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we wanted pizza so we built a wood fired oven

we wanted pizza so we built a wood fired oven

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Step 1This is the finished ,(almost) oven.

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22 comments

May 26, 2011. 11:03 AMnareto says:

i like this scientific approach :)

May 31, 2011. 9:36 PMdrewgrey (author) says:

Thanks. Last week I made a dinner bell (triangle) for a friend and want to make more. I want to do an instructable to find the relation between steel size ,type and treatment and the tone it makes. I'm thinking of using audacity or a similar program for analizing the tone.

May 31, 2011. 11:39 PMnareto says:

strange for me recommending non-open source software, but I don't know how good spectrum capabilities audacity has; so you might want to look into sonic visualiser and baudline

Jun 1, 2011. 9:08 PMdrewgrey (author) says:

Thanks, I'll check those out!

Jun 2, 2011. 7:16 AMnareto says:

you're welcome :) don't know what I was thinking, but just checked and source code is actually avaiable for both

Jan 31, 2011. 10:39 PMcgates30 says:

It looks really nice! How's the pizza and what kind of temperatures does it maintain? How long to heat up? Which mixture did you find to be the best for retaining heat and having some flexibility? I like your idea of measuring strength.

Feb 4, 2011. 8:04 PMdrewgrey (author) says:

Thanks, We like to take it slow especially on the first fire after a period of unuse. Generally about 2 hrs to get up to cooking tempature and it holds at 700 or so with little wood added during cooking. I have had it up to 1100 degrees but that was excessive. My post earlier was my favorite recipe for the cladding. The pizza is a work in progress and this year we may unleash a secret weapon, home made mozzarella! I still want to find chicago style sausage and cheese.

Sep 1, 2010. 10:01 AMmikejs says:

Beautiful construction! I may have missed it, but what mixture did you determine was best for your tiles?

Sep 1, 2010. 8:12 PMdrewgrey (author) says:

The tiles were only used to test the cladding mixture. The cladding started with a scratch coat that was heavy on the masonry mix and quite wet and it is applied by flinging-messy but fun, just pretend your a monkey. The next 5 coats were of a mix leaning towards flexablity (more perlite) on the first layers and ending with a hard but brittle layer that makes it so birds cant just drill into it. Eventually it will have a metal dome after I borrow and learn to use an english wheel. I will look up the data on our tests and share that if you want .

Nov 15, 2010. 8:34 PMneffk says:

Nice work. I see that it works and even looks nice.

Why a metal dome? It won't last longer than stucco... Are you going to put loose perlite between the metal and outer masonry layer?

Nov 16, 2010. 6:26 PMdrewgrey (author) says:

No , the perlite was ,along with fireclay ,sand and masonry mix , a component of the 10" thick layer of mortar cladding. The cladding was tested for heat strength and flexability and don't crack. The last top coat is just mortar so it wont soak up water and will be bird proof (the cladding is soft ) Problem is that that last coat does crack and in fact is a tempature gauge. When the crack in the outer layer is open 1/8 it's ready to rock and roll. To permanantly weather proof it I am leaning towards a metal dome . What I havent decided is how ,though I would like to have dragon scale looking metal tiles.

Nov 16, 2010. 7:59 PMneffk says:

I like your style, what with the testing and all. Can you tell us more about the test and results? There are lots of people building ovens and they're looking for good information like this on the interwebs.

Nov 16, 2010. 9:50 PMdrewgrey (author) says:

Thanks,
My mixture varied from layer to layer slightly with the inner layers having more perlite and fireclay to insulate and retain heat. Our tests showed that what heated slowly generally cooled slowly. I increased the amount of mortar as I reached the outer layers. I would encourage people to do some testing to be application specific but the average mix for my cladding was
1 part masonry mix ( this is to mortar what portland cement is to concrete)
1 part perlite
1 part fireclay
1 part sand
Hand ful of fibermesh concrete reinforcer

To increase hardness on the outer layers I increased the masonry mix to 2 parts with the rest being 1 part each.

To increased flexability next to the firebrick and in the layers with lots of chicken wire and pencil rod (1/4 rebar) I increased the perlite to 2 parts with the other componants being 1 part each

Sep 1, 2010. 10:36 AMjunits15 says:

Are you Italian? Because this looks very good and that pizza looks like Italian style.

Sep 8, 2010. 3:43 AMcraig3 says:

That and everyone has moustaches

Sep 8, 2010. 12:02 PMjunits15 says:

stop watching family guy!!

Sep 1, 2010. 8:19 PMdrewgrey (author) says:

!/4 sicilian and my inspiration for this oven came from a friend who is from the old country and has one in his yard. His is built into a shed and has a larger dome but the formula for the dome was from him. We can also make bread but have not done much yet.

Sep 2, 2010. 11:52 AMjunits15 says:

im 1/2 calabrian 1/2 american, and i personally think italian pizza is way better than new York style :)

Sep 7, 2010. 12:47 PMbuckminsterfullerene says:

Best. Title. Ever.

141

Sep 1, 2010. 3:02 PM

canida says:

It looks excellent. How does the pizza taste?

Sep 1, 2010. 8:15 PMdrewgrey (author) says:

Thanks, The pizza is great but I am trying to figure out what cheese was used by the cheap corner pizza places I frequented in chicago growing up. My favorite part is picking fresh basil and placing it right on the pizza.