How is the ovens temperature controlled?
Temperature adjustment is very primitive. The oven reaches maximum temperature after about 3 hours of firing. I am waiting to buy a temperature gauge but have been told that the ovens ambient temperature can reach up to approximately 450 degrees C (and the brick floor even hotter). I know it gets hot enough to cook pizzas in 30 seconds (and singe the front of my hair off every time I fire it!). If I am cooking pizzas or bread then I keep a small fire burning in the back to keep the temperature up although it does drop after the initial firing (after an hour or so pizzas will take 1 to 1.5 minutes to cook!) If you wanted to cook meat it would scorch at these high temps so the best method is to scrape the embers out, wrap the meat in foil, pop in roasting tin then whack her in the oven. If you then block the chimney and door opening you can apparently leave it overnight (or for several hours) to slow cook as the oven temperature decreases. You would then probably finish it off by brownin
