Ep 19. An Introduction to Cooking with Retained Heat

uh wow every time you use your oven you understand the commitment you're making once you light the fire the fire connects you with the oven and the more you use it the greater your understanding of how it performs and what it's capable of each time you fire up your oven you're devoting time and fuel but that investment doesn't have to end once the fire goes out your oven may still have a great deal to offer so in this episode i want to talk about retained heat and how you can use it to cook without a live fire so what is retained heat retained heat is the amount of heat an oven can store over a period of time and cooking with retained heat is a part of the full heat cycle i like to think of the full heat cycle is made up of two periods the first period is with a live fire that's from the moment you light your fire and your oven has reached the temperature you want to cook at to the moment the fire dies or you have removed it from the oven the second period is retained heat it begins with the temperature the oven is without a live fire to the moment it's too low to cook in a thing and heat retention is connected to how an oven is built so next i want to go over a few basics of oven construction there are several variations to oven construction but a typical contemporary oven will have a dome and a floor made of either fire brick or refractory concrete between the concrete slab and the oven floor could be some insulated mortar or in the case of my oven calcium silicate board and around the dome will be layers of ceramic fiber insulation these materials are heat resistant to around 2000 degrees fahrenheit that's 1100 degrees centigrade and then the dome is usually surrounded by a layer of at least two inches or 50 millimeters of insulated mortar and then any additional insulation if it's a part of your oven's overall design the dome and the floor are what's called your thermal mass think of it as a battery and the fire is the energy source feeding them once you light your fire you're transferring energy or heat into the dome and the floor and those surfaces will continue to absorb and reflect heat while there's a fire in the oven to feed them the insulation helps prevent the heat from escaping keeping it within your thermal mass in my experience this means i need less fuel to maintain the temperature which results in a smaller fire and that gives me more surface area to cook with the insulation increases the time it will take for the oven to cool down and extends the period for retained heat cooking so that's a few basics of oven construction next i want to move on to heat because once you fire up your oven there are three kinds of heat that work together to cook your food first there's radiant heat that's the heat generated directly by the fire in the oven chamber and the heat stored in the dome and the floor the temperature directly around the fire is going to be the hottest part of the oven then it will drop towards the oven opening and that's one of the versatilities of cooking in the wood oven you can use the variable temperature between the fire and the opening to cook your food next is conduction heat that's the heat that's transferred by direct contact with your food for example from the floor when you're making pizza or from the pans or grill you're using inside the oven and then there's convection heat that's the heat generated by the cool air drawn into the oven that is then heated as it flows over the floor on the fire and then circulated throughout the oven chamber and out through the chimney you can see this working if you wipe the hot surface in front of the oven with a damp cloth and watch the steam drawn into the oven you'll also notice that if your chimney is placed before the oven opening the hot air and smoke is drawn into the chimney by the natural draught created by the hot air in the oven and the cooler air outside once you're finished with the fire you can simply let it die or i like to spread the embers out across the oven floor this helps the fire go out quicker burns off any residual food over the oven floor and spreads the heat out across the oven and then the last important component is an insulated door the door is going to help seal up the oven and hold the heat in for a longer period of time if you take the temperature after the fire has gone out you'll find it varies across the dome and the floor depending on where you place the fire as the oven slowly cools the temperature will gradually even out across those surfaces once all the embers have died and no longer contributing any heat to the other i'll remove any residual ash and then sweep the floor clean at that point my oven is ready for some retained heat cooking a great way to begin with retained heat cooking is to keep a record of the reduction in temperature so i've made this graph that begins with the temperature once the fire has gone out i begin by taking it in the center of the oven floor and then take it every few hours after that this gives me a pretty good idea of how long it will take to reach the point where it's too low to be useful for my oven this can sometimes take over 48 hours the record also gives me some indication of when my oven will reach the temperature i'm looking for you can also try it with the door off so you can see what difference that makes if you're looking for a certain temperature and the oven is too hot removing the door will help reduce it so what food can you prepare using retained heat there are really so many great choices and i'm going to suggest just a few that i have tried the most common use is for baking all kinds of wonderful bread i use the range between 5 and 450 fahrenheit that's around 290 to 230 centigrade there's a centuries old tradition of bread in the wood oven because it's a really wonderful environment for baking and that same heat is also great for baking some potatoes and roasting some butternut squash you should take into account that while you're baking or cooking the temperature in the oven will continue to drop and the food or cooking vessel will contribute to that reduction so whatever temperature i'm looking for i find it better to start at a slightly higher reading then i've done some roasting and some baking between 450 and 350 fahrenheit that's around 230 and 175 centigrade i've roasted a whole chicken some trays of vegetables and also roasted some mushrooms then i've also baked some sweet pastries like some scones and a tray of cookies between 350 and 250 fahrenheit that's around 175 and 120 centigrade i've slow cooked a wonderful stew and also slow roasted a beautiful prime rib then at the bottom end of the cycle i found it to be the perfect environment for baking some meringues i also like to prepare some garlic confit and a tray of oven dried tomatoes so that's how my oven performs using retained heat with just a few examples of the food i have prepared but not all ovens are the same and as i mentioned in the introduction get to know your oven beyond using it with a live fire and you'll discover the value and enjoyment of the full heat cycle i look forward to hearing from you about what you have discovered using retained heat [Music] you

Channel: The Wood Fired Oven Chef

Views: 612,701

Keywords: wood oven, wood fired oven, pizza oven, best steak, bistecca fiorentina, steak florentine, wood fired oven recipes, clive baillie, wood fired pizza oven, brick oven cooking, fougasse, Blanc Creatives, roasted vegetables, roasted potatoes, retained heat, prime rib

Id: NGA4daGe0Cw

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021