You can get a hotter fire (with the same amount of fuel) if you put the burning wood up on a grate, or anything that lets some air in under the fire. This creates a stronger draft through the whole burning chamber and out the chimney, which is what we want.
Putting wood on a grate does draw more air but burns the wood much faster. It’s covered in many articles on how to get good heat from your wood burning fireplace while getting the longest burn from your wood. Building it in the floor of the fireplace restricts the air flow through coals and let’s it get hot fast but slow down to heat the same space longer on a given amount of wood. Bidenomics makes the free stuff too valuable to burn wrecklessly just to stay warm as it’s not free or affordable anymore, $200 a Rick delivered and they all lie calling it a chord and a “face chord” and they’re cutting it even smaller too just to screw you even worse. The more you know.
@@308dad8 even pizza is political now. 🍕🤠 Which is why easy backyard pizza ovens are important to know how to build. Good for cooking more than pizza too. 👍
@@308dad8 I think we're sort of on the same page, but...where I am in Asia it is the Russian sourced timber that has been cut off and created a shortage. Bidenomics don't have much to do with the massive clearing of rainforest habitat throughout Borneo and other areas of asia/ PNG/ South America. I'm happy to pay a little more, use less [kinda forced to when a 2x4 is no longer a 2x4!] and leave a bit for the future generations.
I was just thinking the same thing. It majorly reminds me of Grant's old videos on TKOR. It's as if he was reincarnated. I know that doesn't make sense on multiple levels, but I have an imagination I guess. Lol
I live in Italy near Naples, and I'm impressed with the final product. By the way, Italians make pizza with what Americans call pepperoni, but they call it "Diavolo," because they use spicy salami. ("Peperoni" in Italian means "peppers," so if you ask for a pepperoni pizza in Italy, you're going to get one with peppers on it. I have a pizza oven attachment for my Weber, which works with a little massaging. The hardest part is getting the thing to 700F. One little pointer is that pizza makers in Italy don't use corn meal, they use a flour called Semola (or Semolina) rimacinata. You can probably find it in any grocery store. It doesn't stick as much to the dough, so less comes off in the oven. And you don't need to use much, just a sprinkle. Shake the pizza back and forth on the peel to make sure it's loose. You may want to use a pizza stone, because I'm not sure pavers are food grade. Anyway, nice job. Your pizza looked perfect.
@@kloapan I don't know, but I suppose if the slab can tolerate 1000 degrees Fahrenheit without cracking, it might work. Note, however, that we don't use granite as a pizza stone, so I don't know what the result would be. If you try it, use a stone you don't care if it breaks. I suggest buying a real pizza stone or pizza steel.
That's exactly what happened to me when we visited Pisa, Italy back in 1989. I was stationed at VQ-2 in Rota, Spain and my wife and I did a Eurail tour around Europe before transferring back to the states. I ordered a pepperoni pizza and they brought out a pizza with big banana peppers on it. When I tried to explain what I wanted the waiter said "Oh you want salami" They fixed it for me and it was the best pizza ever ! We loved Italy ! I wish I could post a picture from then.
@@Michaelhendersonnovelist1 Yes. granite is ideal as a prep surface, but 100% NOT at a pizza stone. refractory firebricks in a herringbone layout are your best bet.
you can also add a pizza stone or steel to the top of the cooking surface to remove any fears of lead and also reduce the fears of the paver crumbling.
I've been cooking in one of these for years. Generally I haven't had an issue with needing to cook from the side, but I will consider it. The design of the oven naturally draws in air on the bottom and the flame/heat moves to the rear to go up the gap to the top chamber. If you can't weld, just build yourself a base out of inexpensive cinder block to the height you like and put a paver on top as your oven base. this allows you to place the oven on whatever surface you like, preferably a concrete patio of some sort. Cinder blocks in the center will support your base pave stone if you get heat cracks. My oven is on the ground for now. I have 2 pieces of 1 1/2" angle iron about 3 ft long turned down with the angle facing up that I use as rails for a piece of expanded metal that I build my fire outside the oven on and then slide to the rear once it is burning well. I always cook pizza on parchment paper. Lightly coat with olive oil and easily spread your dough out to form the crust. Parchment paper makes it super easy to get your pizza peel under, and you don't have to worry about contaminates from the stepping stone. Put a little flour on the pizza peel to help things slide. I have found getting my cooking stone to about 450f gets me perfect leoparding(brown spots on the bottom). I've gotten it to 600f before, but the bottom of the crust burns before the toppings are cooked crispy or the cheese begins to brown. Rotate pizza around a couple of times during the cooking and monitor closely so you don't burn. The slot that the flame/heat is coming up produces a lot of heat. I rotate on my pizza peel gently grabbing the corner of the parchment paper and put it back in. The more you use your oven the more you will develop skills and senses for the process. Be careful, your friends and family will love coming over for wood fired pizza. I just make them bring beer.
