Go to the Article: It’s Not Delivery—It’s Your Own High-Performing Wood-Fired Pizza Oven
Because this is a "brick" oven, not only can you cook awesome pizzas, but because the bricks hold the heat, you might even be able to bake a most awesome loaf of your favorite sourdough bread early the next morning with the residual heat! Awesome!
Would love to learn more about cooking with firewood. I've pretty much only ever used briquettes and lump charcoal on a weber grill with a chimney starter. What does one need to know when cooking with wood?
This is fantastic!! I want to buy a fancy outdoor model, but really don’t need any more gadgets to take up space alongside the centrifuge and others. Gonna try this very soon.
Thanks Grant!
Very cool!
The Breville Pizzaiolo is pretty awesome too, by the way. Here's a Trenton-style mustard tomato pie I just cooked in mine with the same dough recipe Grant is using (700°F deck/750°F dome x 2.5 min):
This is awesome. Great content. More like this pls!
How much heat does this radiate? Wondering how far away from the cement wall of our house it should be. Seems like the oven does a good job capturing the fire's heat, but I want to be safe!
Great idea. What about doing a propane version using this - https://www.homedepot.com/p/GASONE-65-000-BTU-High-Pressure-Propane-Burner-Outdoor-Cooker-with-0-PSI-to-20-PSI-Steel-Braided-Hose-B-5300/310698908 How many btu's does a wood fire create? You could even throw a log on the burner for the flavor
Paver stone?
One question from non-native speakers.
Can you describe a bit more what material the paver stone is?
My first thought was - it is the lave stone or granite stone, but I got info that in such sizes, it will weight about 50 kg as min. And even I believe in Grant power – he manipulates with his stone much easier…
Is this what you use some normal concrete desk which is used, e.g., in the garden as paver patio?
Many thanks for the info – I fall in love to this oven…
d.
I love this for so many reasons, but as a Dane I especially love the LEGO reference ❤️
Love! Fascinating how you weave education and entertainment. Already a convert to the Heffernan dough recipe but never knew about making a crown. I'm now planning where to put my 47 bricks and 2 pavers. And to think this all stared when I bought my Joule 1 1/2 years ago. Well played.
I love the LEGO style build instructions (especially as I work with the LEGO Group )
This is a game changer, absolutely doing this!
Recipe/video idea, Frank Prisinzano in NYC has a few restaurants, my favorite being Lil' Frankies. There they serve a whole eggplant, roasted in a wood oven till black. They open it table side with chili oil, black salt and chili flakes, truly one of the best things I've ever eaten.
Any engineers here that can say if this is safe? I researched building a fire pit earlier this year. I had read that ordinary brick and pavers can explode when heated due to trapped moisture within them. There's conflicting information online. I imagine it is a freak accident.
Good question/idea!
BTW, according to the pros, a wood-fired oven does not add any detectable flavor to a pizza, it cooks too quick.
Not sure about this design, but there are a hell of a lot of much fancier brick outdoor wood-fired ovens out there that are getting rained on all the time in people's backyards. So there must be some way to do it safely.
Probably a good question to post on PizzaMaking.com, which is the website where all the pros and serious amateurs hang out.
Bricks are a fired clay product. They're fired at temperatures many times that shown above. They don't explode. Ovens similar to the one in the vid are used all over the world. I've seen them in publitos on the Amazon and in Asia. None explode. I've made them from bricks and plate steel and aspirated them with oxygen to get temps above 1800 and never had a problem.
Throughout my college years and beyond, we made simple fire pits with bricks. Perhaps they did not get to this level of heat, but nothing exploded. Bricks aren't "that" porous.
On the other hand, I have blown out a piece of 50 year old poured cement by putting a chimney starter on it and getting it ripping hot. It definitely exploded, but I don't think it would send anyone to the hospital more than dropping something too moist into frying oil. Also, this seems to be meant as a temporary thing, versus an in-ground fire pit. I would steer clear of cinder blocks or poured cement. Otherwise, I think you are safe.
In the USA pavers are made from high strength concrete with very small rock and a high Portland content. I'm sure this is available all over the world but granite or slate will work. In Asia magma rock ( expensive ) would make a great cooking surface and cap with other stone. In Europe the paver is the smaller stone used in streets all over the continent. They're cut small from hard stone so they can be laid out decoratively ( French Fan and such ) and not suited for this. ( I do have a collection of them from all the major cities in Europe that I do use for grilling ).
