Ceramic Cookers

I just found this site, and I think it's great. I belong to a few BBQ forums, but I didn't know anything like this existed.

As my user name indicates, I work for a ceramics manufacturer. To date, we have only produced industrial ceramics, mostly for melting steel and glass.

We have discussed moving into the food area, and I thought this would be a great place to get some input.

One thing we can offer is a vastly superior ceramic. Our ceramics are made from high purity raw materials, and can easily handle being heated to 500F, and being dropped into cold water. Try doing that with a regular pizza stone.

Another thing we have going for us, is that we can make nearly any shape required from inexpensive tooling, for small production runs.


So far, I've made a brick oven insert for my gas grill, and it makes great pizza.

I'm considering making a Tandor, or possibly a Big Green Egg type cooker.

Is there anything you folks would like to see?

We're located in Gilberts, IL (near Elgin) and I thought I could make up some sample items, and let you guys try them out.

Let me know your thoughts.

Best Regards,

Bill Costa

I would love to see the insert for your grill. I've shattered a pizza stone on the grill.

I love new toys and would gladly be a guinea pig.

Flip

ditto

Hi,

How thick are you contemplating making the pizza stones?

I was just looking at Fibrament website. If you look at the stone which fills a rack in an oven, this would be very attractive to me. There are also baking tile arrangements allow your oven to behave like a hearth, which would interest bread bakers. There are more involved efforts than a baking stone, but if successful there is a market.

Oh yeah, I could guinea pig either grill and/or oven!

Regards,

I am a few months away from updating my oven. A high grade(whatever that means) pizza stone would be of great interest to me. Also, some sort of ceramic attachment for a Weber Kettle (or WSM) to allow for baking or pizza making at high temps would be something more than a few people would be interested in.

I'll be gald to test and give feedback

As with the others, a pizza stone sounds great. I would also like to experiment with a ceramic cube that would cook a pizza in the oven. The dimensions would allow a pizza to be slid inside after the cube is heated and have nice dry interior heat to cook the pizza. This type of a cube would also allow greater retention of heat to cook multiple pizzas in an evening.

Pizza is the next great frontier as a cooking challenge.

Thanks for posting here! A higher temp. pizza stone, oven insert would be great. I'm also curious about the tandoor. Can you fashion something - a ceramic insert (possibly bottomless) for a WSM? There would be great interest here for that I'm sure. I wonder how high a temp can be achieved with a lump charcoal and your ceramic insert setup.

You mentioned BBQ boards, I'm not sure if you are familiar with this one: http://www.wiviott.com/ and click on link to WSMforum.

Any idea what temperature you get on the gas grill with your insert?

Hi!

Tandoor and beehive ovens (visit Argyle bakery on Devon and just west of California) are quite similar. I don't know anything about the properties or surface texture of the wall, though I would like the flexibility to bake flat breads by slapping the dough on the sides.

Pick our brains here and you get wish lists a mile long!

Regards,

Mike G wrote:Any idea what temperature you get on the gas grill with your insert?

I get around 650-700F depending on the wind.

sazerac wrote:Thanks for posting here! A higher temp. pizza stone, oven insert would be great. I'm also curious about the tandoor. Can you fashion something - a ceramic insert (possibly bottomless) for a WSM? There would be great interest here for that I'm sure. I wonder how high a temp can be achieved with a lump charcoal and your ceramic insert setup.

The most common shapes we make are cylinders and open top boxes. We probably already have something that would be close to a WSM. Let me know the Outside Diameter, and the Height, and I'll see if it matches one of our common shapes.

by the way, our ceramics are good up to 2000F or 3200F depending on which ceramic material you use.

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

How thick are you contemplating making the pizza stones?

I was just looking at Fibrament website. If you look at the stone which fills a rack in an oven, this would be very attractive to me. There are also baking tile arrangements allow your oven to behave like a hearth, which would interest bread bakers. There are more involved efforts than a baking stone, but if successful there is a market.

Oh yeah, I could guinea pig either grill and/or oven!

Regards,

I was thinking 1" thick. We can easily mak tnings up to 3" thick, but they become extreamly heavy.

We can also make bricks or segmented hearths.

Below is a cross section of a tile we make that looks like a grill grate. Our customer uses it to load tiny parts into their kiln, 8 to a groove.



This tile has an overal height of 1-1/8". and I use it to make pizza in my gas grill, no heat shield required.

You can face it up or down.



below are some examples of the different shapes we can make.

Engineered Cermamics:

Weber Smokey Mountain has a fan website at www.virtualweberbullet.com, where you can find:

Cross section photo of interior shot -- just scroll down a bit.

Component parts: scan down to see dimensions of center ring

Schematic

To replicate a tandoor oven, it means fitting in the center section without the racks. Please though note there are clips on the edge supporting the trays, which are fixed and not desireable to remove. There is the possibility of placing a rack over the charcoal ring, which would support the ceramic insert.

Thinking out loud: get a 2nd charcoal ring to rest on top of the rack to build the fire on.

