The perfect small wood fired pizza oven…
Small is beautiful. In this case it’s a 75cm or 30″ wood fired pizza oven.
I’ve wanted a wood fired pizza oven of my very own since I was in Rwanda back in 2007. Many pleasant evenings were spent eating delicious pizza made in the roaring hot oven in a little pizza place a stones throw from the Novotel Hotel (now the Umubano Hotel I think) just outside central Kigali. And to be honest there was a healthy logic to eating food which had been heated to around 300C (570f or so), if you understand what I mean…..
However, I was put off by the complexity and size of just about every pizza oven you see built on the internet. Huge concrete foundations, massive concrete and steel reinforced walls and thick heavy bases and even thicker insulation etc. etc. But I only want to cook a few pizzas I lamented, not feed the five thousand!!!!
In the end I decided that good pizza is one of life’s essentials and built one mostly to my own design, cherry picking the bits I liked from others and ignoring the bits I thought were massive overkill. Now don’t forget I am a builder and carpenter, so some of the way I made this might be out of reach for the hobbyist; but I just wanted to show you that a small, simple, wood fired pizza oven is worth building. Trust me, you’ll have fun even with a three sided dry stack of bricks with a concrete slab on top…
How I set about building a small wood fired pizza oven…
Primarily I wanted the pizza oven to be a feature, but not totally dominate our small stone patio at the back of the house. To make it feel light I opted to build the oven on a wooden frame (I know, shock and horror right?). But it was a very sturdy wooden frame to be fair with some internal bracing wires etc.
Shuttering needs to be sturdy and lined with thin polythene to stop leaks.
Building a sturdy base out of timber and insulated concrete…
The oven base I cast onto an elaborate shuttering in an elongated oval shape. I wanted the internal size of the oven to be about 750mm or 30 inches, a good minimum size for two-at-a-time pizza cooking. This slab is a good 15cm (6″) bigger all round to allow for building the dome.
I made my own concrete replacing the stone element with fireproof lecca balls (expanded clay stuff used in plant pots and building insulation). This gave me a lighter concrete with better insulation properties. The concrete slab is 1300mm (4′ 3″) front to back and 950mm (37 3/4″) wide. Basically, I drew two circles with a 350mm (13 3/4″) gap between them to give a ‘pill’ shape or a tube with rounded ends if you like. The mix ratio is 1:2:4 and that’s one part cement, two parts sharp building sand and four parts aggregate (expanded clay balls in this case).
The wooden frame is 100mm (4″) square treated timber very well glued and screwed together. This one is 900mm (3′) by 650mm (25 1/2″) in size and the concrete overhangs by 200mm (8″ on all sides). The internal bracing is steel wire and tensioners screwed into opposing corners. The concrete slab sits straight on top of the framework. This pizza oven must weigh about 300kgs so it needs to be well constructed.
Building a brick dome for a wood fired pizza oven…
Setting out first course. The gap for the doorway is 40cm (just under 16″). Don’t forget to leave a 2.5cm (1″) rebate outside, for the door on both sides. The chimney will sit outside the dome.
The walls or dome of the pizza oven were built using ordinary hard clay bricks (reclaimed from the fireplace in the house) laid in a lime rich mortar (to date no problems have been seen). If mixing your own mortar I’d go for a 1:3 mix which is one part lime putty to 3 parts well sieved sharp building sand. Refractory mortar is recommended but it’s difficult to find here outside of tiny tubs and of course it’s expensive (welcome to Norway!). The first couple of firings spalled a few tiny brick pieces here and there but it’s been stable since then.
Firebricks, about 3.8cm (1 1/2″) thick sitting on 15mm (1/2″ or so) of soft sand and a hinged trammel in place to build the dome.
Firebricks provide the best base to cook pizza…
For the cooking base I used fire bricks recovered from my fireplace when I switched to a log burner. Once the first few courses of bricks in the dome had set up I cut and laid the firebricks, bedding the bricks on soft sand to make getting future damaged ones out easier, allow for expansion and also to keep a clean look to the outside. I chose to do this inside the dome as I thought building the dome on top of the firebricks silly as the firebricks are only sitting on sand.
Using the trammel to build the rest of the dome was enough to get me quite far up before I chickened out and put in some support for the last few courses. I stuck a small piece of wood to the floor with the hot glue gun and then used a lightly screwed hinge to create the movement needed.
Laying the bricks was easy as the bricks had a good ‘grab’, plus I was tapping them down quite hard to make the front joint as small as possible, virtually nothing really. This makes for a better dome as mostly only the bricks are facing the heat with minimal amount of mortar (which is much softer than the brick). I’ll be honest, I didn’t have the patience to cut each brick perfectly with a disc cutter, as it would have taken days. All my bricks were cut with a brick hammer and dressed a little with a ‘scutch’ hammer, but then don’t forget I’m a bricklayer by trade, so I might have made that look easier than it might be for you…
Finishing the top of the perfect dome…
Drywall arcs glued together sitting on top of a plastic bucket supported the last few courses of brickwork.
To support the last few courses I used some old drywall pieces cut to the radius and stacked inside the dome. Drywall is easy to cut to shape, worked fine and was easy to pull out afterwards.
View upwards inside the pizza oven dome. As the dome progresses the brick pieces get smaller and smaller. Half ‘bats’ to start with and a quarter ‘bats’ towards the top and triangular shaped for the last few ‘key’ bricks.
The all important door and chimney configuration…
Building the door and chimney was by far the most difficult bit and I still find it difficult to describe, it’s definitely a make-it-up-as-you-go thing. You know where the hole needs to be and how it works, it’s just difficult to get the bricks to behave at such extreme angles and locations! I used a metal stainless steel 15cm (6″) pipe for the actual flue which you must make sure isn’t cemented in place at any point. Seal the pipe into a pocket left out in the brickwork using fireproof rope found at your local fireplace store. If you cement it in, the brickwork around it will crack because the metal pipe expands…. a lot, much more than you’d think, (go on then, ask me how I know…).
Height of the door and the chimney outlet is 63% of the dome height (opinions vary online, but it looks like 60% to 65% is all feasible). So, ours is 75cm diameter which means a 37.5cm radius and therefore dome height (assuming you’ve made an accurate dome!). This means you need a door height of around 24cm. (30 inch wide/15″ high oven needs a 9 1/2″ tall door or thereabouts). It’s also important that the door sits inside the chimney thus really closing off the air. To be honest I only use the door when firing up the oven (propped on a little block outside the oven) to direct the initial smoke up the flue. And then again when roasting meat or baking bread. You’ll not need a door when cooking pizza. (check here for more… explains the door to dome height ratio)
Set out the chimney arch on paper first, adjusting to fit. Built the arch, leaving out a hole for the flue, appx 15cm x 25cm (6″ x10″). It is VERY important that the height of the door/ chimney outlet is around 63% of the height of the dome.
