It's 2 years to the day today since I started building my P90. After the initial shock of "I can actually build stuff with these two lumps I got for hands" I got to say that I couldn't be happier for chosing to go with you guys. The ease of use and the high quality of your product paired with these educational videos (and all the other ones) are definitely added value and what makes your product stand out in an over-saturated market offering sub-par, over-priced items. Your item is none of the above mentioned and it definitely stands out on its own as worth every single penny (cent, I suppose if you're in Oz). Thanks Ben and team.
I built my own 42" I.D. pompelli oven, and I'd like to give you guys Kudo's for making this possible for anyone to build their own Pizza Oven at a reasonable price. When I tried to give someone a price quote, for be to build them an oven and base, it was $6,000. So again you guys have put together an amazing package. I designed a full concrete base, with radius to match the oven and loading area. The oven itself can be lifted off the H pattern base, and another base added for a floor height of 52" max height. Like you I like the log cabin style fire build, I have an abundance of dead Osage Orange wood, and with 2 stacks my oven reachs well over 1200°👍
Thank you so much! We get quite a few comments from folks thinking our kits are a bit highly priced, when we are doing our level best to make a really good quality product at a reasonable price. But until you've actually built one from scratch it's hard to understand how much it can cost
amazing kit. If anyone is debating which path to take to build a brick oven this kit does all the hard work for you with great detail. As a Mason I wouldn’t build one for myself or a customer unless it was one of the “firebrick company” ovens
Hi Ben, one day I will be able to build one of your ovens, but until then, I just wanted to let you know that it's just a pleasure to listen to you talk about your ovens. You enthusiasm is infectious, and it's inspiring to listen to someone who is so excited and committed to what you're doing. Thanks so much!!
This (and your other videos) are so maticulously detailed! I love them. I am in the Netherlands and have build an oven myself. It's a bit smaller than yours. I went through your curing process and today is the day for the maiden full firing. Your set and forget method sounds sooo obvious but I haven't seen anyone else doing it yet. I will for sure use this method and cross my fingers that my oven can handle the heat of a full fire😅😅. Thanks and all the best from the Netherlands, Evert
Awesome video once again! Great detail. After building my oven about 6 months ago, I FINALLY started to cure it 2 days ago! I can't wait to start cooking in it after the curing process!
@@TheFireBrickCo It could be that I procrastinate a little too much.... lol. Thanks for all your informative videos by the way, I appreciate all the effort you and your team put in to make this an easy and fun hands on experience for those who may have originally found it a daunting task (like myself) to build a brick oven!
Soooo I'm visiting my kid in Sicily and his rental has an outdoor brick oven. I have never cooked in one (not your brand) but your method of fire starting was spot on and thank you so much!
One time, long time ago, I was on my basic Mountain And Arctic Warfare course in Arctic Norway, as a Royal Marine Commando. Top down fires were taught to us by the local indigenous people, the Sami. (They are called Laplanders in western culture.) They don`t live in Lapland, there is no lapland , they mostly live in a place called Finmark. It runs between Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. We made fires just like yours, but over four feet tall and each layer was packed with snow to prevent the fire embers dropping to the base below and setting the whole tower alight. As the fire burns downwards, the snow would melt exposing the next level of fuel and in that way the fire would burn all night without needing to be re-fuelled. Brilliant! This was on the survival phase of the course and fires like this, or indeed any fires, are not tactical and we never used them in normal routine. Years later, I was invited to a "Lap Dancing Club" in Birmingham .I could not believe there would be so many Laps/Sami , in Birmingham that they could form their own dancing club. Imagine my surprise when I entered the establishment to be confronted by semi clad young ladies wearing only skimpy underwear! "Hvor er alle samisk? I shouted repeatedly, " Where are all the Laplanders?" A rather burly young chap suggested I should vacate the premises as it 'was in my best interests' by placing a hand firmly on my shoulder. Swiftly disavowing him of this notion with a throat punch, roundhouse kick and leg sweep, I continued to ask the whereabouts of all the Sami and that`s about all I can remember till I woke up to a beep beep beep sound in Birmingham`s Queen Elizabeth Hospital intensive care ward about four weeks later. As an aside, a good mate of mine lives in the most northern city in Norway, and I now live in Perth, how we laugh when we notice our local temps are exactly the same! Except mine is the one with a plus in front and his has a minus ! I love your work Ben, good effort mate.