I think you could go no less with the temperature, but go higher. The reason why pizza oven have temperatures above 700°F is that nothing has time to burning before other things have time to Cook. And its literally a 90sec job for one pizza. Some good ideas, especially the sliding fire, especially if it was on a grate for more airflow, and ash falling down for later cleanup, gotta try incorporaring that to mine. Im doing meetups with my famili and friends where a single person if there aren't many of us, or pairs/teens each do their own pizza with ingridiends i prepare for them, and then I put the all for about 1.5, 2 minutes, and we have a game who made the better pizza, based on look, and taste if there are enough slices so everyone can take everyones pizza
This is the best build that I have seen for this pizza oven. I don't weld so I am going to just stack up some cinder blocks to raise it higher. Going to build it next week when we get back from vacation!
U just changed my life , was gonna build one more complicated , I will just modify your idea , thank you so much for tip with crack and check the chemicals
Personally, I wouldn't use paver stones as the base. It might not have lead, but that doesn't mean it's food safe. I'd place something like a pizza stone on top of it and cook on that. Secondly, just use fire bricks. They cost a little more than regular bricks, but they're designed to handle direct exposure to flames. They won't fall apart, so the build would last long.
I used regular bricks for my pizza/bread oven Works great. First time you fire it up just go slow to build up the heat. th-cam.com/video/wuvRWU1hyzs/w-d-xo.html
I used you ideas , I found 24x24 papers. I used 3 high cinter blocks that i had available. Free I put sand in the holes of the block for insulation. But had to add block in the middle to raise the fire . My oven sits above 30 " high and sits on a 4x4 concrete pad I had Free again. My fire is in the back of the oven My oven temp has reached 780 to 830. It's hard to keep the temp for long periods of time.
Make extra dough and when you’re done with the pizzas use the residual heat of the oven to bake your own bread. Leave a few bricks to warm up on the top of the oven while you’re cooking the pizzas and use it to close the entrance of the oven to bake you bread.
Welp, I'm making my man one of these for his birthday next week. I can't weld, but I have an older rusted out fire pit I can cobble up for a base. Getting it off the ground was my issue and you gave me a solution. This is the shizzle! 🎉 Thank you!
I did the same mod for my outdoor masonry grill, but added a 30psi regulator and 5 inch burner to the back inside of the unit; 900 deg in 12 minutes; a medium pizza is done in 90 seconds on a round pizza stone. Great video, thanks, I feel validated now!
@@TheRealElectrofox Common Sense dictates that you pause the video and count the bricks. 7.5 bricks per layer, 6 layers of bricks + 2 smaller bricks to get the bottom level. Now, common sense also dictates that if your pavers for the floor and roof are different to the ones used in the video, you will need a different number of bricks.
I'm a little confused by this comment. Where exactly do you brush the oil? Under the pizza where it would become the bottom or the place where you are laying the sauce directly on top of?
Great looking DIY project! Gonna try this one myself. Tip from a former pizzaiolo, though: Don't try to 'launch' your pizza into the oven. Instead, get the pizza positioned in the oven where you want it, still on the peel, then quickly pull the peel back from underneath the pizza. It'll take a few tries to get it right, but once you get the hand of it, you won't have any more issues with pizzas hitting the side of the oven.
fantastic tips Nate... it's great to see something so simple that's pretty accessible to a lot of folks. I'd love it if you could build a version 2 with a little more money spent as an intermediate vs the bottom end 'cheap' version you've shown here. > perhaps using 24x24 unglazed ceramic tiles as the oven's base which I believe would be a lot more heat-tolerant than your pavers.
The beauty is in the build and the getting a good alternative for the less money. You could get an artisan to build you one if you want a costlier version. Love Nate's just as he built it.