The hotter the better inside so that means, insulation…
As I was going for a small oven and limited time use, I didn’t go crazy on the insulation. I wrapped the dome with aluminium foil to reflect some heat back into the brickwork and then I wrapped the whole thing in layers of fire blankets (NOTE: If I did it again I would use 25mm or 50mm thick fireproof insulation to better separate the brick dome from the outer rendering to minimise expansion cracking). To hold the fire blankets in place I added a layer of chicken mesh which also helps hugely to hold the first coat of mortar in place on the dome during its application.
Insulating the dome of the pizza oven with foil and fire blankets, but thicker insulation would have been better to allow the dome to expand without hairline cracking the external rendering.
Finishing the dome on a wood fired pizza oven outdoors is tricky…
I opted for render over the whole dome, with about 38mm (1 1/2″ or so) of a lime rich mortar. Which, I have to admit was an absolute delight to do. It was actually therapeutic to work on such a perfect dome shape, but I’ll admit wet stuff is my ‘thing’ and I had been missing that kind of work lately, so you might not enjoy it so much.
The first rough coat of render on the oven dome. Scratch the first coat up a little and then follow with a second coat.
I put the render on in several coats to make up the thickness. I am still contemplating adding further protection, such as mosaic tiles etc., when time allows. For now, I keep the oven covered with a BBQ cover which I don’t like the look of, but since it’s important to keep the oven dry (to avoid long heating up times and escaping steam problems) I’ll just have to live with it for now.
I loved this bit, so I made this trailer…
https://youtu.be/cd9_cza1rDU
The final coat of render on the pizza oven dome was rubbed up using a foam tilers grouting trowel, in circular and sweeping movements.
Dry out the construction; painful I know, but wait you must…
A wood fired pizza oven gets hot; and I mean really, really hot. So you’ll need to the pizza oven dry out for a few weeks (it really does need a long time) to avoid the problem of moisture boiling inside the masonry and escaping as explosive steam. It took longer than I thought to dry out this one. After a few weeks under an airy cover, start firing the oven with a tiny fire each day for a week and then some bigger ones. I still had some problems with water coming out even after all the care taken above. Slow really is the word here.
Today, there are some small hairline cracks in my dome but hey, who cares. They don’t affect the operation and are just a result of heating the brick dome to over 400 degrees C and not giving it much room to expand (like I said above, I’ll use thicker insulation ‘next time’).
Typical size fire for the first firings of my shiny new wood fired pizza oven. Even when you think it’s dry, it’ll ‘bleed’ water all over.
I made my own tools from stuff I had lying around and they are good enough for our use, but you can buy pizza tools from amazon.co.uk or amazon.com easily enough if you’ve ‘folding stuff’ to spare.
Lessons learned building this particular wood fired pizza oven…
- Loosely cover your newly finished pizza oven, but allow good ventilation to let the construction dry for a long time, weeks if you possibly can.
- Start firing with small fires over several days.
- Make a metal door for the oven and put it in place outside the opening when firing up the oven. Prop it on a block of wood, leaving a gap at the bottom. This will make the smoke go up the chimney aiding air flow.
- Build the fire in the middle of the oven and watch the dome colour. It’ll go from black to clean when the temperature is right.
- Push the fire to the back with a tool or garden rake just before you start cooking and add a few small pieces of wood. This creates the flames you need (licking up and over the dome) to cook the tops of the pizza.
- Before cooking, you can clean the ash from the floor two ways. First you can ‘slap’ your pizza peel onto the floor and this will blast all the ash away. But second and the method I prefer is to use a small natural fiber brush (no nylon bristles for obvious reasons!) screwed to a broom handle. Dip the brush into a bucket of water and sweep the oven floor side to side. The resulting hiss of steam will snuff out the flames, but it will burst back into life (in spectacular fashion) 2 seconds later 🙂
- Sweep the oven floor (in between every few pizzas). Remember to dunk first, if you don’t dunk, the brush will burn. Dunk and shake off any excess water and sweep… quickly!
- You shouldn’t be able to keep your hand inside the oven for much more than ‘one Mississippi’ as they say!
- BIG TIP: if you’re not sure when the oven is ‘hot enough’, look up into the inside of the dome. To start with it will be black and sooty from the fire. Once it really starts to heat up it will burn away the soot, creating a ‘clean’ circle at the top. The hotter the oven gets, the bigger this clean are will expand down the dome. Once it’s about 1/2 way down the dome you’re not far off ready to start cooking.
- Flames should always be licking over the top of the dome as you cook.
- If cooking over a longer period, consider taking a small break and raking the fire back to the the front and build it up a little. Push the fire to the back again before you want to start cooking and don’t forget the small sticks to create flames. (I’ve never needed to do this though cooking for around 12 folks).
- MASSIVE TIP! Use a pinch of course cornmeal on the pizza peel for easy sliding into the oven (really, it’s miraculous), don’t use flour it’s rubbish at sliding pizzas and it just burns on the oven floor.
- Turn the pizza after a minute or less. Turn it two or three times during cooking.
- Rotate the pizza by picking up one side and turning it around with a small pizza turning tool, (like a half size peel). I made one by flattening an old coal shovel from a fireside set and adding a long handle.
- Make the tool handles longer than you’d think, these ovens get really, really hot! Think around the 100cm or 3′ mark as a minimum.
- Make more dough than you think. 100g (4oz) as a minimum and can be closer to 150g (6oz) per person, yup it tastes that good….
- You’ll need more space than you think for preparation, especially when several people are making pizzas. Allow space for at least two people rolling out dough and space for all the toppings.
- Don’t forget to make an ‘after oven’ space for the cooked pizzas, yum.
- A wood fired pizza oven doesn’t have to look perfect, the pizza will taste fabulous just the same…
- Similarly, a pizza coming out of a wood fired pizza oven doesn’t have to look perfect, it’ll taste great just the same lol!
The end result: was it worth it?
I have to say the end result is everything I wanted and much, much more, no problems at all getting the oven up to temperature (takes a couple of hours or so) and it bakes perfect pizza in two minutes or less. It holds the temperature well and even keeps it long enough to roast meat and then cook bread afterwards. Sure, this style of wood fired pizza oven won’t stay hot for three days but we don’t have time for that anyways!
So the lesson learned is, build whatever wood fired pizza oven you can, from whatever materials you have and you’ll have fun, I guarantee it. If it’s a choice between building ‘a poor fellows’ pizza oven or nothing at all, go for the poor fellows pizza oven. And trust me, you don’t need the Taj Mahal of pizza ovens to bake great pizza and have a whole lot of fun doing it.
