Thinking about a DIY wood fired oven-suggestions?

[starcmr]

Hi everyone,

I’m thinking about building outdoor wood fired oven. I haven’t settled on size, materials, or design yet. Cob dome is something I am really considering,

if I can find some clay in my backyard, just from a cost perspective and a bit of a trial run. Other than pizza I’m not sure what we would cook in it.
Maybe a large batch of flat breads. My dad has gotten quite good at Dutch oven bread in a conventional oven. So it could see some bread baking. As a family of 6 we can really pack away the food if everyone is enjoying it. Right now my 2 year old can polish off a happy meal and say he’s still hungry and my 10 year old eats as much as I do. We don’t really entertain other than high holidays.

Is this a silly idea? If you have a pizza oven, how often do you use it? If you have a wood fired oven, is the extra work to fire it up worth it? What style/shape is the best?
Happy to hear your thought or wishes.

 

[starcmr]

Hi everyone,

I’m thinking about building outdoor wood fired oven. I haven’t settled on size, materials, or design yet. Cob dome is something I am really considering,

if I can find some clay in my backyard, just from a cost perspective and a bit of a trial run. Other than pizza I’m not sure what we would cook in it.
Maybe a large batch of flat breads. My dad has gotten quite good at Dutch oven bread in a conventional oven. So it could see some bread baking. As a family of 6 we can really pack away the food if everyone is enjoying it. Right now my 2 year old can polish of a happy meal and say he’s still hungry and my 10 year old eat as much as I do. We don’t really entertain other than high holidays.

Is this a silly idea? If you have a Wood Fired Pizza Oven how often do you use it? If you have a wood fired oven is the extra work to fire it up worth it? What style/shape is the best?
Happy to hear your thought or wishes.

thanks in advance for any help

 

[rizrah]

after downloading and getting excited about using the forno bravo instructions (Pizza oven plans - Build an Italian brick oven - Forno Bravo),
I decided it might be a little outside my skill set, so with a nice little tax return, i bought myself a Melb Fire Brick Co D95 back at the start of 2021 (D95 Brick Pizza Oven Kit - The Fire Brick Company Australia)
no regrets whatsoever! we used ours weekly/fortnightly for the first year, that slowed down a bit now but still somewhere like 15-20 times per year.
what i have started doing lately is using up the residual heat from a single burn that the bricks hold for the following 60 hrs.

Start with pizza's friday night (temps about 450C)
Saturday lunchtime do some chicken wings (temps about 200C)
Saturday evening put in a 12 hr slow roast lamb for sunday lunch (temps at 150C when it goes in, 100C when it comes out)

Perhaps a homemade one it might not hold the heat for quite as long, but its something to aspire to!

the FornoBravo instructions have been used by 2 different friends of mine that each made their own rustic looking but very well functioning ovens, so they are good instructions. you can go cheaper or more expensive, and there are a few corners you can cut if you need to.
Give it a crack and report back!

 

[TheWiggman]

I have a wood fired oven and it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. I fire it up at least once a fortnight and the family is getting used to pizza Fridays. Here's a progress photo and the finished product:





I bought a P85 precast kit from Melbourne Fire Bricks: Precast wood fired oven kits - The Fire Brick Company Australia
Not cheap but it's a house feature and will last many lifetimes. I've seen other options and I zero regrets buying this one. One thing to consider is they are thirsty on wood, so you'll need good access to firewood if you want to use it regularly. It takes about 2h to heat up which is pretty efficient as far as wood fire ovens go. The next morning I could slide a pan in there and cook bacon if I wanted. I haven't tried bread or a roast, it takes some planning to heat it up at the right time and allow it to cool to temp.
I mainly cook pizzas with it, but now I have some nice cookware and do the occasional different things. Spatchcock chicken, honey mustard chicken, steaks (with a Tuscan grill) and sausage stew. Check out the wood fired chef on YouTube for a few examples.

The major consideration is brick vs. precast. Precast is smaller but heaps easier to build. Fully brick is a much more complex build and uses more wood to heat up and maintain, as well as taking longer to heat up. You can fit more pizzas in it but realistically, that's no concern. Each pizza takes about 4 mins to cook (if that) and I can only make one at a time anyway.

 

[Dave70]

It's an enormous 'it depends' in my book. I like using mine - occasionally, but in hindsight, I came to realize pretty much any configuration of cooking, fire, beer, and being outdoors would suffice.
The one shown is an off the shelf unit I got at a very good price. It does the job, however, and this is huge in my book, thermal mass and being able to hold a stable temperature is critical to being able to control the cook. Pizza, maybe not so much, but baking etc, for sure. There's a good reason commercial ovens are the size and thickness of igloos. And that's kind of the rub. These things are fule monsters as is, more mass = more wood.
As mentioned, getting multiple dishes from the same 'cook' is the go.

And if I'm honest, I'd bet most people couldn't tell if the pizza was baked in an electric, gas or wood fired oven.
But it's not really about that.

Like I said, any configuration.
Just add beer and tunes..

 

[WHRALR]

We bought a pre-cut kit. It uses fire bricks and tiles and 'refractory' mortar so can take over 600C. We heat to 500C or so for pizza, and then we have another 3 or so days of cooking with the residual heat (no more wood after day 1), the insulation for base and wrap before render is the key to this. It is about 900mm dia internal, fie for 1 or 2 pizza. You can see that I am no bricklayer, but it goes well with my home-brew lager and 2 day ferment dough.

 

[TONY VAN DER ZANDEN]

Hi everyone,

I’m thinking about building outdoor wood fired oven. I haven’t settled on size, materials, or design yet. Cob dome is something I am really considering,

if I can find some clay in my backyard, just from a cost perspective and a bit of a trial run. Other than pizza I’m not sure what we would cook in it.
Maybe a large batch of flat breads. My dad has gotten quite good at Dutch oven bread in a conventional oven. So it could see some bread baking. As a family of 6 we can really pack away the food if everyone is enjoying it. Right now my 2 year old can polish off a happy meal and say he’s still hungry and my 10 year old eats as much as I do. We don’t really entertain other than high holidays.

Is this a silly idea? If you have a pizza oven, how often do you use it? If you have a wood fired oven, is the extra work to fire it up worth it? What style/shape is the best?
Happy to hear your thought or wishes.

This is the site I went to, plans are dirt cheap, if you go the Masterly Tall Oven you only need to cut 2 bricks.: Wood pizza oven Building wood burning brick bread ovens
There are hundreds of testimonials to browse and feed the imagination.