Love this idea! Cost effective and easy to build. I have a question about a slight modification. What if you were to use a 16" x 24" piece of 1/4 A36 steel as the cooking deck? that would radiate the heat better then the paver would and you could season it. I know it would be more money in the initial setup, anyone see any other possible draw backs?
Having trouble finding large pavers. I did find a 24 x 24 x 3/4 porcelain paver.
- Would that work as a replacement for the Deck and Lid?
- Would I need to double up the thinkness?
- Can porcelain paver withstand the high temps?
I just returned from an expedition where we baked most of our food over an open fire. I would recommend patience, observation, and the flexibility to allow for the mistakes. You have to have a relationship with the wood and flame, know when to supply more oxygen, and that takes trial and error.
Seems thin but doubling up could be worth a try... I have not tried porcelain but can't see why it would not work at this time.
Well, it would heat up faster, but it wont store as much heat, and it will most likely dump heat too quickly too, scorching the pizza. You can read more on it here https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/stones-salt-and-steels
That is worth a try for sure!
This depends on a lot of factors, what kind of bricks you use, how long your fire has been running and how big the fire too—heck, even the wind direction. I wouldn't build it anywhere you wouldn't build a live fire.
I'm loving the design of this - its so simple yet it seems to work well. What's the downside to this, compared to a typical dome-shaped oven?
Could you mortar the bricks on this to make it more permanent?
In your linked page you say "steel, which has greater thermal conductivity works better for cooking a pizza. Steels dump heat into pizzas faster—giving us crispier pies". This seems contradictory to the above reply to Chris.
Thank you for the link. Good read. It makes sense what you said about dumping heat too quickly with no additional Thermo mass to help regulate the over all temp. Also I checked into getting a piece of A36 steel 16" x 24" x 1/4" and it would be around $85. that is not bad for what it is, but for the idea that you have for this of easy and in expensive, it is kind of a deal breaker. Keep up the good work!
This is the coolest thing i've seen during this pandemic so far!
Just a folllow up on the paver question- would someone provide a link online of a potential candidate to purchase? Just to get an idea of material that is safe to cook on. Thx!
Jesse, did you get a chance to try this? Curious how it worked
are those concrete pavers?
I believe most stone (not concrete) should be fine to cook on. https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/landscaping-materials/pavers-patio-blocks/16-x-24-riverfront-paver/1792912/p-1480576743688.htm
https://www.menards.com/main/building-materials/landscaping-materials/pavers-patio-blocks/16-x-24-riverfront-paver/1792912/p-1480576743688.htm
Hi,
1. how do you know when your oven is at temp?
2. If you want to cook other things like meats, how sanitary is the cooking surface, what is the best way for cleaning or is it unnecessary because of the high heat.
I use Breville bricks.
Built one today! We'll see how it goes once I make some dough and get a better pizza peel in the mail.
WOuld a porcelain 24" x 24" paver work for the larger stone? Only .8in htick ... so thinking doubling up on them? Having lots of trouble finding concrete pavers @ 16 x 24
Curious about trying this using fire bricks instead of regular clay bricks. Were there any reasons why regular clay bricks were used instead of fire bricks, which seem like a good option. Is their thermal conductivity too low for an oven like this?
Someone already asked that below. It might work, but you should just scroll down and read what Grant already answered.
I have and it breaks. Porcelain is a high temp ceramic but it doesn't reheat well. It cools rapidly and cracks. It suffers a high degree of thermal shock. Terra Cotta does the same. If a big wad of materiel is needed ( like a 2 foot by 2 foot base ) a slab of scrap granite works or you can look up the recipes for "refractory" cement / mortar ) that are all over the internet and cast something.
You end up with something like an Argentinian plancha. It will sear the crap out of the bottom of that pizza before the top is done. I use a36 steel at 1 inch thick to sear steaks for outdoor shindigs. I put it on a gas burner for 20 minutes then sear steaks made ready by SV. Very quick. Good for blackening fish as well. I'd think if you built a river oven and had a steel shelf in it you'd have a pretty good steak oven.
I would think an engineering discussion of a pizza oven would center on the insulating characteristics of the walls and the thermal conductivity of the cooking surface. For pizza you'd want material that held in the heat well which bricks would do. But you'd want slow transfer of heat from the cooking surface so the baking effects of the high temp on the top of the pizza will pair up with the sear on the bottom. A steel cooking surface would incinerate the bottom before the top melted and cooked. I don't see how storage of heat would matter unless you planned to cook past the point the fire went out.
Can you make this a permanent structure by using high temp furnace cement as a mortar? I noticed on Daniel White's photo that you have smaller pavers for a base, i was thinking the same thing and making a permanent oven.