Stay well
Ian
Good resources for building wood fired pizza ovens…
(p.s. thanks for the help guys, I’d never have got it right without you…)
community.fornobravo.com/forum/good-background-information
outdoor pizza oven pompeii
pinkbird.org/w/How_to_build_a_pizza_oven
youtube.com/outdoor pompeii oven/
youtube.com/Pompeii Italian Brick Pizza Oven Construction
slowfoodandhandforgedtools.com.au/pizza-party
Digital Laser Thermometers
You’ll definitely need a digital laser thermometer because they are sooooo much fun to play with and of course to impress your guests with the temperature in the oven! I generally get the floor on mine to well over 500 degrees C. (that’s over 900F!). It’s also very useful to teach you about the oven and where it’s hot and where it’s cooler. Also perfect for letting you know when the temperature starts dropping, although the cooking times will also tell you that.
I bought mine from China via AliExpress (Digital laser thermometers at aliexpress) for about £8. Alternatively, you can try, eBay, (Digital thermometers at ebay) or amazon, (Laser thermometers at amazon.co.uk) or here for the rest of the world… (Thermometers at amazon.com. They are useful for finding cold spots around your home too, identifying where you need to work on the insulation…
Awesome Wood Fired Pizza Oven Book
I found this great book this week, written by a couple who run teaching courses on cooking with fire. Learn how to use your new pizza oven properly and it includes many, many brilliant recipes… from Naan bread to desserts! But most importantly it teaches you how to run the oven, from building the fire to managing the heat throughout the cooking time. It opened my eyes to many more possibilities for cooking and getting the most food out of each firing.
As usual, you can buy The Wood-Fired Oven Cookbook from any amazon (it’s by Holly and David Jones).
Additional photos…
Wood fired pizza oven in action and yes, that’s me (and my beer!)…
Real pizza from a real oven, even if it’s small! UPDATE: I light the fire nearer the front these days and then push the fire to the back with a garden rake. It’s easier to cook 2 or even 3 at a time across the middle of the pizza oven. I think I get a more even heat too.
The shuttering was quite complex as the edge support had to be thin enough to form the radius. This means there needed to be support at very small intervals around the edge to prevent it ending up all wavy. The square you can see inside is the top edge of the permanent frame. This way the concrete sits directly onto it and the shuttering is completely removed.
There was quite a weight to the concrete slab, even though I replaced the majority of the stone element with a lightweight expanded clay. Therefore decent support is needed underneath the plywood deck. Brace the outriggers down onto the frame itself. Triangles, the more the better!
Close up of the drywall method I used to support the top part of the dome. I held it together using some old silicone sealant and propped it on an old plastic 10L paint bucket and small wooden wedges.
Can’t resist posting just one more pic of the freshly rendered dome as it was so much fun to do! As round as a snooker ball!
That’s all folks! Now go and build a wood fired pizza oven of your very own, go on, you know you want to 🙂
Cheers
Ian
Comments 75
Thanks for your answer!
I’ve come across some bricks called soft moulded bricks. They are white. Not shure if it’s exactly the same as normal red bricks. Here’s the website I found the on.
https://tiileri.com/bricks-slips/ruukintiili-light/
Ant thoughts?
Edward
Author
Hiya,
Well, I worry about the ‘soft’ part lol! TO be honest I can’t really comment without seeing and feeling the bricks or getting their opinion on your intended use.
I get my bricks from http://stangegruppen.no/einarstange/, any chance you are anywhere near those guys?
Cheers
Ian
Beautiful work, Ian! I’m planning on building one myself this summer. But I have a question about the bricks you have used. Is this normal redbrick (teglstein in Norwegian) as used on old chimneys etc.? Have seen some videos on YouTube where those bricks many crack after many rounds of heating and cooling, where as fireproof yellow bricks can handle those different temperatures much better. But this costs a lot more… How’s your oven holding up after many fires?
Again, thank you for the briliant pizza oven.
Author
Hey Edward,
Mine are standing the heat perfectly. Many, many firings up to 550 degrees C. So the answer is yes and no!
No, if the bricks are the older, hand cast type, common on houses built with lime (kalk mortel) mortars, say over 100 years old or so.
But yes if they are like many of the bricks I’ve come across in Norway, many of these from the 1960s onwards have been quite hard, almost what we would call an engineering brick in the UK.
You’ll be able to tell instantly if they are suitable, break one. Hard bricks need a quite a tap to break, but are brittle at the same time. Soft bricks are duller in their ‘snap’ and just feel well, softer. Hard bricks splinter into sharp shards but soft bricks crumble. You can ‘dent’ a soft brick with a light tap of a hammer but a hard brick will not dent, it will either break or chip.
Well, I think that’s about all I can say. Not terribly helpful I know, but it is a matter of feeling and experience.
Feel free to send pics of any bricks you find and sometimes you can tell just by looking at them… (putting myself on the spot there lol!)
Have a great weekend 🙂
Ian
Noted. Thank you. Will certainly post some pics.
Hi Ian.
Thanks for all the information….its very informative. My question is on the door height….considering that the door is arched, where is the 63% measured? At the center of the arch or at the side?
Thanks
Cecil (Swaziland)
Author
Hello Cecil,
The door height is measured to the highest point, so yes, the height of the arch in the middle.
Hope your build is coming along nicely!
Stay well, and feel free to send/post some pics when you are finished 🙂
Ian
Thanks ? well that’s it isn’t it….I had written your internal height down wrong! Which threw what I thought your door height should be. It makes sense now. However, the logic behind using 70% as the internal height guide I’m less clear on (i can’t remember who told me and why!!!). So I’ll ditch that, go with 50%. Cups of tea done, cardboard cut!! Thanks.
Author
Ah, brilliant Gareth! Good to go then 🙂
Best of luck with your build, they are not the easiest things to build, but then they don’t need to be perfect either, and they’ll cook great pizza all the same.
Stay well,
Ian
Hi Ian,
I’ve probably got something wrong or confusing design approaches! I’d been told that the various calculations start from the internal diameter (which I have a base for – wanting the same as you, smaller). That got me to an internal height, which I was told should be around 70% of the diameter, being 52.5cm on paper (H = 70/100*75). Then the door, being 63% of internal height, gave me a door height of 33cm (H = 63/100*52.5). The shape however, based on that formula can’t be spherical (which, before using that formula, I planned and assumed I would get to a perfect sphere. I’m currently making a cardboard mock up).
From a diameter of 75cm and internal height of 52.5cm then the shape is more of an ellipse, ever so slightly, doesn’t go up straight for more that 2 rings. Visually I’d like it more spherical as yours looks however the ellipse appeared OK and not far off. However I have hit a quandary as to whether I follow the formula I was told or adjust the internal height to form more of a sphere.
