How To Build Your Own Pizza Oven?

How To Build Your Own Pizza Oven?

If your kids are fans of pizzas and love to ask for delivery pizza every weekend, maybe it’s time to think about building your own pizza oven. If you are keen on cooking at home and enjoy making various dishes with friends and family, maybe you should also go for a DIY pizza oven kit. Don’t worry about wasting time and money on it, since who doesn’t love pizza? In addition, it is not only about the food itself, but also about the homemade cooking and do-it-yourself kind of experience.

Let us follow this article, in which we will show you how to build your own pizza oven and other pieces of information to help you get to know it.

Preparation

Before you can start making your DIY pizza oven, there are a few things you need to check out and prepare in advance.

Which types of pizza ovens

There are two types of pizza ovens for you to consider: a square oven and a dome oven.

A square oven comes in a square shape and is made of bricks and pavers. This type of oven is quite simple to build and will not take you too much time to work with it. In other words, you can build your own outdoor pizza oven DIY on the way while you are on a trip with your loved ones or simply right at your backyard. The reason why it is quite prefered is that it is easy to install as well as bring along thanks to the compact design. Even though it cannot bring you the same aesthetic value as the dome oven can, the square oven is still a wonderful choice for you to consider.

If you do not like the design of the square oven, you may love the dome oven. This style of pizza oven will bring you the sense of the pizza’s country, Italia. It will also help the pizza cooked evenly thanks to the heat and air convection created by its design. Although it will take you more time to build this type of pizza oven in comparison with the square oven, you may enjoy the way it looks in your garden. One more plus point for this pizza oven is that it does not cost you too much to build, so that you can have a wonderful time without hurting your pocket.

Where to build

You should consider where you are going to build a pizza oven, for instance, in your backyard or in your garden. It needs to be a place that is stable and level; otherwise you will have to make a foundation. After that, you need to clear that area to check the ground and find the highest point of it, which will be the location for the deck.

How much it costs

An outdoor pizza oven will cost you about $100 if you purchase a DIY pizza oven kit, but you can save more if you buy materials and do it on your own. We will give you a list of what to buy to build an outdoor pizza oven so that you can prepare in advance.

What materials to prepare

Here is a list of necessary things you need to prepare to build outdoor pizza oven DIY:

• Gloves
• Screws
• Mixing bucket
• Cement: White or grey
• Spade
• Sharp sand
• Bricks: Clay bricks and fire bricks
• Some wood pallets
• Drill
• Saw
• High heat mortar
• Some basic building tools
• Aggregate
• Trowel
• Tape measure
• Safety glasses
• Grout bag
• Or a DIY pizza oven kit to save time.

 

Steps To Build Your Own Pizza Oven

Step 1: Build the base

On the location you have chosen, take the pallets out and lay them down. Make sure the ground is even so that your base as well as your oven will not be affected during your usage.

Cut a section of chipboard which is the same size with the base of the pallet and put some strings of the chipboard to the pallet’s top. Make sure the strings’ length is about 50 mm.

Alternatively, you can lay the bricks or divide the bricks into 2 parts to create the shape of your pizza oven as you want. You may find out that you lack the number of bricks when starting to work, so make sure to do this counting before coming into actual work.

Create a mixture of concrete by cement, sharp sand and aggregate. The recommended ratio is 1:2:4. Next, put the mixture into the wooden mould using the spade. A long wooden baton is recommended so that you can have a perfect mixture.

For the bricks’ usage, you can stack them up until it reaches the ideal height. Using the cinder block or concrete one is also a great alternative. Fill the concrete mixture to make them stay strong for the oven. Things will get solid after the concrete gets dry.

Make sure the top layer is nice and clean since it will be the floor for your outdoor pizza oven.

Step 2: Cover the base

To cover the base, you can have many choices available, depending on your preferences. You can use the brick tiles to create a nice finish for your pizza oven. You will need the complete brick tile and the tile for different corners of your oven. Use the mixture of concrete and the trowel to paste to the tile then press them onto the base. Don’t paste too much since it can make the finish look unattractive, or too little since the tiles will fall out easily. After that, you will need a grout bag to help fill the unfilled parts in the base with the rest of the mixture.

Step 3: Make the countertop

After the base is fully covered, we can move on the countertop part. This part is quite important since it will provide a stable place for the oven.

