Pizza oven

[bojit]

Hey Tim that looks like it's going to be a cracking oven . After it has cooled down a bit from pizza cooking it will be great for baking bread.

A couple of years ago i made one before we moved house and got rid of the huge garden , I had some spare concrete blocks and a couple of 3'x2' paving slabs .

I even made a door out of some mahogany of cuts.

After we had the fire going for a couple of hours with some timber of cuts and bbq charcoal it was hot enough to cook a frozen pizza in 12-15 minuets .

We used it for a couple of months without any problems or explosions the slab under the fire had A couple of thin cracks running through it but it stayed in one piece.

Craig........

 

[Neumo]

Loving the idea of the pizza oven and all those links, especially the http://www.fornobravo.com/ one. Another whole new world of toys.... Glad to hear you are doing it properly & will keep an eye out for the finished oven, as it should be good

 

[tim_n]

The quality of my brickwork would reduce full grown brickies to tears...

 

[tim_n]

Slip and sawdust materials

Mixin'

All put on a base of insulation mix

Base fin

Looks a bit dry to me... I ran out of slip and I think my sawdust was too small so absorbed too much slip. I've made do though, I can't imagine it'll cause too much problems as the bottles will take most of the weight.

 

[rik_uk3]

You can cook a good pizza in a Cadbury's Roses tin over hot embers and a few on top of the tin, impresses the kids

 

[Wilderbeast]

S jealous of this right now tim

 

[johnnytheboy]

Loving the idea of the pizza oven and all those links, especially the http://www.fornobravo.com/ one. Another whole new world of toys.... Glad to hear you are doing it properly & will keep an eye out for the finished oven, as it should be good

The forum on Forno Bravo is very good, loads of ideas!!

 

[tim_n]

Yeah I signed up to the forum a while ago! But a lot of the stuff going on seemed a bit precise... Not sure I could deal with that!

 

[johnnytheboy]

LOL allot of the stuff going on looks like a professional brickie is behind it :-D

 

[Tony]

Excellent project Tim, I've been thinking about doing one for ages......need to get on with it Looking forward to seeing how it progresses

 

[tim_n]

Thanks Tony!

Had more work to do today...

Beer time... No, sorry that's clay mixing time!

Gary stompin' with my wife

No mud slinging here!

Packing out the base

MOAR CLAY!

Base done... Brick time!

First levelling...

 

[789987]

so does the fire go in the hollow bit underneath the clay and the bricks?

 

[plastic-ninja]

I've built a couple of these in the last few years : one in clay and one in fire-brick and stone.
The clay one was superb but in the end it succumbed to the Cumbrian weather and collapsed so we built a stronger one on the same clay/sand/cement base.
Both of them were , I suspect , the same style as this.The fire is lit on the floor of the oven itself and burned fiercely to heat the stone/clay up and then a
hardwood fire is kept in the oven while the food cooks.They performed superbly ; both of ours cooked pizza in 8 minutes and then had enough heat left for some rolls and then some breads when we stopped up the door and caulked it with dough.Traditionally these ovens were fired with gorse or thornbushes , dried and tied into bundles.
Good luck with your build , it's looking good.
Cheers , Simon

 

[tim_n]

so does the fire go in the hollow bit underneath the clay and the bricks?

Plastic ninja has it right - it's on the bricks which'll have yet another layer of lay over the top - doing that tomorrow!

Once the oven is up to temperature it should cook a pizza in 2-3 minutes - I'll be adding a lot of insulation

 

[tim_n]

Starting the sand mould

Another way I've seen them done is a weaved wicker basket rather than sand - the basket is set fire once the clay has set.

I used a 16inch stick to judge the depth. I recon it's about 14-15" thick after I smoothed it.

Looking a bit like a saucer. Usually you'd cover it with newspaper but It was far too windy I couldn't get it to stay on

Wife did most of the stomping after I cut my foot and was pouring blood everywhere...

Different angle

Fully covered! Not bad for about 3 hrs work!

Not sure how long I need to wait before cutting the door, probably do it tomorrow morning.

 

[plastic-ninja]

Just a thought if anyone else is going to have a go using the wet sand method.
In order to mould a perfect or near perfect hemisphere you need to make a very simple tool.
Assuming that the "footprint" of the oven is to be 2 feet or so.
Take a piece of plywood/chipboard/mdf etc and cut it into a square of 1'1".
Then cut out a radius of 1' , using a string and pencil to mark the line.
Pile up the wet sand and pat it firm then push a cane or metal rod down through the centre of the sand.
If you hold the edge of your template against the rod you can easily scrape the template around the whole pile of sand and leave yourself with a (fairly) perfect
hemisphere of 2' diameter to use as a clay mould.It really is very simple and the geometry will seriously improve the performance of the oven by making the heat more
even and more predictable.
Cheers , Simon

 

[tim_n]

Quite right but you need to compress each layer as you put it down. I put a stick into the middle which was 16" long and I knew I'd reached optimum height once I'd covered it. I used 2x4 to shape it by eye - it doesn't have to be exact but the smoother it is the less weak spots you'll get in the oven

 

[T1Viper]

Looking really good Tim!

How long do you need to leave it to dry before you can cook in it?

 

[MSkiba]

So you hosting the BCUK pizza party?

 

[tim_n]

Thanks! It's pretty much useable from the word go, but it'll not last as long unless it's fired properly. If I was setting one up at the moot (plenty of sand, not so much clay though!) you could build and cook in a day!

For a decent oven you need to make a series of small fires to dry it out before ramping up to a decent temperature. I was hoping to do it this week but work has other plans!