The way I read your dimensions (which I may have got wrong tbh), they initially felt similar to the output of the formula I was using, ie based off a 75cm diameter.
You mention roughly a finished internal height of 49.5cm (based on the formula I was using, I came to 52.5cm) so I’d concluded that your finished internal height wasn’t a million miles off – I therefore assumed that you had used the same formula as me on paper, before the finished product. However, I was then thrown by your finished door height. Based on my formula I expected it to be 31cm (63/100*49.5) – not 24cm?
To get to the door height you have, I would need to calculate the internal height of the dome as 50% of diameter (37.5cm – as you mention below) which would suggest door height of 24cm. Which, as you refer to, would work out as a perfect sphere – on paper. I’m wondering, was your build plan based on 50% of the diameter for internal height but the build shaped up higher to finish at 49.5? Or have I got your internal height wrong? I can’t get a few bits to tally atm and have no idea whether sticking to the formula is the best approach or building to your dimensions, if they are as I have interpreted ie D=75cm, H=49.5, DH=24cm; as you have described good finished product and results with an internal diameter as the one I pan to start with (which throws into question the target door height being 63% of 49.5cm).
Author
Hi Gareth,
Not sure where you got the 49.5cm height from??
My dome is 75cm in diameter, 37.5cm high in the middle of the dome, a perfect half sphere and the door is 63% (ish) of that and thus 24cm high…
The height of any dome is the same as its radius, or half the diameter.
Take a deep breath and relax.
Then take a look at the numbers again with a cup of tea!
Any questions, I’m happy to help.
Ian
Hi, this is a great page. Could you help me on your door height calc? If dome height is 70% of the internal diameter (75cm) then according to that shouldn’t it be 52.5cm. Then door height at 63% making it 33cm? If I’m reading your calcs right, everything seems to be what I would expect bar door height? If your dome is 49.5cm then a 26cm door height is 52% not the generally mentioned 63%? Have I got this right or have you lowered for a reason?
Author
Hi Gareth,
Well, if the dome is 75cm in diameter then the height should be 37.5cm and the door opening around 24cm.
I built a true dome, i.e. a half a sphere. Where did your 70% come from? Are you building straight up for a bit first, before starting the dome? I’m not sure what this will do to the ovens reflective heating capacity (where the fire at the back of the oven causes flames to lick over the top of the dome, reflecting heat down onto the pizza).
Happy to help, just shout out if you have more Qs…
Cheers
Ian
This is great. I don’t understand why the chimney is outside of the door though. I’ve been looking at different pizza oven designs and when I first saw that, I thought it was a mistake.
Author
Yeah James, I know what you mean. It doesn’t seem logical does it? But I can attest it does work and it’s all linked to that 63% or so, door height to dome height. That’s where the magic happens.
Logic (well, for me as a bricklayer at least) tells me that the flue should be at the back like a regular fireplace but it would be wrong, all the heat would go up the chimney. Positioning the flue outside the door allows the heat to kind of curl over the top of the dome and radiate down.
Don’t forget the fire must be producing flames for the pizza to cook properly. This is one of the three ways heat hits the pizza. One is from the base of the oven where the initial fire was built, before being pushed to the back and then fresh wood is added, these embers radiate heat into the dome. Adding smaller pieces of firewood to the embers creates flames which curl over the pizza, radiating huge amounts of heat down onto the pizza.
Stay well James
Ian
Hi Ian, I must say I’m very impressed, I have been doing lot of research, reading and watching hrs of pizza oven build videos, you post have been very helpful and it going to be my guide when I start to build my 70cm oven next week, the slab is done going to order 150 fire bricks, here in UK those red bricks you have used similar price to fire bricks, I’m also going to use premix oven cement and heat proof screed from Vitcas, it’s little more pricey as 25kg tub cost around £30, only thing I’m not hundred percent sure is that the flue pipe and flue gallery as I don’t want much smoke coming out of the front, maybe cast a flue gallery and not sure whether to use 100 or 150mm dia flue pipe and twin wall or not, do you get much smoke come out of the front of your oven?
Author
Hi Mem,
Thanks for the kind words :-). No smoke at all out the front really. When I first light the fire I put the door on a block of wood on the outside of the opening, leaving a narrow air gap at the bottom, which directs the first smoke up the chimney. Once the fire is going well it is fine, no smoke out the front at all. I’d definitely use a 150mm pipe, 100mm seems too small.
Twin wall is nice and might reduce the temp of the outside of the pipe. As I wrote, this was a mistake I made, not allowing room for the metal pipe to expand. Even with twin wall you’ll still need a ‘soft’ connection to the brickwork which allows for the different materials to move around once hot.
Casting the gallery might be smart, that’s the part of the build I struggle to explain to folks, the combination of the dome and door is complex to build, lots of intersecting curves lol!
Well, it’s sunny here today and now I quite fancy pizza 😉
Good luck and don’t hesitate to reach out if you think I can help, or if you want to post some pics here to help others.
Stay well Mem
Ian
Beautiful work on that render. After 10 years of dreaming about it and a fair amount of time on the forno bravo forum and going round in circles with regards to approach I am about to build something very similar Ito yours indeed. 30″ diameter with recycled red brick from the local Claughton Manor brick Co. (Last working aerial ropeway in England bring clay down from quarry on the moor). But I don’t understand the one massive variation in design feature I’m seeing – your flue is in front of the door when shut, in others the flue is behind the door – surely this is a very significant thing. Where does the smoke go when you shut your door – or do you always leave the oven open during use?
Author
Hey Matthew,
Thanks for the kind comments. Really, you’ve seen the chimney in the oven itself? I never saw that design. All the ones I saw were outside the door. But I do agree, it doesn’t make much sense to me either but I trusted the old designs I saw online I guess. That said, for pizza the door is always open so it’s not an issue. The only time I put the door in is after all the pizza is done and we then usually roast a chicken or two for a couple of hours in the residual heat. We add no fuel at this stage so there is little smoke from the embers.
I think the chimney is outside mainly to do with this ‘magic’ 63% (or is it 64%, I forget) height of the door to the height of the dome. This does weird things during firing the oven. When the fire is in the early stages, some quirk of circulation sees like a flat layer of smoke in the dome before it curls out the door and up the chimney.
I hope that settles your mind. But don’t get hung up on the finer points I’d say, these are ‘rough’ ovens and you’ll make great pizza and have a lot of fun regardless. I have a mate who builds the simplest of ovens in a weekend in every house he lives in (he travels a lot) out of stuff he finds locally, oftentimes without a chimney at all and yet he cooks the most amazing, authentic food in them. Even mud and grass ovens! When he is done or if it falls apart, he starts over. I think to build that perfect, crack free oven, is almost missing the point. And certainly the overblown ovens I saw built on the net with their concrete block, re-bared foundations certainly are overkill to cook a few pizzas on a weekend…
But that’s just my opinion, everyone has a different idea 🙂
Good luck with yours and it’d be great to see some pics when you’re done!