For a simple and quick countertop, you can use the material you already have, the concrete mixture. If you want a sharp corner design, you can use a metal frame for the countertop. Use a metal grinder to make the countertop flat and smooth. A plywood frame is also a good choice and you will need some glue and nails to make it stay sturdy. Use a rebar to help provide a more stable base for the countertop and the concrete. You can use a trowel to smoothen the surface as well.

Let the concrete rest for a few days to get a dry surface, you can check if it is still wet or not by the dark spots on it.

Step 4: Create the floor

The floor is also the part we need to pay attention to, since it can affect the heat inside the oven. To be more precise, a good floor can help maintain and protect the base of the oven from the heat.

You can choose bricks to make the floor, with fire bricks and clay bricks. The fire brick should be laid in the center and the clay bricks should be laid around them. By doing this, the floor center can handle the temperature at about 1800 degrees F.

Next, create a mixture of refractory grout or high heat mortar. You will use this mixture to make all the bricks stick together under high temperature conditions. Make sure the mixture is not too washy or too dense, as it will have an impact on the structure of the floor. You can check if the mixture has the same density as the peanut butter. Remove the water if there is any.

You will need a trowel to paste the mixture on the back of each brick. Be careful not to over paste since it can become a mess inside the oven. You can clean the unwanted mixture by using a damp sponge. With some corners, you will need to cut the bricks to fit them in, and a ginder may be useful for you. It is advisable to lay the fire bricks in the center first, so that you will know which part to cover. When all the fire bricks are in place, you can lay the rest of the clay bricks around and arrange much more easily.

After you have finished, you need to let the whole floor rest for about 24 hours to make sure the refractory grout or high heat mortar dry and stick all the bricks together.

Step 5: Build the arch

The arch part is quite simple to make but you need to pay attention to the form of it. The reason for that is that the more carefully you form the arch, the more beautiful it looks when it is done. This will affect the overall look of your outdoor pizza oven.

You can use foams, cardboards or parts of chipboards to create the form for the arch. The square oven will take you less time than the dome oven, since you can simply shape the square corner to make the arch. With the dome oven, it is recommended to use cardboard as it is light and can be folded to create the form as you want. The ideal height of the arch is ⅔ the height of the pizza oven.

Don’t worry that the materials you use can catch fire when you start to cook, since you will have to remove them in some next steps.

After that, start applying the concrete mixture to the back of the bricks and stack them up as the form you have created. The weight of each brick will support each other so you do not need to worry about them falling over after the cardboard has been removed.

You can also use some tiles, granite or stone to cover the arch so that it matches with the base.

Step 6: Create the chimney

One important part of the pizza oven is the chimney. There will be a flue plus a connector which comes with a pipe to let the smoke and heat go out of the inside. You can simply insert the grout into the base so that the air flow can be maintained during the cooking time.

Step 7: Remove the form

After you have completed the building, let the oven rest for a few days. This will be necessary since the concrete needs time to dry. Next, you can now remove the form from your pizza oven. The cardboard or any material you use to keep the form of the arch can be carefully removed and your oven is ready to be used.

Don’t forget to clean the inside of the pizza oven before using it, since there will be dust and other building materials left inside. These things can ruin your first homemade pizza experience, so remember to check before cooking.

Step 8: Start a fire and start cooking

Now, your outdoor pizza oven is ready. You can try making your first homemade pizza at home for your kids and family members with it. It is recommended to start some small fires first to avoid any crackings, then you can be free with a suitable amount of fire to cook your pizza.

You should prepare raw pizza dough or premade pizza crust, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauces, basil leaves, olive oils, beef, sausages, or any favorite topping that you and your kids would love to put on your pizza. After 2-3 minutes of grilling inside the pizza oven, at the temperature of 750 to 800 degrees F, your pizza will be good. Let it cool down for a few minutes, then cut them into 4 to 6 parts, and let it be served to your exciting kids.

 

Conclusion

That is the end of this article, in which we have shared with you necessary information and step by step to help you build your own outdoor pizza oven at home. Hopefully after reading this article, you will be confident to start making the pizza oven and enjoy pizza time with all your beloved ones.

Read more:

• Can You Put A Pizza Box In The Oven?
• Roccbox Pizza Oven
• Bertello Pizza Oven
• How Does A Wood Fired Pizza Oven Work?
• Ooni 3 Pizza Oven Instructions

References:

How to Make a Brick Oven (with Pictures) – wikiHow

Pizza – Wikipedia

Where did pizza originate?

Wood-Fired Pizza Ovens