Great Idea. I cannot find clay bricks in West Central Minnesota, however. Fire bricks available 4.5 x 9 x 1.25. I assume they will work. I might have to put some on edge to better support the pavers...but should have 3" (vs 4" with the 4 x 8 brick) on each side without that.
Did you use 12" pavers as your base? Looks nice.
I was concerned about cooking on Pavers/Concrete, so I replaced the oven top and bottom with kiln shelves I found at a pottery supply store. Four 12” x 24” shelves cost about $100 so brought the total project to $128 but at least i know the kiln shelves are food safe (same material used in pizza ovens) and it works great! Temperature this weekend hit 910 but stabilized around 860 as the fire hit it’s stride. I did notice that the 5/8” thick shelf material got pretty hot and cooked the bottoms too quickly, so I’m thinking of placing a traditional smaller pizza stone on top of the bottom shelf next time to buy me another 30-60 seconds so the top can brown. As it stands, we just raised the pizza to the roof of the oven after 90 seconds and had to hold it there about about 2-3 minutes (which with 860 heat coming out was pretty damn hot even with my heat resistant gloves).
Looks Good
I would be very careful using pavers. They have a color added whereas clay brick is just that-- clay brick.
VERY SMART!! I would not use pavers-- they have a color additive. Just like I would not use a beer car in place of a vertical roaster to cook a bird.
that works with real ovens because they are insulated and have higher thermal mass. this would be cool by the next morning.
Hey Grant, went to Home Depot over my lunch break, and the pavers were 2", but the bricks were all 2 1/4". GRRR. Where did you get yours at?
There is a difference between those two... The pavers will get to over 700 degrees, so I imagine most harmful materials that would be there would burn off while heating up (before food gets in the oven).
You keep posting about this all over. Do you have any reports or sources to back up the claim that pavers would be harmful?
Thanks! Something like that. I don't recall the exact size, but I wanted something flat to make scooping ashes easy.
I was easily able to get the bricks for this project, but not the pavers yet. I went to the local Lowes here in Fullerton, CA and didn't find any pavers in the 16" x 24" variety. If anyone has had luck finding these I'd be interested to know where you found them.
I found some pavers at Home Depot that measured 8" x 16" x 2", so I figured I'd just buy six and make it work. But I forgot that the middle paver would now need support. I shrunk the dimensions of the oven
a bit and made it work with just 4 pavers, but it's not ideal. I'm going to be on the lookout for the full size pavers. It's still fun to try to make it work. I think I've only spent about $25 on materials so far. (It's inset into an existing brick structure.)
I bought an extra 16 x 24" for the same reason...laid it length wise on the bottom to be able to scoop up ashes easier.
I finally got a beat on some potential pavers here in Northern CA - dimensions 16 x 24 x 2” (not 2.5”) wondering if that will be an issue.
The woman at PBM (Pacific Building Materials) said the best fit for that sized paver was a Stair Tread ... which they had a couple of styles Plaza Buff Brushed, Geneva Black, Bluestone. One of the sales guys was concerned about them exploding ... but lots of conflicting info.
Link: http://pbm1923.com/products-by-usage/pool-coping-caps-sills-stair-treads/natural-stone-caps-stair-treads
Wondering if anyone has thoughts - but I think I’m going to give it a try and can report back. Rest of the project looking solid - just need those pavers.
Ash
Those dimensions should work just fine, Wes.
1. We use an inferred thermometer. 2. The high temp nature of the oven and deck temperature ensure that it's more than sanitized, it's sterilized.
That"s cool that you found a good supplier with options. It sounds like a key to keeping the stone from cracking is a slow heat ramp up on the first use or perhaps anytime after it gets wet.
I still haven"t located the proper size pavers, but I ended up adding some metal support layers to the structure to keep the pavers secure. I wonder if the metal (aluminum, I think) on the roof of the cooking area is giving an unindented heat bounce. I"m getting a pretty sweet blistering on the cheese during the cook, but I haven"t compared it to a cook without the metal roof. If I rebuild it, I may try it without the metal to see if there"s a noticeable difference.
I"ve realized that prepping the pizza outside is worth the effort so that I don"t have to run back and forth to the kitchen during the cooking. The fam will sit around a table and hang out while I prep and cook. It"s great!
Didn’t see this. Isn’t there a gap between bricks?
Ash-Did you ever give this a try? I'm in Oakland and am tempted to make the trip to one of PBMs locations in the near future.