Cheers
Stay well
Ian
My favorite post so far about pizza ovens. I love the base. I too have a smaller area, and like the non bulky look of your base. Question: I have some soapstone left over from my kitchen counter install. What do you think about this as a base in my pizza oven instead of fire bricks? Your oven is beautiful and you gave tons of great information. Thanks, Sue
Author
Hey Sue,
Sorry for the delay, been working up in the mountains.
Well, I’ve not heard of soapstone being used as a pizza base, but I have seen it inside wood fired ovens, so I’d say yes. Plus, even if it cracks, it won’t affect the ovens usability. I bed my bases on sand and leave a cm around the edge, also filled with sand. Just to give things room to expand.
You can read about soapstone here… https://geology.com/rocks/soapstone.shtml#:~:text=Soapstone%20is%20heat%20resistant%20and%20does%20not%20burn.,after%20the%20fire%20is%20out.
Cheers for now, dinners ready, (after a week on ‘rations’ in the cabin!!)…
Let me know how you get on 🙂
Ian
I built the oven and use the 3mm thick and 6 inches aluminium pipe. It broke the door. If I insert the fireproof rope surrounding it then it will fix this issue? Thanks for such a lovel post.
Author
Hiya,
Sorry to hear you had a problem. No consolation, but I had the same problem. It seems obvious afterwards that any metal which expands when it gets hot needs to have space to expand into. And you’re right, fill that space with something easily compressible, such as fireproof rope. I recon any pipe needs a clear 1cm all the way around to be safe.
Good luck
Hi Ian, very useful post so thanks very much. Couple of questions:
– I have built an oval oven – you think that will be a problem?
– What do you think about plastering the inside (and the outside) with a fireproof perlite mixture?
Many thanks again for a useful note. I am currently at that tricky chimney stage of mine ….
Regards
Dave
Author
Hi Dave,
Sorry for the delay, lots of stuff with the kids.
Re: the oval oven, well I don’t see any major problem, there are a lot of ‘barrel’ shape pizza ovens on the net, so it’s not like the dome shaped ones are universal.
I guess the reason behind the half sphere shape is that all heat is (in theory at least) radiated back towards the centre. But an ovaloid (I think that’s a real word lol!) one will also do that.
I have found the inside of my brick oven very stable so I’m not sure plastering the inside is worth the effort, and my gut feeling is that it’s likely to trap steam and could blow off. The outside of course is different, it looks rough anyway and needs finishing, it’s impossible to make the inside and the outside look good unless you have two layers of brickwork.
You’ll still probably have trouble with small cracks appearing, I’ve stopped worrying about it now and accept it as a feature of building a small oven without lots of insulation around it. You’ll definitely need to stop the oven getting wet. I cover mine now as it took a lot longer to heat up if it was saturated and it steamed like a kettle during the process!
Good luck with the chimney, what material are you using? Just bear in mind that the chimney will expand a lot, so you need to be mindful of any different materials you use (metal pipe expands more than brick and so needs room to expand. Surround it with a fireproof rope etc. and whatever you do, don’t mortar a metal pipe in like I did. It cracks lol!).
Best of luck, would love to see any pics you have.
Cheers
Ian
From a fellow trowelsmith (Advanced C&G, Silver trowel and bronzed medal, all too may years ago in the seventies now) may l say great job, very well described.
Author
Thanks Terry, you’re a couple of decades in front of me but virtually the same at college. I was Advanced C & G, silver trowel, silver medal for surveying and levelling, but then I joined it all together by applying for the Licentiate scheme through C & G, (which rather poshly, gives me LCGI after my moniker). Good scheme at the time, no work to do, but it just bundles 5 years plus experience with certain qualifications. Seemed to impress clients at the time lol! I needed all the help I could get in the ‘authority’ stakes being self employed from 18!
Thanks for the kind words about the pizza oven, it was very satisfying to build a perfect half dome, even if it was not really proper facework (imagine the cutting, groan).
Hope this means you’re looking to build your own?
Merry Christmas to you and yours Terry,
All the best
Ian
Good job Ian .This summer hope to add brick oven to my gardens in rural Latvia mile from beach of Riga bay. Hard winters hot summers need a coat on my oven that can stand minus 30c
Author
Yes, winters are an issue, rain also. I found that if mine got too wet it would take longer to get up to temperature and also it would boil trapped moisture under the outer mortar which escapes as steam. Potentially steam pressure could build up and damage the mortar maybe… I admit I do cover mine with a tarp when not in use, which is less than ideal. That is my punishment for not using a thicker insulating layer between the brick dome and the outer mortar. Mine was too thin and allowed the outer mortar to develop hairline cracks, not good in the wet. Good luck then once it warms up a little 🙂
I’d be interested to know how many bricks were used in this construction – we would love to build one but are just costing out right now so want it to be as accurate a reflection as possible.
Author
Hi Andrea,
Now this isn’t very accurate in a way because obviously as you go up the bricks get smaller, you might even get three out of one brick. But for arguments sake I’ll count them all as half bricks, and in that case I used around 160 half bricks (so 80 whole ones). Then I used some full bricks around the door area and chimney totaling another 30 or so. If I was buying them I guess I’d buy 150…
Inside I had some 25mm thick firebricks and I used about 25 of them for the cooking floor.
Good luck with yours!
Thank you for your reply. In terms of the brick make up – where they clay based bricks that you used? Can you use bricks that are not clay bricks?
Author
Hmm, good question. Yes, mine were a very hard clay brick. Pretty much like what we call ‘engineering bricks’ in the UK. Used for underground, drainage work etc. I.e. very tough. The worry is air pockets, you’d want a pretty dense brick.
What brick did you have in mind?
Ian, thank you for the reply. Sorry I double posted, I missed your answer so I tried again.
I will enclose photo’s as I build but that won’t be for 2-3 months yet. My summer ‘to-do’ list is expanding into page #3 so I have to prioritize 🙂 As a hobby I build Cedar strip sea kayaks and aerobatic competition biplanes and neither is on my current to-do list :((
I do believe I will add more insulation and, after a through dry-out, I will cover it with ceramic tile of some sort. We live in Michigan USA so we get temperature variations from 95 F down to -10 and this oven will have to set in the elements
Thank you,
Randy
Ian,
Would a masonry flu liner make an acceptable chimney ? Your metal one just does not seem to go with the decor 🙂
Thanks,
Randy
Author
Yes I think so. I wonder if the density of the liner will be similar to the brickwork? If so then maybe it can just be built in as it will expand at the same rate as the whole oven. Otherwise, I’d still be tempted to treat the chimney as a separate part of the oven. Maybe build a ‘socket’ for the liners to sit in and seal around the bottom with the fireproof rope used to seal such things. Then the flue can expand without damaging anything.