To highlight Sazerac's information, many of us here are graduates of the WSM 5-step at www.wiviott.com. If you are contemplating learning this cook method, then Gary's is very intuitive and less time consuming than methods seen at www.virtualweberbullet.com. ONce you know what you are doing, then virtual's website provides a lot of ideas.

Regards,

I think I would just try to replace the entire center section.

Here is a crucible designed to hold 1400 lbs of steel. It has a 9-1/4" hole in the bottom, but I would cut the bottom off, so you would end up with a piece about the same size as the original center section.



Another option would be to put a Smoky Joe grate (14.5") in the bottom so your coals and wood don't fall out, and build your fire on that. The whole unit could be placed on some bricks or a custom made base, to allow proper air flow. your WSM lid would still fit on top.

HI,

How much would the ceramic sleeve weigh?

Regards,

The whole piece weighs 235 lbs, so I would guess around 100 lbs for a 17" tall sleeve.

I made a little pizza tonight, to show how ceramics work in the grill. I used a parts that didn't pass QC inspection, so the box is smaller than I would like, as it is only 11" inside.

Also, I'm sorry the pictures are so blurry, I do a better job next time.



First, the ceramic oven.

I took one of our ceramic boxes, and cut out one of the sides, and turned it upside down.

the bottom, is two grill looking tiles pushed together.




Next, I made a little pizza, while the grill heated up.




After 30 min, the grill was only around 500F, but I got tired of waiting.




I cooked the pizza for only 3 minutes.





And the bottom:



A close up:






It was a very crispy crust.




It was only about 3/16" thick.

Engineered Ceramics wrote:I made a little pizza tonight, to show how ceramics work in the grill. I used a parts that didn't pass QC inspection, so the box is smaller than I would like, as it is only 11" inside.

This is very interesting to me. A Weber kettle has a 22.5" round grill surface, so you could make a box that is a bit bigger than the one you made, corrrect? If you could fabricate something like that, what would the cost be? If you don't feel comfortable talking price on the forum, please PM me. I'd be happy to do some R&D on the oven.

Pizza looks great. How did it taste. I sent a note to a member who is fairly fanatic about pizza. I'm hoping he's around to respond in the next day or two.

Bill (Eng. Ceramics),
the pizza does look good. I hope you will elaborate on the setup (depicted or similar). I would be interested as others. Please post here (and/or pm me).

As far as the 'tandoor'-style setup goes, 100lbs is rather cumbersome. Specifically I should add that my interest was in a high-heat oven insert for the WSM. It needn't be 3' high you mention. I wanted this more for high heat cooking of meats, rather than the ability to bake breads (naan etc) by sticking them to the side walls of the 'tandoor' (which as Cathy2 correctly points out is what a tandoor is also used for)*.

So for a 'toploading' oven setup (I will skip the term 'tandoor') - the insert can be smaller. Hopefully one can have brackets or some such to have the option of a grate inside the ceramic box. Also the (removable) top should be ceramic (not just the WSM lid as you seem to suggest) in order to keep the heat in.
Thus it would be a cylinder that sits atop the charcoal, has a lid - maybe it can go inside the WSM middle section so that the WSM lid can also be put on.
I'm not sure how the airflow will be affected (for the continued burning of the charcoal sake)m but probably not since that is at the bottom.

Also does the oil, food etc. on the ceramic
damage the surface? (seems like not from your pics - but for how long?)

Cost of course is an issue (or maybe not ) and I hope you will discuss that.

I will not be on till Tuesday or so next week , but at that point I can look into greater detail on my WSM and take pics etc.

Thanks!
*Will dough stick to the heated side walls of the ceramic? Just curious, though I can't think of why it shouldn't stick

Our cost will be on the high side, but it depends on the materials we use.

My biggest concern at this point is getting a product that works good.

In the world of ceramics, there are two properties that are diametrically opposed. Refractoriness, and Thermal shock resistance.

Refractoriness describes how well a material withstands high heat without deforming.

Thermal shock resistance describes how a part withstands cracking due to thermal expansion and contraction during rapid heating and cooling.


Since we are working at such low temperatures (below 1800F) refractoriness is not an issue. This will allow us to use Mullite, Fused Silica and silicon carbide based materials instead of alumnia.

Alumina is good to 3200F, is expensive, and tends to thermal shock. So far, I've only tested alumina as this is what I had handy in a reasonable size.

Both the fused silica and silicon carbide have much better thermal shock resistance that the alumina. I believe I coould take a stone off a 800F grill and drop it into a bucket of cold water without any harm.

Its also very hard. To scratch or cut this ceramics, you need either carbide or diamond tools.

Short of dropping one, it should last forever if freezing and thawing is not a problem.

My only real concern is how it would handle freezing and thawing, as we have no real experience in this area. Our ceramics are slightly porous. Water will not pour throung it, but it will soak in. So what will happen if a wet stone is frozen and thawed several time? Don't know. That's why I came here, I was hoping to have you guys try some stuff out, and give me some feedback.