Wow, very informative video again Ben! I thought I knew how to light my oven but I didn't try the hardwood at the back trick before. Makes complete sense but it didn't cross my mind to do that! Thanks a lot! James in Southern Germany
You're so welcome! It was a concept that I picked up from a chap who had a massive commercial oven that he fired once a fortnight for the community to use - because it took so long to fire it he did a 'front to back' firing with all of the fuel already in the oven, relying on the lack of oxygen beyond the fire-face to allow for a steady continuous burn.
Great idea! I'm looking forward to giving it a try. I would like to comment on the "kiln" method of drying your next fire's wood with the residual heat. I have done this a few times and it does work very well at drying the wood. What wasn't so great was the nasty mess it made. The moisture that came out of the wood condensed on the much cooler door and flue. As the condensation accumulated it ran down the sooty surface and made a sooty mess all over the entry of the oven and all over the door. Even with the door placed tightly closed that moist air made its way up the flue. I removed the flue on subsequent attempts and it helped but didn't eliminate the problem.
That's a good point - I think the timber that I've been using has been relatively dry compared to what you're working with there. The mess can be remedied during the next firing but I agree completely that it would not be ideal! I'll have a bit more of a play with the process to see if I can suggest any improvements to it
@@TheFireBrickCo I have a similar problem, but I have probably been putting the next load of wood in at too hot a temp. I'm planning to try your "wait til 100C" method here and see if the condensation issue improves
Cheers for the great video! It really is a fine method but I would have liked to see what you do with the fire and the remains of the forth before you are sliding the pizza in. Do you move it al to one side, and if so, which side? And how do you refuel the fire when you are making, let's say, a dozen pizzas? And at what time during the process do you place a fresh log in the oven? For pizza's do you need actual flames or just radiant heat?
So many good questions! Yes, we move the fire to one side before making pizza, and sweep the floor clear of all dust and ash. The side is up to you, I use either interchangably. You can just add one or two small pieces of timber to the bank of coals to keep a small fire burning throughout the cook - you don't actually need flame but if you don't have a small fire burning then the temperature in the oven will slowly start to fall rather than holding at 400C or so
Hey Ben - Greetings from Texas! I have been using your modified top down method to fire my pizza oven and it is so much easier than a center burn followed by a perimiter burn and moving all the coals around - thank you. I have found that after I have reached the temp for cooking pizza, I have a large amount of coals and also ash from the wood that has been burned - lots! I estimate that the logs used for the firing process weigh on the vicinity of 12kg or so. I have tried moving the coals to the side of the oven, but they occupy so much space and really diminishes the room left for cooking. Do you remove the coals to a fire bucket or other suitable container - or use some other method? Thanks !
Oh great question! First thing you could experiment with is using less wood for your main fuel load, you might be able to get up to temp with less fuel than you're using (which would reduce your coal bed). Second - go for it with the metal bucket or better yet a firepit - it's just a safety concern having a red-hot bucket kicking around at ground level for little ones to touch. Something else you could do is to ramp the coals back against the wall using a piece of 4"x4" angle iron, tucked under the coals and pushed into the bed to ramp it back up against the wall. Hard to describle in words but you might get the picture
G'Day M8 😁 I'm based in the UK, love your channel and all the useful information and instructions I'm wondering, when it comes to building my own oven, do I need to use refractory mortar, or the 5 stage firing method allows me to use fire cement
You'll definitely want to use a good refractory mortar when building your oven - even if you cure a standard mortar very slowly it will eventually disintegrate due to the high temperatures. Does that answer the question? (I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to by 'fire cement')
Very much so, they are totally different ovens. It becomes a lot more complicated to build for one, and to insulate beneath the oven becomes a real challenge.
Can this be modified so that the fire is to the side of the oven instead of the back? Is it as simple as moving all of the logs and embers to the side once you're ready to cook or do I have to do the initial set up differently
Going back to your “ red brick in oven “ video. Is there any significant toxicity associated with red bricks or any specific fire brick to avoid with food exposure to be cautious of ? The hottest my fire will get is about 350* F ?