Plus, it’s a pizza oven outside, different rules from anything you’d build inside which needs to be 100% bulletproof in the leak department! So a little experimentation is okay.
Looking forward to seeing any pics you take. You’ll not regret it, we just love the times we fire the oven up and it has been universally adored by all that experience it! Proper fun to see a pizza cook in 90 seconds or so!
Good luck with your ‘list’, I have one just the same…
Cheers
Ian
Author
Incidentally, are the liners modular? I.e the ones here are a foot high. That would make for easy covering in the winter as you could just lift off the flue sections, before trowing a tarp or BBQ type cover over it to keep the snow off (as I do)…
Ian
Ian, I have scoured the internet looking for a good looking / working pizza oven and yours seems to be it. It is one of this summers projects. You have answered almost every question either directly or with your excellent photo’s but – – I still have one. Your oven is beautiful except for that metal chimney, looks totally out of place with the oven. I was wondering why a tile chimney liner could not be used as a stand alone chimney ? If you were doing it again are there any changes you would make other than the amount of insulation ?
Thank you for the many photo’s, for me, each is worth a 1000 words 🙂
Thank you,
Randy
Author
Hi Randy,
Thanks for your kind comments!
Ironically, the one thing I would change is the chimney! I agree the pipe isn’t the best, but I couldn’t source a length of clay pipe at the time. The metal is a problem because it expended too much and cracked my little arch. So if you have to use metal, make sure it’s free to move.
It works perfectly I must admit. We hold regular ‘pizza parties’ with a dozen or more no problem at all. We go onto roast meat afterwards also. The ones I studied on the net beforehand seems to be huge, take too long to get hot and stay hot way longer than necessary.
So far I have had few issues. Thinking though, one other thing which is on my list, is to find a way to weatherproof the dome. Because I didn’t put enough insulation around the inner dome I do have some hairline cracks in the external mortar render. This means I can’t carry out my original plan of mosaic tile (since that will crack also). I guess I could do it and then just clear silicone any cracks which come.
You do need to keep the dome dry. I found the mortar soaked up water and it got into the fine cracks. Then when firing, this turns to steam, expanding everywhere! Plus it extended the heat up time as the water boiled off. I have a tarp over it right now….nice 🙁
Hope that helps! I’d love to see some pics from yours as you go.
Cheers for now
Ian
Sorry to keep asking questions Ian but will this pre mixed mortar work if I add perlite? https://www.quikrete.com/productlines/bulkportlandlimemortar.asp
Author
Hey Cory,
No problem, happy to help. I think you’ll be okay with that. I went for a weaker, cement/ lime based mortar on the thinking that a softer lime based mortar will cope better with the inevitable expansion. But then there are those who go for strong mortar thinking that it will resist heat better. I’m convinced that nothing, and I mean nothing can cope with this amount of heat and not expand/ crack at least a little.
Incidentally, I was talking to a commercial pizza oven seller at a trade show a week of two back and I noticed that the oven on the back of the little pickup truck was laced with hairline cracks which I asked him about. He said they were impossible to avoid but that they are no problem and don’t affect the ovens performance at all. He said they even include a ‘repair’ kit with the ovens. I googled the manufacturer once I got home and it looks like the repair kit is little more than a cement slurry/ grout to brush on any cracks!
So, go for the softer or lime based mortar and I can’t see how you can do more than that. With everything I build, I think ‘how can this fail’ and ‘where will it fail’ etc. and then tweak my designs or working practice to suit. I think it comes from working on old heritage properties, where everything is on a hundred year maintenance interval…
Keep me in the loop, can’t wait to see pics of the finished pizza oven!
Cheers
Ian
Ian, do you remember what the exact ratios were for your concrete regarding the oven base and the brick mortar? How has your mix stood up to the heat? Thanks
Author
Hey Cory,
Sure, The concrete mix ratio is 1:2:4 and that’s one part cement, two parts sharp building sand and four parts aggregate (expanded clay balls in this case).
I used a local premixed ‘heritage’ lime rich mortar which the locals use to repair old buildings. If mixing your own mortar I’d go for a 1:3 mix which is one part lime putty to 3 parts well sieved sharp building sand. It really depends on what you have available locally.
All mixes have stood up to repeated firings with no failures. The only hairline cracking I have is on the outer mortar dome because I didn’t use a thick enough insulation to allow the brick inner dome to expand when screaming hot. Still, even these small cracks cause no operational problems.
Hope that helps!
Cheers
Ian
Excellent thanks!
Ian, what should I use to vibrate the concrete? I don’t own one and can’t find a rental. Is it that important? Thanks
Author
It is quite important that the concrete is good quality, first and foremost. That means an accurate ratio of cement to aggregate/sand (and not just ‘guessing’ with a shovel), use a small bucket and measure out the quantities. It also means adding the right amount of water, you should aim for a smooth mix, not too dry it crumbles but not so wet it’s like soup. Aim for sloppy-ish, (technical term lol!).
Right, finally, vibration. With a good mix and at this shallow thickness, entrained air isn’t usually a massive problem. Working the concrete into the shuttering using a shovel and ‘sawing’ across the form-work with a straight edge and tamping it flat, will get almost all the air out. To be sure, you should tap the outside edge of the form-work with a metal implement, a length of bar, small hammer etc. Light, regular rapid taps is good. You can also use a short length of re-bar to tap the metal reinforcing inside the slab (only if it’s properly supported on spacer blocks). Poke the bar in and out of the mix all over tapping the re-bars, and also the base of the form-work. A final tamp over the top to flatten the mix out again finishes the job.
I rarely use a vibrating poker unless it’s complicated form-work full of steel-work, such as columns or vertical walls. I didn’t use one on my pizza oven base and have observed no problems.
Hope that helps Cory, good luck with your pour!
Ian
Hey Ian,
Last question (Sorry to drive you crazy!). How did you create such a nice looking “mortar template” between the chimney and bricks for the balcony.
Thanks!
Author
Hi Alex,
I’m not quite sure where you mean Alex! Do you mean the mortar around the metal pipe? If so, well that was done by hand but don’t forget to leave a small gap around any metal pipe to allow for expansion. You can fill the gap with fireproof rope.
Let me know if you meant something else, I wasn’t sure where you meant to be honest!
Cheers
Ian
Hi,
First of all great work!
I have another question regarding the chimney. I am in the middle of my build and I am having trouble working out how to build the chimney, and your solution seems relatively simple.
If i understanc correctly you built a rectangle of bricks on top of your arch. What is that casting on top of the bricks? What is it made of?
In that casting I understand correctly that you leave a hole slightly larger than the pipe which you then fit in with flue rope? Is this then covered with mortar after?
