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Building base for mason brick oven

 

Building a Pizza Oven

Hankering for Fresh Bread and Pizza
A few years back, I made the decision to build a pizza oven. This came from some inspiration I garnered from reading Daniel Wing and Alan Scotts’ book, The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens. If you want to know more about the science of making bread and bake it in a wood oven, pick this book up. There was so much information packed in this read that I could not consume the whole book. This was good stuff and very inspirational. I soon was hooked on the idea of making my own bread and pizza from scratch.

 Masonry arch front to pizza oven

Bread Science

Making bread in this fashion is a work of art. It takes a great deal of patience and passion. The art form of making bread is

specialized from family recipes and local bakeries. The authors teach the chemical process of fermentation, grain selection, and water to flour ratios along with the basics of kneading bread. This information alone was very new to me. I grew up with Wonder Bread and frozen pizzas. When I completed the building of the oven, I created a leaven and went from there. It was very exciting watching my starter grow.

 

Wood Ovens are not all the same

Without much reading, you might be able to figure a way to build a brick enclosure, put a door on it, build a fire in it and heat it up. However, there are ways to build this kind of structure and there are ways to create a bread oven that will work at peak efficiency. I am glad I read this section of the book. Daniel looked back at the history of the bread oven structure and with Alan’s’ help presented an oven that would take the best from the past and enhance the design using thermodynamics.

 

Motaring the brickBuilding Our Oven

I am not a mason. I built custom homes for many years but never took on any of the mason’s work. They were always better suited for that type of work. Now I wanted to try it. I went online and started learning the basics.
I followed the design exactly except I extended the length of the box another foot to accommodate more bread.

 

I gathered materials from a demolished house on the homestead. The previous owner was a mason and used mostly brick and slump block for construction. I had a great deal of nice 4’ brick and firebrick for the oven floor. There was a ceramic flu and iron headers for support.

 

First, I built a foundation to set the oven pedestal using a footing type of construction with rebar. The floor of the firebox was to be 6” thick concrete with 5/8” rebar reinforcement. After the pedestal andFiring up the bread oven for the 1st time floor were completed, I followed layout found in the book with the exception of the oven length. . It was a fun experience working with the exterior brick to create a design for both the front and back. The inside was a challenge using slump block instead of firebrick for the arched ceiling.

 

The genius of the design is the chimney flu is located in the front of the firebox. Smoke would be drawn up and out. In addition, the arched ceiling would circulate and distribute the heat to more evenly. I created a 4”x12” slot for ash removal. These ashes would fall into a metal tub and the door would be closed to trap the heat.

 

The walls of the oven were raised evenly and filled progressively to the top. I applied a 4” layer of perlite (potting soil filler) and mortar mix for the finish. I followed the mixture recommendations in the book for all the mortar, perlite and filler materials.

 

 

Our 1st Pizza bake in the outdoor oven!Our First Fire

You can imagine the family’s excitement when we made the first fire. We did a simple pizza that night and later tried out the bread and cake baking. The pizza was fantastic!!

 

 

 

 

Gary
February 1, 2013