I saved this video to my watch later based on the thumbnail and my 5yo loves watching food videos. When it started and I saw Nate I thought great how did I find a TKOR video and nearly turned it off. My son convinced me to keep watching and I realized this content is what I missed about TKOR, building to learn and experimenting in a more mature way. I am definitely subscribing and I hope we get more of the same.
The addition of the supporting steel is genius. I think Grady of Practical Engineering has a video about it as well, but essentially in many area of engineering, creating a visible partial failure before a full catastrophic failure allows for a "slow failure" which allows you to repair during downtime rather than having a fast failure during a key moment (and dropping your pizza into the flames as your hungry guests watch on). Great video!
Great idea/project! An idea I had when you were talking about not putting on concrete directly but building a gravel or sand place to put it, what if you just put down another paver? Then it would all be removable/portable and you wouldn't have to have a gravel or sand place to put it. Also, if you wanted to use on concrete, the paver would absorb and block some of the heat from damaging the concrete. And it would help with leveling the other layer. Get the bottom paver level, and everything else above already will be.
Your genius is exactly what I needed for a pending diy pizza outdoor oven. I was inspired and encouraged. Your creativity and thoughtful analysis was point on. And yes, the pizza looked perfect! Thank you!
I love your videos so much. You are the only person that I know of, who is making old school content, I just love this so much. Don't upgrade your cameras or hier any people to do on-camera stuff
Nice video. Some mods I did. I use clay brick which can tolerate more heat and for the bottom layer use brick that has holes in it such that the fire gets more airflow from the bottom. I also used old granite counter tops I found to make the main slabs. Thinner and can tolerate massive heat. I am concerned your metal base will accelerate the cracking of your slabs as it will quickly concentrate heat in one area, thus accelerate the cracking. You want evenly distributed heat to avoid cracking.
Great video - lot’s of really useful ideas! Just one quibble: What we call “pepperoni” here in the USA is called “salame piccante”. It’s a very popular pizza topping in Italy. So no Italians will be offended by your pizza. They’ll just laugh at the name a little.
The sauce and cheese though... use a can of good tomatoes and get a mozzarella ball, it will taste 1000x better! Don't waste a nice oven with jar sauce!
I do like this design, especially the side loading idea and the framing. Somewhat more expensive than using the middle paver stone, use a Steel rather than a stone at all. This way you get the benefit of the fire below as well as the heat circulating above.
At these temps, a steel would be too much, and would burn the pizza! A steel is good for a home oven that only gets to 500-550, but at the 700-750 of this oven, it would conduct heat too quickly.
OMG, EXCELLENT!!!! and Cheap, Cheap. I’ve watched tons of videos. Your is the best yet. It looks easy and I will try tomorrow. Thank You. Store bought you don’t know what’s in it. I can make my own even using cauliflower dough, just became pre-Diabetic. The less cars the better.
OK so quick few questions. Could you compare this with using Refractory brick and Cement to create your own pavers and end up with something that works more efficiently and lasts longer? (Yea It would be more expensive but it is a thought.)
great idea. turning the design 90 degrees for the feed opening is ingenious. one question i have (in general) is what about adding a .375" slab of cordierite to use for the pizza deck? could it withstand the temps? i'd imagine so, but don't know for sure.
I'm a thin crust pizza guy, but...that thick, semi-charred pizza that is in your thumbnail (and I don't think appears in the video) looks amazingly tasty. Love the hacks in your video. How about this one...incorporating a commercial pizza stone as the base/cooking surface. I got one from Amazon, I think for about 40 bucks, that is rated for about 2,000 degrees F. I have done hundreds of pizzas on my gas grill at temperatures over 800 F and it has been rock solid. PEACE!!!
@@mrstoneybrew I must have been drinking when I made that comment. It is some Rock Sheet brand I got from Amazon and according to the box is rated for 1,4000 degrees. But yes, throw it right on the grates.
Nate, this was great..(right after I typed this, I realized the rhyme...lol...). Seriously, though...I'm an old guy now, 56, but I can still spin a pie (was a pizza-maker in my teens). I completely appreciate this episode about the pizza oven. I've never thought about doing an oven this way. You got my wheels turning....I may have to try this. Thank you! p.s. I liked, and subscribed.
I found you on Guga's Channel and I am so looking forward to building this. I was surprised that it cooked the right side since the heat from the exhaust is on the left and can escape right out the front left. Glad I found you.