Thank you so much for your help.
Alex
Author
Hey Alex,
Thanks for the kind words! The casting you can see on mine is just mortar… but it turned out to be a mistake! Don’t build the pipe in rigidly at all, as it expands and will crack the mortar/brickwork. I’d build a kind of socket for the pipe, say 10mm bigger all around and then once the wet stuff has dried, sit the pipe in place and use a fireproof rope to ‘seal’ the pipe to the mortar/brickwork (does that make sense?).
The chimney is for sure the most awkward part of the build and I’m sure there must be an easier way but just about everything I’ve seen on building a wood fired pizza oven seems to have this kind of ‘chimney on the outside’, kind of hanging on the edge of the dome arrangement!
I’d love to see some pics of your build! Let me know if you need any help.
Cheers
Ian
Thank you Ian for such a fast reply!
I think I understand what you mean. So I will cast using mortar and leave 10 mm gap all around. Then using flue rope I’ll put in the chimney tightly. You think I can just leave the flue rope exposed then? I feel like that should also be covered so not exposed to the weather. Obviously shouldn’t use mortar… Any other suggestions?
Thanks!
Author
That is a very good point! I hadn’t considered that as I keep mine covered when it’s not in use because I found that if it got wet through when it rains it takes longer to heat up and also steams alarmingly from the few hairline cracks in the dome (remember I’d used a thinner insulation which didn’t allow the inner brick dome to expand within the outer mortar dome. Lessons learned and all.
If you’re using a metal flue pipe you can often buy ‘rain collars’ or ‘storm collars’ which slip over the pipe tightly and lets the rain fall away (see pic below).
I’ve got to shoot right now, but I’m around at the weekend on and off if you want to go over it more.
Cheers and have a great weekend, it’s glorious weather here 🙂
Ian
storm collar example from Novaflex
Ian,
Love your oven, and have decided to build one using the perlite/portland method. The dome came out beautifully, and I, like you, decided to make a few changes to my own design. I had planned on covering the dome with stucco placed directly on the pearlite dome, using two coats: The base and finish coat. I would be interested in your opinion as to whether i would need to wrap the perlite in insulation prior to applying the stucco. Ive seen many who just put a finish stucco coat on, and seem to have few issues, I assume due to the added insulatave value of the pelit mix. But after reading your article, I’m beginning to have second thoughts about that application…
I look forward to completing my oven, and my mouth waters each time I think about the delicious pizzas that will be forthcoming!
I truely enjoyed your article. It was very well written and informative. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to seeing a response from you!
Happy baking!
Author
Hey Dave,
Thanks for the kind comments! Well, for me it’s all been about expansion. My inner brick dome expands more than you’d think possible. My conclusion is that there needs to be a compressible layer in between the inner dome and the outer covering. Insulation (the heat proof kind, apparently fiberglass/rockwool turns to dust eventually) wrapped in a layer or two of chicken mesh and then your mortar/render/stucco on top should avoid the problems I had just using fire blankets (insulation was crazy price here in Norway).
That said, maybe it’s just not possible to avoid some king of small cracking. At the end of the day you’re lighting a great big fire in a small enclosed space! I have to say also that the cracks do not impede the ovens performance in any way whatsoever, I find I need to cover it to stop it getting too wet in the rain (or it takes longer to get up to temp and steams like crazy!).
Is your main dome perlite? I hadn’t seen that method outside of the commercially available ones. Hmm, maybe it’s flexible enough/unaffected by the heat enough to cope? Still, extra insulation does not hurt. You might find adding stucco onto the chicken mesh/insulation a little more tricky to do, I just thickened it up to around 30mm (1 1/4″ or so) and it troweled up lovely (in fact it was a delight to build, and fun too).
Okay, got to run right now (work!) but let me know how you get on or if you think I can help.
Thanks again for reaching out,
Cheers
Ian
Hi Ian,
What were the mix proportions you used for your LECA concrete base?
Cheers, Andy
Author
Hey Andy,
Basically I replaced the coarse aggregate or stones element with the leca. So assuming a 1 cement, 2 sharp sand, you’d have 4 stone/leca. Actually I think I made it 3 leca to make it super strong. More importantly you need to be measuring by volume here, definitely not guessing with a shovel (even though I’m pretty practiced at that). Use a small bucket and properly gauge the mix. Also very important is to super vibrate the mix once it’s in place. You definitely don’t want any trapped air in this mix, because it could expand when it gets hot under the fire. I think that’s all! Let me know if I can help.
Cheers
Ian
Hi Ian,
What is the width of your oven door please?
Author
Hi John,
The door width was 40cm I recall. More importantly though is the door height. It MUST be 63% of the internal dome height. Or the oven will not work, there is some ancient scientific reason for this that I forget, but you can clearly see the effect in action when you fire up the oven. There seems to be a kind of flat layer inside where you can see the smoke pool, flatten out and then slip out of the door top and into the chimney opening. Quite weird to watch actually. I’d love to go and measure it to be 100% on the width, but there is 2 foot of snow out there right now! Hope that helps and if you are really stuck and need that exact measurement, let me know and I will take a shovel and measure it for (’cause I’m that kind of a guy…).
Okay, stay well.
Ian
Author
Hey John,
It was no good, I had to go and check lol! It is indeed 40cm wide and the door height is 24cm. Read this for more info on the ‘magic’ ratio…. https://fuerapizzaovens.co.nz/2014/12/15/the-golden-ratios-for-a-pizza-oven/
Cheers
Ian
Thanks Ian it looks great and I too want one for a smaller area. I see your dimensions for the width but was hoping you would share the depth of your tabletop slab. I’m moving some plants and getting ready for the project. Really looking forward to getting started.
Author
I think I added a foot (300mm). Wait, let me go and measure it to be sure.
Brr, cold out there! Right, the wooden frame was 650mm x 900mm and the concrete projection was 200mm all round. That makes my concrete slab 1300mm front to back and 950mm wide.
Basically, I drew two circles with a 350mm gap between them to give a ‘pill’ shape or a tube with rounded ends if you like.
Hope that helps and thanks for the reminder, I’ll add the dimensions to the post!
Love to see some pics when you’re done!
Good luck, the chimney base where it meets the dome is kind of tricky, but thankfully it seems to come together on the job (but a devil to describe!)
Cheers
Ian
Great site and I love your oven. Hoping mine will come out as good!
I have started my own build, and wanted to know how long you left the cement holding the dome bricks to dry before you move the trammel on to the next brick? Or is it literally there just to get the shape, and as soon as the brick and cement are placed you can move on to the next one?
Also – interested in your thoughts on other materials to make outside the render out of. I take it concrete would be no good? I am using Victorian clay bricks for the dome, then insulation blanket from Victas. Would standard concrete do as the outer layer?