I couldn't speak to the toxicity of other bricks, but I can tell you that the bricks used in our ovens have been tested and certified to NSF standards for food safety, they're completely safe to bake directly on
This was filmed with the D105, but the method works with all of our ovens (just less wood required for the smaller ovens). All of our ovens can be installed indoors
Fair enough - there are some serious challenges to installing a fully assembled oven though, that you should be aware of. An authentic Wood Fired Oven is going to be heavy, well over 1500lbm, which means you're going to need heavy lifting equipment to get it into your back yard. If you don't have really good access to the yard you would need to get a crane to lift it over the house... Often it's actually more economical to get a kit and have a professional construct it for you on site instead. Worth looking at all the options to see what's out there
Again ... responsible adult should light the fire. Yeah the responsible adult that has been playing with wood fires since he was a child 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 But to be fair, my son will attend boy scouts next week now that he has turned 7. He's going to be playing with wood, axes, knifes and fire pretty soon. He will be lighting the BBQ and hopefully wood fired oven pretty soon.
@@TheFireBrickCo Well let's face the simple truth, us rowdy boys (and gals), didn't listen to reason no matter how reasonable our parents sounded. After all, we still need to find out ourselves that fire is somehow hot 😂 So I have no problem having my son give himself a nice burn to find out the same. I guess it's also responsible to stand back sometimes. Completely sheltering kids from the world isn't a good strategy either.
Hey Ben, being watching you a long time, and have learned many things from u and ur channel. Don't u think this method waste too much of wood? a bit of overkill ?
Good question - I'm trying to get the oven right up to very high temperatures, and being the D105 I need to heat up 1000kg of thermal mass, which is quite a lot.
It's 2 years to the day today since I started building my P90. After the initial shock of "I can actually build stuff with these two lumps I got for hands" I got to say that I couldn't be happier for chosing to go with you guys. The ease of use and the high quality of your product paired with these educational videos (and all the other ones) are definitely added value and what makes your product stand out in an over-saturated market offering sub-par, over-priced items. Your item is none of the above mentioned and it definitely stands out on its own as worth every single penny (cent, I suppose if you're in Oz). Thanks Ben and team.
I built my own 42" I.D. pompelli oven, and I'd like to give you guys Kudo's for making this possible for anyone to build their own Pizza Oven at a reasonable price. When I tried to give someone a price quote, for be to build them an oven and base, it was $6,000. So again you guys have put together an amazing package. I designed a full concrete base, with radius to match the oven and loading area. The oven itself can be lifted off the H pattern base, and another base added for a floor height of 52" max height.
Like you I like the log cabin style fire build, I have an abundance of dead Osage Orange wood, and with 2 stacks my oven reachs well over 1200°👍
Thank you so much! We get quite a few comments from folks thinking our kits are a bit highly priced, when we are doing our level best to make a really good quality product at a reasonable price. But until you've actually built one from scratch it's hard to understand how much it can cost
amazing kit. If anyone is debating which path to take to build a brick oven this kit does all the hard work for you with great detail. As a Mason I wouldn’t build one for myself or a customer unless it was one of the “firebrick company” ovens
Aww shucks Frankie - thank you!
Hi Ben, one day I will be able to build one of your ovens, but until then, I just wanted to let you know that it's just a pleasure to listen to you talk about your ovens. You enthusiasm is infectious, and it's inspiring to listen to someone who is so excited and committed to what you're doing. Thanks so much!!
Well that’s just straight up LOVELY, thank you!
Useful and interesting. Well presented, if a little slow. Thank you.
Yep I need to learn how to be more succinct, I will keep trying!
This (and your other videos) are so maticulously detailed! I love them. I am in the Netherlands and have build an oven myself. It's a bit smaller than yours. I went through your curing process and today is the day for the maiden full firing. Your set and forget method sounds sooo obvious but I haven't seen anyone else doing it yet. I will for sure use this method and cross my fingers that my oven can handle the heat of a full fire😅😅. Thanks and all the best from the Netherlands, Evert
Thank you!! Stoked to hear that we have people watching from so far away!!
Great idea! This has been a huge barrier for using oven. Using oven to dry the wood and have a pre- built fire is brilliant!!
Thank you! Yep it works brilliantly if you're organised enough to build that next fire - future you will be ever so grateful if you do!
Awesome video once again! Great detail. After building my oven about 6 months ago, I FINALLY started to cure it 2 days ago! I can't wait to start cooking in it after the curing process!
Far out you have been PATIENT!
@@TheFireBrickCo It could be that I procrastinate a little too much.... lol.
Thanks for all your informative videos by the way, I appreciate all the effort you and your team put in to make this an easy and fun hands on experience for those who may have originally found it a daunting task (like myself) to build a brick oven!
Soooo I'm visiting my kid in Sicily and his rental has an outdoor brick oven. I have never cooked in one (not your brand) but your method of fire starting was spot on and thank you so much!
You are so welcome!
