Firing

I started firing at 5am. The sun had already risen. Flocks of geese flew overhead. The fire was lit in a temporary dutch oven, bricked up level with the floor of the firebox.

Here is my breakfast with pink cup made by Hannah Fisher

The kiln fired extremely easily and steadily - I started firing through the top firebox onto the hobs at 10.00. The wood we were using was mainly ash, which is what we have at the moment in the right lengths for the firebox. On top of the hard ash I throw in shorter pieces of pine wood, criss-crossing them.

By 18.00 cones 8 and 9 were down, and I did a very little side stoking in both side stoke holes. At 19,00 we enjoyed dinner by the kiln and then concentrated on getting the temperature up as high as possible to finish off the firing. We had the last stoke at 20.30.
Although we achieved a good temperature (cone 11 flat) it was a very "cool" firing, with no dramatic lighting up of the chimney pipe or other fireworks! Used relatively little wood, and I would have fired all the way up without a pyrometer, but the concensus was that we would put it in, but not look at it too much.....