Love it! How about turning the furnace 180 degrees and frame the opening with brick so you can create a fire crack on two sides? Or maybe drill holes instead to control the evenness of convection heat?
Nice result another improvement. Instead of 1 gap at the back on the inside have 2 or 3 since you have the metal support frame you can get more heat from 3 sides of the pizza from the fire. 👍👍👍💡
With your raised oven, since you're building a fire directly on a paver stone base, you might consider replacing it with fire bricks. In fact, since the entire first level and the cooking surface are exposed to the highest temperatures, you might use fire bricks for them as well
@@TiltmanMusic 2000F rated firebricks are 4 dollars a piece, but are 4-1/2 in. x 9 in. x 1-1/4 and he only needed 48 of the smaller ones so with this he’d use half of them so less than 100 bucks when you only need 24.
@@omarious The comment was referring to the paver base that the fire was on, and the base that the pizza is on that is under the fire. There is no reason to use firebricks for the side walls. Normal clay building bricks are fine, and cheaper. How are the fire bricks going to work as a base? You need a big slab as a base.
@@TiltmanMusic I've made a oven similar to this. I cook my pizza on a "base" of firebricks. Six in total. The rest of the oven is made from clay bricks. The firebricks rest on 4 rebars, stretching across the width of the oven. I cut slots in the clay bricks for the rebar (about 1 inch wide) and as deep as the rebar. That way the rebar is flush with the bricks and I could stack more bricks to make the "roof" without leaving a vent. For the roof I did the same thing with the rebar, but used clay bricks. I'm actually considering replacing the roof with firebricks too, for that extra but of heat reflection.
Cracks come from excess moisture in the bricks and being heated to fast. Low and slow is the name of the game in addition to keeping your brick oven dry.
While true, a lot of those paver bricks that come from a department store have fillers of some form in them. Since it is not a homogeneous brick like an actual wall brick, filler and stone expand and contract at different rates.
@@philipchang4453 No problem!!! people overthink it. Put two fire bricks on edge inside your wood stove. To hold the pizza pan above the coals about 3 or 4 in. Or anything you can finagle together to hold a pizza pan above the coals. Obviously burn some good hardwood down to embrace. Slide your pizza and on that rack maybe rotate and it's done. ENJOY MY FRIEND. 👌🙏🇺🇲🇺🇲
Might be interesting to make an aerocrete base to insulate against the heat. You get lots of bonus points for going easy on the sauce. Great looking pizza!
What a great project, i'm definitely gonna build one myself. Also to answer your question, if you move the entrance to the side, the hot air will not flow over the whole pizza/stone anymore.
LOVE LOVE LOVE your content Nate!!! This is wayyy cooler than the TKOR's content and why I subscribe to you! I understand that it was Grant's wishes for the TKOR channel to become a hands free business sorta thing but I'm not in elementary school anymore and your projects are more sophisticated and mature. This reminded me of the time grant made his own dough in the wild with stones and wheat and I believe he made a small pizza with it lol. The question now is do I build this at home? I will in the future... but for now tryin to lose some weight 😅
I need to watch this about 50 more times so I can find some minor imperfection to make a federal case about and then offer my stellar expertise (despite that I have _never_ attempted this) 😂
Kudos on your dough handling skills. I’ve watched at least a hundred pizza making videos on TH-cam and they often fall short on handling even when they’re trying to be instructive.
maybe having the hole in the back would allow the hot air to go over the entire pizza before it leaves which would allow your pizza to cook more evenly without having to rotate it even if it does have the disadvantage of having the fire closer to you.
@@adolfpickler4295 no it wouldnt be the same... having the air come up from the back forces it to evenly go over the full width of the pizza. the hole in the side lets the hot air from the front of the hole escape almost immediately and the air from the back will also stick mostly to the side with the hole leaving the opposite side of the pizza with noticeably less hot air. the best way would be having the top paver leave a gap opposite the gap in the lower paver and a means of closing up the access hole with bricks or a slice of paver with a handle bolted to it. that way you get the even draft over the pizza, dont have the giant hole on one side leaking heat AND have the fire off to the side
No matter what kind of oven you use, you still have to rotate the pizza for even cooking. I have an old Blackstone that rotates for me, and even then, it's hard to get a perfect launch, so i shift and move it. It's just a fact of life, and that's OK.
