After singeing all the hairs on my arm after the first pizza making trial I decided that I really needed to make some tools that were fit for purpose.
First up – a peel. Using an old stair spindle and a piece of hardwood and a bit of sawing and filing I managed to make a pretty nice one, just the right size for my oven doorway.
Then, a longer handle on my brush. I bought a brush from the local hardware shop for sweeping the oven floor clean of ashes before cooking and also for cleaning out the ash when the fire had burnt out. But with the temperatures inside the oven reaching up to 450°C sticking my arm in to do this wasn’t ideal. Although basic, this fix means that if the bristles on my current brush get burnt out, I can just buy another and attach it easily to the extended handle.
Finally, I had already made a door for the oven out of old bits of 2-by-4 with some batons and handles to hold the thing together. I also bought a thermometer that will hopefully allow me to gauge the internal temperature of the oven more accurately and made a hole in the centre of the door to insert the probe.
The oven was fired up with a massive fire, causing some of the cracks to get a bit bigger :S
Checking the temperature…
I managed to rather singe the door…
But the garlic bread cooked perfectly!
No photos of the loaf of bread I made unfortunately – It turned out surprisingly well though!
mako makes stuff 