, but life's short. Anyway, I think I'm finished with this. I'll cut one more dome out - no hinged door - Kate's generously donated Weber dome, your time has come, meet my angle grinder, you two go have fun.
So, here it is. Note the door stays open throughout the cooking. This enables a nice constant temperature and prevents the neighbors from being smoked out. A dancing fire prevents one from determining the headspace temperature accurately. All I could do is measure surfaces. The clay base was steadily in the 950°F range, ca +/-30F, the inside of the dome surface, about 700°F. It was windy so the heat wicked off the surface, but the base was pretty stable. All I needed to do was toss in chunks of wood from the front to maintain a fire. I only had little pieces and they burned quickly, so I'll be repeating this with bigger chunks (see bottom image).
