How To Use Your Oven
1. remove the Californo cold ashes from the day before into a metal bucket filed with water.
2. Brush out any left over ashes and deposit them into the metal bucket with the water.
3. Select small pieces of wood about 1”-1.5” diameter and place them in a criss cross position on the cooking surface and about 12” away from the door, building a pyramid shape and minimizing the amount of wood surface touching the cooking surface.
4. Place a CALIFLAME DOME LIGHTER on top of the bottom piece of wood and start it with a safety long lighter
5. be careful and make sure non of the fired wood falling outside the oven.
6. As the fire begun to burn add pieces of wood that are 2”-3” in diameter, using the long steel handed paddle.
7. Always use the long rounded edge of the wood towards the bottom of the oven, this will allow the most amount of oxygen to the new piece of wood to ignite.
8. If the cooking part will be at the 10 o'clock position, move the fire to the 2 o'clock position for per-heating.
9. Lift the larges pieces of wood and stir ambers periodically to allow the maximum amount of oxygen.
10.When the fire is burning well add pieces of logs that are 2”-3” in diameter.
11.When the logs are burning fissile, now add a larger piece 5” diameter
12.the trick is to get a roaring fire, the flames must be roaring the dome of the oven ceiling and liking down back to the cooking surface
13.the fire should keep burning in this meter for 45 min to an hour
14.it is very important the the flame will be mushroomed to the very top of the oven and back down, that will insure even heating that will last for the rest of the Day or Night.
15.When the fire has burned for the right amount of time, the dome should be completely white or Grey, better say the real color of the Californo material and not black smoke that you will have at the beginning of the fire.
16.The cooking surface should be about 500 degrees and the dome about 1,000 degrees
17.as the oven get to the right cooking temperature, move the fire to the 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock position.
18.Brush the ashes and as much possible ambers into the fire and clean the cooking surface
with a wet towel wrapped around the oven brush
19.now with the embers in place and the cooking surface clean it is time to add another log to the fire and bring the oven to the right cooking temperature.
20.Generally 1 large log every 30-45 minutes is enough to keep the temperature in the oven.
21.Help keeping the oven temperature by periodically steering the embers, try to keep the flying embers and ashes from the cooking surface.
22.The oven is now ready to use, you can tell by keeping your hand in the oven for no more then 3 seconds , or by looking at the thermometer to make sure it is between 500-600
degrees
23.the basic cooking pattern in this oven is circular, a pizza goes in 10”-12” from the fire about 1 min. later it is being turn ¼ of a turn and its being moved back to the fire the pizza must be moved every minute or so otherwise it will be burned
24.place the next pizza in, and remember to turn around, never place pizza in the same location as this does not allow to deck temperature to recover.
25.keep the oven up to temperature by re-stocking the fire and always steering the embers.
26.When placing a new pieces of wood remember to use the long handle pizza paddle and stir the ember periodically to maximize the amount of oxygen entering the oven.
27.if pies are burning on the bottom and are not cook on the top that could be cause by an over heated oven and or not evenly heated oven.
28.at the end of the night spread all the ashes all over the cooking surface area, that will serve as a cleaning method of the cooking surface for the next use, then just place the iron
door to close the oven.