Wood fired pizza oven.

Dave Shepard

Square peg, round world.
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
5,806
Location
Alford, MA
Building one soon. Anyone here build one? This one will be large and built to run for several hours at temp. We are going to have pizza night, and maybe even wing night at my friend's farm.
 
I made one.
Any pics/sketches of what you are thinking for design?
We kind of followed a book called The Bread Builders.
 
I have two friends that bought the same one , Italian manufacturer maybe ... indoor , pretty big .... steel , has fireplace and great pizza oven above. Both faced with beautiful stonework after install ... I could get a name and you could use their design to start on your own version.
 
Yeah, I built a roughly 30X50 one on a trailer a few years ago. I'll see If I can dig up some pictures. Built out of firebrick and refractory cement. Base is a perlite cement for insulation.

This book has some cool info about traditional wood ovens, I would 100% put a chimney on mine if doing it again
20210630_075058.jpg
 
Ok so the door on the left is a fridge sized cold smoke house with it's own firebox, door to the right down low, the pizza oven, 6'X6' inside, is in the middle with wood storage underneath, and the thing to the right is a grill with build in rotisserie with both indirect and direct heating. Slate roof with copper trim. The red brick outline in front is a island with running sink and another open grill. I couldn't find any of the finished pics but there is a 60'X80' 6"x6" tumbled concrete paver sunken patio and 140' of tree foot high retaining wall around it all and has a separate seating area with pergola.
 
I considered building one for years. Last year I bought an Ooni. Freaking love it, I can move it in seconds, take it to the river, heats up in 10 minutes and I pull pizzas out every 1-2 minutes. No regrets not building one.
 
I’ve built two. Both very crude but very functional. Neither ever got a finish coat of plaster over the cob and both are still standing.
the most important thing I learned is that the ratio of the door opening relative to the interior ceiling height is critical. The door should be 60% of the ceiling height. That makes for optimal airflow in and out. This is for an oven without a chimney or second air inlet of course. The first oven I did the door was too low and it struggled to keep a good fire going. I wholly intended to dress up the second oven real nice, but once it was functional I lost interest in doing anything but cooking in it 😜. The front is starting to crumble a bit and I think when it gets too bad I’ll smash up the dome, re-wet the cob and build it back the same as it was.
it makes an awesome baked chicken!
 
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