Pizza oven

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tim_n

Full Member
Feb 8, 2010
1,733
132
Essex
Bit off topic, though I guess you could build this in the bush! It is after all a mud oven. Mine will hopefully bit a bit more permanent!
Dig!
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Whole lot of hole!
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Tamp it down!
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Backfilled with bricks
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Rebar?
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Comedy concrete!
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Get the wife doing something
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Quick change :) stack stuff!
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I'm doing some work for once!
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Foundations sorted :)
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I've still got the floor insulation to go but I have a horrible feeling I don't yet have enough empty beer bottles...
 
If that is a bit of concrete paving slab on top then you may want to rethink the design as fires & concrete slabs can equal explosions, lots of bits of small concrete frag flying around = not good. Thought I would mention it, in case you are going to build a fire in there like they do in the italian ones; which are made of non-exploding clay normally.
 
No it's just part of the foundations. There's going to be another 4" of insulation of bottles and sawdust clay slip, then a small layer of sand and 4" of fire bricks. I'd hope it'd barely get warm.
 
Actually it was a joke, however it's tempted fate, one of our cats has gone missing last night.
 
Thats fantastic, I have had a pallet of block in my front garden todo this for the past 3 years and never got round to it. If i can give you one piece of advice, avoid all book on the subject, most are junk I bought them all from amazon to start my plans, the only decent book I found was Seven Fires, Francis Mallman. This website has masses of info http://www.fornobravo.com/

I'm have to get my finger out and get my garden finished so I can get cracking, great post Tim and perfect timing with this weather, puts me right in the mood to get stuck in!!

Keep us uptodate with the progress please!!!
 
Superb project tim - really looking forward to seeing more.

I can't do much to help, but am willing to assist with the Badgers :)
 
The earth oven book is an inspirational read and I have been meaning to do one of these for years. I like that he suggests building a protoype quick oven just to see how easy it is and how your clay works. It's easy to end up like me with it on the long list of things to do one day. The folks next door to me at Glastonbury last year made a quicky earth bread oven and were turning out pizzas and fresh bread all week.
 
Well I've found the cat! Did a bit of digging to put in a fence post as well as get a bit of clay for the clay slip. Local timber yard gave me their sawdust and shavings to mix in to make the insulation base. I need to soak the clay over night to make it into a cream like consistency before adding the sawdust and shavings!

So far it's taken 2-3 of us about a day of real time to get thus far, it's the foundation drying time that took the time.

I've started a sour dough starter inside the house... It went a bit greenish but seems to actually be doing something now. I started it on Thursday with 1/4 cup water and 1/4 plain flour. This morning I threw 1/4 cup away and added 1/4 water and 1/4 flour again, will repeat again tonight. It smells a little odd - not like normal yeast. I'll see how it does and bake a set in the bread machine next week and see what happens!

Mean time I'm working through the beers (even as I type)

I'm not too worried about the design or the setup. I intend to grout it with a clay mud then later do a lime render on it to pretty it up.

The reason I'm getting on with it is because in about a month I'm having a house warming party and promised fresh pizza in the garden :) I'm also cutting my teeth on my first bit of brickwork before I start building a brick BBQ.

There is a small part of me that is worried that it'll turn out rushed and crap but there's another part that's inebriated by the beer I'm drinking which is over riding the worries.

I'm hoping the weather holds out till next weekend as that's when I'm planning to do the dome. Tomorrow hoping to get the base insulation done.
 
The beer bottles mix with clay slip (basically watered down clay) and sawdust which sets like bubbly concrete. The air gaps work to capture the heat much like your household insulation but can be heated to a much higher temp and can compress properly.

Or so it says in this there book :)

I'm drying out the clay as apparently dry clay absorbs water better than wet.

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Old fermenting bucket is what I'm going to use to mix... It had an infection in it twice in a row so it's no use to me!
 

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