Hello Ben. We’ve missed you, so it’s good to see you’re back. Steve from the UK
Hi Steve! Yep it's been a very busy year for us, I'm looking forward to filming some more videos in the months ahead!
One time, long time ago, I was on my basic Mountain And Arctic Warfare course in Arctic Norway, as a Royal Marine Commando.
Top down fires were taught to us by the local indigenous people, the Sami. (They are called Laplanders in western culture.) They don`t live in Lapland, there is no lapland , they mostly live in a place called Finmark. It runs between Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. We made fires just like yours, but over four feet tall and each layer was packed with snow to prevent the fire embers dropping to the base below and setting the whole tower alight. As the fire burns downwards, the snow would melt exposing the next level of fuel and in that way the fire would burn all night without needing to be re-fuelled. Brilliant! This was on the survival phase of the course and fires like this, or indeed any fires, are not tactical and we never used them in normal routine.
Years later, I was invited to a "Lap Dancing Club" in Birmingham .I could not believe there would be so many Laps/Sami , in Birmingham that they could form their own dancing club. Imagine my surprise when I entered the establishment to be confronted by semi clad young ladies wearing only skimpy underwear!
"Hvor er alle samisk? I shouted repeatedly, " Where are all the Laplanders?"
A rather burly young chap suggested I should vacate the premises as it 'was in my best interests' by placing a hand firmly on my shoulder. Swiftly disavowing him of this notion with a throat punch, roundhouse kick and leg sweep, I continued to ask the whereabouts of all the Sami and that`s about all I can remember till I woke up to a beep beep beep sound in Birmingham`s Queen Elizabeth Hospital intensive care ward about four weeks later.
As an aside, a good mate of mine lives in the most northern city in Norway, and I now live in Perth, how we laugh when we notice our local temps are exactly the same!
Except mine is the one with a plus in front and his has a minus !
I love your work Ben, good effort mate.
Thanks Bert - you're a wordsmith!
Wow, very informative video again Ben! I thought I knew how to light my oven but I didn't try the hardwood at the back trick before. Makes complete sense but it didn't cross my mind to do that! Thanks a lot! James in Southern Germany
You're so welcome! It was a concept that I picked up from a chap who had a massive commercial oven that he fired once a fortnight for the community to use - because it took so long to fire it he did a 'front to back' firing with all of the fuel already in the oven, relying on the lack of oxygen beyond the fire-face to allow for a steady continuous burn.
Just in time! I’m doing my first full fire today.
Phew! 😂
Great idea! I'm looking forward to giving it a try. I would like to comment on the "kiln" method of drying your next fire's wood with the residual heat. I have done this a few times and it does work very well at drying the wood. What wasn't so great was the nasty mess it made. The moisture that came out of the wood condensed on the much cooler door and flue. As the condensation accumulated it ran down the sooty surface and made a sooty mess all over the entry of the oven and all over the door. Even with the door placed tightly closed that moist air made its way up the flue. I removed the flue on subsequent attempts and it helped but didn't eliminate the problem.
That's a good point - I think the timber that I've been using has been relatively dry compared to what you're working with there. The mess can be remedied during the next firing but I agree completely that it would not be ideal! I'll have a bit more of a play with the process to see if I can suggest any improvements to it
@@TheFireBrickCo I have a similar problem, but I have probably been putting the next load of wood in at too hot a temp. I'm planning to try your "wait til 100C" method here and see if the condensation issue improves
I'll definitely give it a try. Thanks!!
Let us know how it goes for you Frank!
Love this so much! Thank you!
You are most welcome 😁
Cheers for the great video! It really is a fine method but I would have liked to see what you do with the fire and the remains of the forth before you are sliding the pizza in. Do you move it al to one side, and if so, which side? And how do you refuel the fire when you are making, let's say, a dozen pizzas? And at what time during the process do you place a fresh log in the oven? For pizza's do you need actual flames or just radiant heat?
So many good questions! Yes, we move the fire to one side before making pizza, and sweep the floor clear of all dust and ash. The side is up to you, I use either interchangably. You can just add one or two small pieces of timber to the bank of coals to keep a small fire burning throughout the cook - you don't actually need flame but if you don't have a small fire burning then the temperature in the oven will slowly start to fall rather than holding at 400C or so
@@TheFireBrickCo Thank you very much for this information. Now we can really get cracking!
