Dome furnace
The cupola is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, known baking dish for baking of bread or the pizza bake. Dome ovens are still used today in many pizzerias for making traditional wood-fired pizzas.
prehistory
In its simplest form, a dome with a side opening was made from clay . The side opening was used for lighting, filling and smoke ventilation. This stove could only be used outdoors. In Central Europe, these ovens have been around since 4000 BC. Known. The earliest finds show that as early as 5800 BC Baking ovens or dome ovens were used in Asia Minor . In Greece the dome furnaces of the Sesklo culture have been known since the fifth millennium BC. And public bakeries since the century BC Chr.
function
The technology was later refined by flanging a smoke vent on the side of the dome, directly above the filling opening. As a result, the air required for combustion flows through the filling opening at the bottom to the fire, and the hot flue gases are forced to sweep back along the dome to the chimney connection on the filling side. This will heat the furnace dome evenly. In this form, the furnace can also be operated inside buildings. Nothing fundamental has changed in this construction to this day.
variants
Today the ovens are rarely made from clay. Very large stoves are built from firebricks and refractory mortar on site. These ovens have the advantage of a long storage capacity, but they also require a very long heating time due to their large size.
In the catering industry and increasingly in the private sector, ovens that are cast in the factory are now used almost exclusively. The ovens, which are cast from fireclay concrete, are designed for a relatively short heating-up time, but with good storage capacity.
Originally these stone ovens were heated with wood and, more rarely, with coal. Wood is still the most widely used fuel.
After the fuel wood has become much more expensive in recent years, some manufacturers are now offering gas-fired dome stoves. Burners with a peak power of approx. 30 kW are used here. These burners are available for natural gas and for liquid gas.