For the turning part, it'll give your pizza very uneven heat. The back left will be the hottest part, with the front right being super cold and the front left being somewhere in the middle. By putting the exhaust completely at the back, you make it so the back of the over is equally hot left to right and you can controll the temp through just moving the pizza front and back.
Exhaust at the back would be best! But with the size of pavers I have, that would require putting support bricks on the left AND right sides of the cooking paver, leaving it too narrow to cook the larger size pizzas that can be made in this oven. If you can find the 24 inch pavers, a back exhaust is definitely what I'd recommend!
@@macrumpton That's actually a super interesting idea. Might honestly even work better than the original, but don't know enough about thermodynamics to completely verify.
Brilliant! Love the side loading upgrade and the flat metal frame to keep the paver intact. I wonder if you made a slightly deeper frame to increase the depth of the oven. That would increase the depth and add another slit in the new back for the fire to send heat into the cooking chamber. Would you then be able to heat the food from 2 different directions (side and back)?
I feel like this is one of those things where I would rather spend the money on building something better that will last longer than spending less to build something that heat is going to destroy after a few pizzas. The money you spent continually repairing it will add up. I've seen a lot of builds of DIY pizza ovens on TH-cam, some portable and some not. I'd love to see you tackle one of those.
Great sharing of the inexpensive brick pizza oven. I use a Cuisinart propane pizza oven. The pizza came out great-liked the build on the frame the best (no kneeling on ground to cook). The side fire & opposite for the entrance makes sense.
It's not only lead you should be concerned about in paver stones, there could be all sorts of heavy metals in it, as many are made with fly ash mixed into them, and there's also chromium in cement, so I wouldn't cook anything directly on top of a concrete surface.
I think the opening to the side counteracts what you were explaining of the heat pulling over the pizza. You should see if there is better cooking with the opening back where it was, but the firebox opening at the opposite side of the cook box opening.
Hi there just few tips. I would make a side burning chamber and not underneath as you did. Would give it a cast iron dor with an intake air flow regulator to the burning chamber. Would be nice a rotating pizza plate as well
Great Job! I wonder if having the fire being able to come up on the two sides (and maybe the back too) might give better heat distribution so you don't have to turn it. That would also give an even larger oven area.
This is excellent Nate, mate! I didn't want the oven on the ground because my knees are shot, so I want to weld up a frame/stand like yours. But, dammit, welding is a big hurdle for a lot of people, so what to suggest? It has to be bricks to keep the same low-key aesthetic. I'm thinking of using what we call cinderblock or breezeblock in the UK, and then building a small ziggurat with a lot more bricks than in this design, to firm up the base - still no mortar necessary. I think your upgrades are well thought out. Nice, one mate!
About to close on my first house....I have plans to make a large cooking/patio area with a pizza oven as the center piece. that pizza looked incredible!
Your pizza looks better than most of the ones I have seen that were cooked in the store bought units. I will build one as soon as I can find toe components here in Roatan, thanks
I would stick to regular bricks that are fired, and some other type of cooking surface (ceramic / fired brick). Anything that's not poured and cast, no telling whats in those for dyes etc. That could leach out in the high heat, and into the food. Still a great idea for a pizza lover looking for a cheap alternative, I would be just a little picky about what I used from the big box store.
I would use some cheap “fire bricks” to line the fire box to prolong the life of the outside building bricks. They are sold at tractor supply or anyplace that sells wood stoves. Yes, it will reduce the size of the fire box, but shouldn’t effect the heating of the baking plate above.
Great idea to rotate the oven part 90degrees. But, I'm thinking that a flue arrangement/ gap at the back, that heats the oven more directly will help draw flame rearwards from the fire opening...
Hmm I think the point of the exahust behind at the back of the oven is so the heat is forced to go above your pizza and out thru the front, wouldn't turning it 90 degrees force the hot air to escape immediately?
I did something similar but I built the base out of 6x8 wood blocks at 28" off the ground. I also used 2" thick x 4" x 9" fire brick for the cooking surface supported by metal "L" channel with a 24" paver as the base. The 24" paver on the top cracked severely after a few fires but it hasn't fallen and I'll prolly use some fire proof adhesive to to secure it. I'll off set the direction next. That's a great idea! thank you for this video, it was very helpful. Keep up the good work!
