I built a brick pizza oven....and it's awesome

I've been cooking pizza in a wood-fired oven for about a year now, and have become very interested in brick ovens for other styles of live fire cooking. Francis Mallmann, and others, have inspired this new interest of mine - and I decided to build (brick by brick) a brick wood-fired oven. I built it over the firebox of our smoker in our BBQ Supply Shop - with a design platform from Brickwood Ovens It wasn't as easy as they made it sound, but was a very rewarding laborious project that I am excited to enjoy the fruits (or breads) of...
Here's a photo journal of our build:
Building the base:

Laying the oven floor - 2700 degree firebrick

Building the first layer of the dome- again firebrick

Finishing the dome

Lookin' good - first layer done - smoker getting used to its new friend

After the dome firebrick is laid, we wrapped it in 2 layers of ceramic fiber blanket (insulation), and then finished it with a layer of 110 year old reclaimed Chicago "BBQ Pit" Brick... Gotta say, I am incredibly happy with the finished product.


We'll be using this in our Pit-to-Plate dinners... very excited to have this new toy in my arsenal.... #LiveFireLife

Looks super! I'd appreciate a photo shot down the barrel toward the chimney--I can't quite figure out how it looks/works inside.

Tnx!

Geo

Nice!

I'd appreciate a photo shot down the barrel toward the chimney--I can't quite figure out how it

I'm lighting the first fire in it today - I had to let it cure for 4 days prior to lighting the first fire... This is called a "Barrel Oven" (1/2 barrel shape). You build a fire in the middle to heat up all of the firebrick, then push it to the back for cooking (or cook in it using retained heat/no fire)... The chimney/exhaust is in the front of the oven - so the heat from the fire travels from rear to front, bottom to top, heating everything evenly...
If making pizza, you need a decent small hot fire in it to maintain temps above 800. If baking bread or slow cooking meats, you don't need as much heat from your fire - you can cook with the retained heat in the hearth & dome (after it heats up)... I'll get a few more pics today while we're seasoning it...

Here are a few more shots - with our first seasoning fires...





You have to season these ovens slow n steady.... building a fire a little bigger each day - hardening/curing all of the mortar (particularly the silica sand in the high temp mortar mix)...

We'll be cooking in it next week.

I am envious. If I ever have a house with an outdoor area large enough, I'm shipping one of those kits to Sydney. Which size did you go with?

The base design is hard to tell from the photos. There appears to be CMU piers at both the front and rear, with some type of board spanning between them. Is that cement board? How does all of the brick weight from the middle part of the oven get transferred to the piers at the end?

The base design is hard to tell from the photos. There appears to be CMU piers at both the front and rear, with some type of board spanning between them. Is that cement board? How does all of the brick weight from the middle part of the oven get transferred to the piers at the end?

What you can't see in those photos is my 1/2" steel firebox (for the smoker) in under it all. Also, the baseplate is 1/2" steel to transfer the load (covered with 1/2" cement board to take the base mortar). Here's another photo to give you a better idea:

Ah, that makes a lot more sense now. Thanks.

I've roasted meats and slow cooked some Gumbo in my WFO....but last night was finally my first pizza party in this beast...
Took about 2 1/2 hours to get up to 800 degrees - the brick retains the heat really well, (12 hours later it's 350 on the dome), but man it takes forever to heat up!

One problem: I was using larger pieces of (smoking) oak that burn slower and with less BTU's. I usually use Beech Wood for WFO cooking - but I was without... in my Pizza Party oven, the type of wood isn't nearly as important - it cooks/heats with reflective heat (without great heat retention). In this Brick Beast, you really need the proper wood to get it to the 900 degrees I like to cook at in a reasonable amount of time.

Pics:



This was the favorite of the night : Smoked Brisket Philly Cheesesteak...

Smoked brisket cheese steak pizza? YUM!!