Thanks for the advice!
Dom
Author
Hey Dominic, thanks for the kind comments! You’ll not have any trouble with the bricks holding, because you’re right in that the ‘trammel’ is just to ensure the brick is in exactly the right spot. I tapped the brick down as far as it would go to make the bed joint on the inside as tiny as possible, virtually nothing in places (and then straight on to the next one). I figure that the brick is the durable part and will cope with the heat better than the mortar. In any case, the tighter radius of these smaller domes means that the bed joint will be pretty big on the outside anyway, so the smaller the inside joint, the better for this too. Regarding the outer covering, I used a lime rich mortar which had some coarse sand in it. I loved that part incidentally, the dome came out so perfectly round (well, half round!) courtesy of the trammel that it was a pleasure to roll the foam trowel around finishing off the hardening mortar (three coats, scratched up in between to a thickness of around 38mm or an inch and a half in ‘old money’)
Let me know if you need any help!
Love to see some pics of yours when it’s finished…
Cheers
Ian
Just wanted to say a fantastic post. Thanks for sharing your tips. I am building a smaller oven, say around 24″ or so, but your post was very helpful.
Niles
Author
You’re welcome! And good for you building a smaller oven, you’ll not regret it, we have so much fun with ours!
Thanks for dropping in!
Ian
Thank you for this fantastic post! I’m building one myself, but I was wondering what this lime rich mortar is? Is it an actual product or a mix you made yourself? I live in Norway too, so if this is a product you can get in a store, would you know the Norwegian name for it?
And I was wondering about one thing with the door: It looks like it is actually seated on the inside of the chimney. If that is the case, how is there enough air flow inside the dome to keep the fire blazing with the door in place? Will the fire not get choked from the lack of oxygen? I guess the chimney only is of use when the door is open..? And if that is the case, do I really need one?
Thank you!
Author
Hei Eyvind,
I used the standard mortar for old brickwork…. https://www.bauhaus.no/hey-di-torrmortel-kc35-65-fin-gammel-mur-pussmortel-25-kg.html It’s performing fine.
Re the door, well, I just copied the plans I found on the net, and to cook pizza the door is not in place. For cooking other things like meat and bread (after the pizza) the door does reduce the airflow but the fire is all but died back by then. The cooking at this stage is from the stored heat in the base and dome. You’d never have the fire roaring and the door in place.
I do agree with you the chimney seems to be in an illogical place but it does work. As long as you maintain the 64% door to dome ratio the smoke curls around the dome and up the chimney.
Let me know if you need more details!
Cheers
Ian
That was helpful. Thanks again!
This is superb… very tidy. I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of often conflicting and complicated information out there on how to build a pizza oven and would like to try a smaller, simpler design than typical. So I think I’m going to base my design around yours. I have a few questions I was hoping you could help me out with…
Firstly, could you perhaps go into a little more detail on how you secured your chimney in place?
What are the external dimensions of your oven?… if I understand you correctly your slab is 105 cm wide? How much space did you leave for insulation between the edge of the bricks and the slab edge?
The width of your opening (relative to the size of oven) is, I think, much greater than that typically recommended… but it seems you have no problem getting your oven up to temperature?
And were you able to work out how many bricks you used?
Cheers, Andy
Author
Hi Andy,
Sure! The chimney must not be mortared into place (go on then ask me how I learned this…. ). It’s obvious to me now, but of course the metal pipe expands much more than the brickwork. So, just build a socket with a 10mm or so gap and then use flue ‘rope’ to seal it. It used to be called asbestos rope but of course there is no asbestos in it. Or better still, maybe a clay or pot pipe would be better?
Re the amount I left around the dome, well, I went minimal and only used a couple of fire blankets for insulation but if I did it again I would definitely use 25mm fireproof insulation (but it was exorbitantly expensive here and only available in large quantities). So, I only had about 40mm around the brickwork for the blanket, chicken mesh, foil and a two coat thick’ish render.
The door size is standard. It’s imperative that the door height is 65% of the dome height (if memory serves me right). This is very important to make the oven work and the smoke to come out properly.
I can get the oven hot in a couple of hours or less. But then it’s screaming 550C on the floor! We can cook pizza for 10-12 folks and then there is plenty enough heat to cook a couple of chickens or roast a big lump of meat. We even chuck in some rough bread after that too… Like you’ve discovered, the ovens being built on the net must stay warm for a blooming week, and who has the time for that?
Tell, you what. I’ll include a link to my personal folder or pics, loads in there plus, we are firing it up tomorrow so I’ll measure the door and try to estimate the number of bricks! Here is the link…. https://1drv.ms/f/s!AmzLRP5NEPjYgdMtqJvBGT1c0lvcvA (it’s on my onedrive)
Hope that helps and I’ll post the other info next week..
Cheers!
Ian
p.s. the digital ‘red spot’ laser thermometer is brilliant and really helped me figure out how the oven works. I was brushing the fire to one side and cooking on the opposite, but after using the thermo and finding the floor was hot even at the front, now I push the fire to the back and cook in the front half, much easier to get the pizza’s turned after a minute (any more and you’re burning!). We now produce pairs of pizzas in less than 2 mins. Awesome.
Author
Hi Andy,
Me again. Yes, the overall dims for the slab was around 105cm wide. Right, I’ve tried to count the bricks, talk about going round and round in circles, I nearly fell of my stool ;-).
Now this isn’t very accurate in a way because obviously as you go up the bricks get smaller, you might even get three out of on brick. But for arguments sake I’ll count them all as half bricks, and in that case I used around 160 half bricks (so 80 whole ones). Then I used some full bricks around the door area and chimney totalling another 30 or so. If I was buying them I guess I’d buy 150…
Inside I had some 25mm thick firebricks and I used about 25 of them for the cooking floor.
The door, it measures 40cm wide and 26cm high and the inside of the dome is 49.5cm, so it’s a frazzle under 65%.
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Ian
Love what you did there, looks awesome. Is the outside weather proof? Can it handle a rainy environment, or does it need a roof on it?
Author
I did have it uncovered for a while but I found that it took longer to warm up and I got worried about the dome getting damaged over time, especially since it used to steam and leak once it got up to temp! I was also worried about frost etc. If you’re building one and it’s possible to get a roof over it, I would. Otherwise I pop a plastic bucket on the pipe and bungy cord a small tarp over it. Not the best look but it keeps it dry.
Thanks for stopping by, good luck with yours!
Ian
how many bricks did you use?
Author
That’a a great question Serge and to be honest I didn’t count them as I was building. I seem to remember having around 200 in a pile and there wasn’t much left over. If you’re in no hurry I could go and count them from the inside and that would give you a more accurate figure….
Cheers
Ian