Hey Ben - Greetings from Texas! I have been using your modified top down method to fire my pizza oven and it is so much easier than a center burn followed by a perimiter burn and moving all the coals around - thank you. I have found that after I have reached the temp for cooking pizza, I have a large amount of coals and also ash from the wood that has been burned - lots! I estimate that the logs used for the firing process weigh on the vicinity of 12kg or so. I have tried moving the coals to the side of the oven, but they occupy so much space and really diminishes the room left for cooking. Do you remove the coals to a fire bucket or other suitable container - or use some other method? Thanks !
Oh great question! First thing you could experiment with is using less wood for your main fuel load, you might be able to get up to temp with less fuel than you're using (which would reduce your coal bed). Second - go for it with the metal bucket or better yet a firepit - it's just a safety concern having a red-hot bucket kicking around at ground level for little ones to touch. Something else you could do is to ramp the coals back against the wall using a piece of 4"x4" angle iron, tucked under the coals and pushed into the bed to ramp it back up against the wall. Hard to describle in words but you might get the picture
G'Day M8 😁
I'm based in the UK, love your channel and all the useful information and instructions
I'm wondering, when it comes to building my own oven, do I need to use refractory mortar, or the 5 stage firing method allows me to use fire cement
You'll definitely want to use a good refractory mortar when building your oven - even if you cure a standard mortar very slowly it will eventually disintegrate due to the high temperatures. Does that answer the question? (I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to by 'fire cement')
Hi Ben, I like your lighting method with the gas blow torch . Can you recommend a gas blow torch and where I can purchase it from please
I go straight to my local hardware store and buy their 'MAP' burner, or whatever they have that's similar.
Is there a difference in performance between a pizza oven designed with the fire under the floor as opposed to the traditional fire inside the dome?
Very much so, they are totally different ovens. It becomes a lot more complicated to build for one, and to insulate beneath the oven becomes a real challenge.
Hi Ben, how would you scale this down for a P85?
Good question Kevin! I still put heavy timber in the back but half as much, and the fort fire is a similar footprint but shorter
Can this be modified so that the fire is to the side of the oven instead of the back? Is it as simple as moving all of the logs and embers to the side once you're ready to cook or do I have to do the initial set up differently
For sure! I always push them to one side but I wait until I've reached my target temp
Going back to your “ red brick in oven “ video.
Is there any significant toxicity associated with red bricks or any specific fire brick to avoid with food exposure to be cautious of ? The hottest my fire will get is about 350* F ?
I couldn't speak to the toxicity of other bricks, but I can tell you that the bricks used in our ovens have been tested and certified to NSF standards for food safety, they're completely safe to bake directly on
@@TheFireBrickCo thank you.
can you also use the oven as a stove? to heat the room?
You can, but they don't throw out huge amounts of heat as they're designed to keep the heat IN, rather than beam it out into the room
Is this the P85 oven? Can it be installed indoors?
This was filmed with the D105, but the method works with all of our ovens (just less wood required for the smaller ovens). All of our ovens can be installed indoors
I love your lack of bullshit.
Thanks Dylan!
I'd rather buy one that's completely assembled
Fair enough - there are some serious challenges to installing a fully assembled oven though, that you should be aware of. An authentic Wood Fired Oven is going to be heavy, well over 1500lbm, which means you're going to need heavy lifting equipment to get it into your back yard. If you don't have really good access to the yard you would need to get a crane to lift it over the house... Often it's actually more economical to get a kit and have a professional construct it for you on site instead. Worth looking at all the options to see what's out there
Again ... responsible adult should light the fire. Yeah the responsible adult that has been playing with wood fires since he was a child 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
But to be fair, my son will attend boy scouts next week now that he has turned 7. He's going to be playing with wood, axes, knifes and fire pretty soon. He will be lighting the BBQ and hopefully wood fired oven pretty soon.
I love it - as long as they're being supervised by a responsible adult I say GO FOR IT! Your son will absolutely love it I am sure!
@@TheFireBrickCo Well let's face the simple truth, us rowdy boys (and gals), didn't listen to reason no matter how reasonable our parents sounded. After all, we still need to find out ourselves that fire is somehow hot 😂
So I have no problem having my son give himself a nice burn to find out the same. I guess it's also responsible to stand back sometimes. Completely sheltering kids from the world isn't a good strategy either.
Hey Ben, being watching you a long time, and have learned many things from u and ur channel.
Don't u think this method waste too much of wood? a bit of overkill ?
Good question - I'm trying to get the oven right up to very high temperatures, and being the D105 I need to heat up 1000kg of thermal mass, which is quite a lot.