Building a pizza oven.

[Michaelangelica]

I'm not a big fan of take-away pizza, but i did find the pizzas made by Italians in Italy were fantastic.
The take away versions here a travesty of the dish from Italy. I guess how Yank's fast food joints have prostituted the idea of a hamburger.

So why am I interested in a pizza oven?
Because I live in suburbia and this seems the only legal way I can have afire.
Why do I want a fire?
1. For the charcoal
2. I would like to heat hot water for my pool or home
3. To recycle/use or the scrap wood thrown away locally
4. To make a steam engine to make electricity??
5. For fun and food.

So anyone got some clues?
A mud-brick one would be nice, but i am over adobe, although is does look great.

I just did aseach for some nice designs
seems you can buy a nice one on line
http://www.dingley-dell.com/wood_burning_pizza_ovens.
Some other pics
http://www.flickr.com/groups/pizzaovens/pool/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/745108@N21/

[mischief]

I was going to say...
Hey you can come visit me and build me one too.
Ah well I guess I'll have to stand back in line and wait.
Our local library used to have a little book on this subject that I used to get and out and drool over.
There are specific ratios to oven size to size of the door opening thats important for air flow.
I'll go down and see if its still there.
You could do a lovely dragon like I saw in I think the Gardener mag afew years ago, with the smoke coming out his nostrils.

[j_cornelissen]

Hey Mike,

the one I built pretty much followed the "Forno Bravo Pompeii Oven™ Plans Build an Authentic Italian Wood-Burning Oven" pdf that is available on-line (http://www.fornobravo.com/pompeii_oven/pompeii_oven.html)
don't go mud-brick as it would't retain that much heat

looking back at the pdf there were a few changes I made, but the main thing I found was that the, what I thought, difficult bits, i.e. building the arc and the dome were the easiest, making a straight box was much harder (maybe that says something about me).

I used recycled bricks for everything but should have gone for near perfect ones for the oven floor, something I have to change now.

Any questions let me know, again i would put some pics in but don't have a clue how to

[mischief]

Were the bricks firebricks or just ordinary bricks.
If they were ordinary ones are they still holding there shape..not crumbling?

[Grahame]

I have a great book (currently out on loan to someone) called something like 'How to build an earth oven'. I built one in our last place and I'm intending to build one here soon. I guess I'll have to go collect the book - the ones I lend out around here have a habit of never finding their way home again...

From memory I think you can get it from the Eden Seeds book list.

[j_cornelissen]

just normal bricks, they're OK

fire bricks are necessary for when you're building a kiln

normal bricks will be good up till 700 C I think, which will cremate your pizza's.............

[mischief]

Thanks for the brick info.
I had always thought you had to use firebricks for any sort of fire, but perhaps that is just a safety issue in houses.

I have learntto never lend out my tools books or gas BBQ.
They always come back broken or not at all!!