Bill

Engineered Ceramics wrote:My only real concern is how it would handle freezing and thawing, as we have no real experience in this area. Our ceramics are slightly porous. Water will not pour throung it, but it will soak in. So what will happen if a wet stone is frozen and thawed several time? Don't know. That's why I came here, I was hoping to have you guys try some stuff out, and give me some feedback.

Bill

I'd be happy to do any testing you would like to try, even if it's just some material that is not yet formed into anything practical, I could test the properties you are talking about.

Engineered Ceramics wrote: That's why I came here, I was hoping to have you guys try some stuff out, and give me some feedback.

Where's that jumping up and down waving your hand and screaming PICK ME! emoticon when you need one?

Flip

I also need to make sure we don't have any food safety issues. It's one thing for me to take some parts home and cook on them, and quite another to give it out to the public.

Since all of our materials are fired at over 2000F, the only type of contamination that would be left, would be lead, or some other heavy metals. According to the certifications we get from our raw material supplies, there are 0 ppm present, but it never hurts to double and triple check.


btw, I just took a 1" thick Silicon carbide plate, polished one side (which is done on a wet surface grinder), and tosses it (wet) into an 800F oven.

If that dosen't cause it to break, I don't think it will.

I'm trying to duplicate something else I found called a Hot Rock. It's a restaurant concept where they bring a 800F rock to your table and you cook your own food.



photo from http://hotrock.us

Interesting stuff.

For me, the Holy Grail would be a bowl-shaped piece with a cutout in the front and sitting atop a circular slab. A pizza oven, like your box, but round. But given your results, the box might be a good option as well. Have you ever cooked anything by building a fire in the box?

Several companies in Italy and California now offer oven kits, including a company whose representative has posted here. They look and apparently work terrific, but they are very expensive, have to be shipped, and generally come in several pieces, requiring some real masonry work. I'm not a ceramics engineer, but I'd guess that one or two large pieces are going to work better than a bunch of small ones (on the other hand, more likely to break as well, I'd assume). I am going to be putting together a permanent low-tech outdoor kitchen together (BBQ pit, grill, oven) in the spring and would be very interested in testing whatever you've got this winter.

Give me the maximum dimensions of what your looking for, and as parts fail QC, I'll try to find stuff that will work.


Our parts typically fail QC for warpage, or hairline cracks, bad for our customers, but neither should be of any concern for you folks at such low temperature.

Engineered Ceramics wrote:Give me the maximum dimensions of what your looking for, and as parts fail QC, I'll try to find stuff that will work.


Our parts typically fail QC for warpage, or hairline cracks, bad for our customers, but neither should be of any concern for you folks at such low temperature.

From what I saw in your pictures something the size of your set-up is about as large as I could go.

Interesting coincidence. Two days ago, I ran into a friend who told me he has been experimenting with similar ideas for making pizza and pita bread. He obtained some kind of composite ceramic slab that he places on top of a high (65,000) btu wok burner then covers with a domed lid . We discussed how one could make an oven box similar to what you describe.

Of course, the holy grail would be a pizza oven that could reach 905° F on the inner surface with an ambient temp of 806° F, as specified in the VPN pizza standards (link below), and do it in a reasonable amount of time. Wood-fired would be a plus. I think a Weber mounted oven may be too heavy for the grill legs to support, and take too long to heat up. Perhaps a steel fire box with an open front and top that has supports for a ceramic oven that fits into the top, and some kind of stack for optimized air-flow. I have a friend who is a steel fabricator. The next time I see him, I will get his input.

In the end, I guess the deciding factors, as to practicality, will be price and the potential market. Many of the folks around here are willing to pay big bucks to indulge our culinary obssessions, but that is not a good measure of the market in general.

http://pizzanapoletana.org/images/file/ ... tg_eng.pdf

As to the cooking "rock", I like the novelty of that idea, but outside of Korean Barbecue places, I wonder how many people would go to a restaurant to cook their own food. The reason I go out for a steak, is that I assume the pro chef can do a better job at cooking it than I can at home.

d4v3 wrote:As to the cooking "rock", I like the novelty of that idea, but outside of Korean Barbecue places, I wonder how many people would go to a restaurant to cook their own food.

The Distant Mirror was an Edgewater cafe in the 1990s that featured cooking your own food on hot rocks. It was like fondue, without all the oil.

nr706 wrote:The Distant Mirror was an Edgewater cafe in the 1990s that featured cooking your own food on hot rocks. It was like fondue, without all the oil.

Is that what that place was? I live right around the corner from there and could never figure out what "hot rock tapas" meant. I thought it was some kind of music club/cafe. Who knew that hot rock actually meant hot rocks. That place didn't last long, which sort of reinforces my point about table-top cooking. Although there is an appeal to getting guaranteed hot off the cooker food, and the Swiss do seem to enjoy their Raclette. I was thinking steak, because of the picture, but I guess there are other possibilities.