DIY Pizza Oven - How does one put such a thing together?

[foreverhungry]

How does one build an outdoor brick pizza oven, without using pre-made oven materials? Can I put one together using old fashioned brick and Portland cement? I've seen a couple internet posts that suggested one can use gravel and pavers as base, and using carboard to set a dome mold and using regular bricks and portland cement to build the dome. A meter or 1.5m diameter dome, with an opening enough to get a pizza in.

What do knowledgeable folks here say? Can I build a pizza oven for cheap?

[foreverhungry]

Awesome - thank you very much all for the information and links. Digesting all the information will take some time. Thanks again for the great input!

[splatgirl]

Here's a little blurb about building (a temporary) one from dry stacked firebricks without any formwork-- http://www.kare11.com/news/investigative/extras/extra_article.aspx?catid=26&storyid=819133
That method is about as quick and easy as you'll get, bearing in mind that it lacks insulation which has a lot to do with the performance of a real brick and mortar oven.

I can vouch for the usefulness of the forum at Forno Bravo and the Pompeii plans linked above--I built one a few years ago and it's still tops my (not insignificant) DIY list as the best project EVER. The down and dirty photo essay of my build is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/splatgirl/sets/72157619543464830/
If you want words, I blogged about it, too: http://moderninmn.blogspot.com

[Dave5440]

That looks great splatgirl, but I thought you did the work, I'm still impressed though

[splatgirl]

I did do the work.

[Dave5440]

Then I'm really impressed,

[Dave5440]

The standard bricks and morter won't stand up to the kind of heat that it will be subjected too, it will need to be made with fire brick and high temp morter. Some links
http://www.traditionaloven.com/

http://www.fornobravo.com/pompeii_oven/pompeii_oven.html

http://www.deltabluesfestival.net/pizza_oven.htm

http://heatkit.com/html/bakeoven.htm

[foreverhungry]

Thanks for the quick replies. It's interesting, because sedimental and Dave5440 are both examples of the conflicting info I've seen via internet searches. I saw one site say a guy got 20 years of use out of a standard brick and mortar version, and other supporting the idea of using regular brick and Portland cement, but then other say that you need specialized high temp brick and mortar for brick oven.

[sedimental]

Yeah, I don't know about the longevity. But, I live in the PNW. We are the epitome of alternative outdoor lifestyle fun. You know- Microsoft millionaires, Birkenstocks in the rain...and outdoor ovens. It won't cost you much to build something from Mother earth news, Sunset or backwoods home magazine. If it falls apart in 5 years- build another one.

I built a big "ta do" instead. Simply because I decided (after a lengthy investigation) that I want to live outside more. So, I built a complete covered outdoor kitchen, dining room and living room. BUT- I seriously considered building a simple "adobe" oven with a make shift cover mostly for smoking meats and hearth bread before that. It can be done. They are very fun.

[Dave5440]

Well it won't hurt to try, but what were you thinking of for a base to cook on? you don't want to put stuff on a not food grade fire brick or were you going to use a pan? If you've got the bricks laying around, build a small house on a patio stone and light a fire in it and see what happens, and please post pics . Using clay is different than using house bricks.

[foreverhungry]

Well, the base is a good question. What is a food grade brick? Are regular bricks not food grade? I've no idea. What makes a food grade brick, and how are they different from non-food grade bricks?

[Dave5440]

At this point I must bow out, lest I banned for life

[fmed]

All the info you need is at the links that Dave5440 posted for you. In particular http://www.fornobravo.com/pompeii_ove... where you can download fairly detailed plans. There is a forum on that site that is is full of knowledgable people.

But to answer your question about the bricks - you need light or medium duty firebrick. Regular bricks or cement bricks will disintegrate in the heat.

[ted]

The pizza oven part of this isn't something I know much about. But it's something I'd love to eventually do (or convince a friend to let me help build one in their backyard).

Pretty early on in my DIY career I repaired the floor inside my fireplace. It was poured cement and had cracked into chunks from heat, age, and water that got onto it from the then-open chimney.

I ended up getting a couple of bags of castable refractory cement- basically the stuff that's used in massive kilns and incinerators. It wasn't cheap, even 10 years ago, but it did the trick. As long as you could do a better job of screeding and/or troweling the surface to smooth it out, you'd have a solid slab of a base for your oven. I put the excess cement in a 5-gal bucket and made a 3-inch thick round that I still use today to protect the ground/patio when I light up my charcoal chimney.

FWIW, it's the "cement" in the refractory bricks/cement that makes it able to handle the heat. The refractory cements use calcium aluminate where regular cement is Portland cement, and regular bricks are fired clay. I don't think any one is more or less suitable for food, it's just the ability to handle heat.

[sedimental]

Absolutely. There are many different styles. I really liked the one using a big cardboard half- barrel for the mold, then covered in chicken wire and plastered. Very simple.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-...

I confess, have a big, expensive, elaborate deal...but before I built my outdoor kitchen, I went to several alternative lifestyle "get togethers" involving these simple types of ovens. Really fun! They work just as well as the 10k models.

[Dave5440]

I would like to see how long one of those would last , I couldn't get past the second page on the link, my security level shut it down because it was running unsigned scrip.