Good ideas. I'm just wondering if moving the opening to the side will affect the airflow. the original structure allowed the air to flow over the entire pizza. That way you wouldn't have to move it about in the oven. I suppose to prevent getting burned from the flame makes it ok. Just a couple of my thoughts.
Really cool. And like everyone's saying, it would be improved with a cordierite stone, firebrick, and raising the fire off the floor in a basket of expanded steel. The only problem is that what you've built is an offset smoker, and you're going to have to manage the quality of the smoke. To avoid bad flavors you're going to have to either control the oxygenation to the fire, or wait til you're down to embers before throwing on the pizza.
I'm so glad you became independent, man. Not happy about what happened but... I love the presence; already collabing with bigger TH-camrs and such, unique videos you weren't able to make before, etc.
The concrete in the middle might need a lot of Wood until heated. So metal sticks or plate could Help. Fireclay against burnong Pizza bottom placed in it and the Heat can come from where you want when use Sticks. So less Wood ist needed?
Nate, could you create a sliding door for the fire box on your original design??…just to use when turning the pizza…then the heat vent would still be in the back of the oven cooking area? All the expensive wood fired ovens have doors, but I realize the fire is actually placed in the cooking area (and the exhaust chimney is at the front). Just a thought…as I’m 79 and going to build one of these after reading all the comments. Appreciate your thoughts on a door…if that would be an option. Thanks!
Suggestion: You are getting a lot of soot from the fire. This could be reduced me thinks in a few ways. 1. Increase the height of the fire chamber. The hottest location of a flame is at its top peak. With the fire box being so low, that hottest peak isn't achieved. The gasses don't get a complete burn....hence the excess soot and smoke. 2. Then, you don't need such a large fire in the fire box. 3. The fire isn't getting enough air. So it will smoke more. Provide for a air hole/slot at the back of the fire base so air can flow from under that up into the fire box. Maybe use a concrete drill and drill holes in that base fire plate. Once a fire starts burning and flowing ai up the "chimney" into the 'cooking plate" area, it will provide for a "draw" of fresh air through the holes into the fire base which in turn will provide to burn the excess unburnt gases at the base of the fire but will also provide for a more efficient burn and less smoke and less soot. 4. Place a wire grill o top of the fire box base. that will make an air gap between the for wood or charcoals so the incoming fresh air and do its thing. Just say'n. Make sense?
I like your build Thanks. I made my own but instead of turning the top oven I added the doors from an old wood stove, from the dump. Then a made a door for the cook chamber. I also curved the brick stacks to dome the top with a couple extra rows of brick.
Interesting idea. When you change the opening like this, the hot air that raises may not go all the way to other end before it exits causing uneven cooking. Why not make the slit for hot air to go up at the back instead?
@Nate You can actually buy "pizza steels", that should hold up to those temps (and remove lead concerns). You might want to check out America's Test Kitchen's videos... I think they've reviewed them a few times.
The side loaded design with the bricks completely destroys the air path. The other side of the oven won't be as hot, and you will lose a lot of smoke that goes directly to exhaust. With proper airflow, you don't have to worry about the fire underneath.
Cool stuff. I would want to have another welded support like you had between layers under the top paver. If that boy cracked, I think it'd be a bad time, especially since it's not supported by a full brick on each side.
I love using fruit wood for flavor! 🔥🔥 I also grab a fresh branch of rosemary, basil, oregano, &/or a handful of thyme. Right away when you put the food on for maximum effect! 🔥🔥
Great ideas. Use clay bricks and 2 to 3 unglazed big ceramic tiles on top of each other for the bases that can take the heat - no need for support and will last long. I will make the top higher to fit a roast pan to make it more versatile
You can get a hotter fire (with the same amount of fuel) if you put the burning wood up on a grate, or anything that lets some air in under the fire. This creates a stronger draft through the whole burning chamber and out the chimney, which is what we want.
Putting wood on a grate does draw more air but burns the wood much faster. It’s covered in many articles on how to get good heat from your wood burning fireplace while getting the longest burn from your wood. Building it in the floor of the fireplace restricts the air flow through coals and let’s it get hot fast but slow down to heat the same space longer on a given amount of wood. Bidenomics makes the free stuff too valuable to burn wrecklessly just to stay warm as it’s not free or affordable anymore, $200 a Rick delivered and they all lie calling it a chord and a “face chord” and they’re cutting it even smaller too just to screw you even worse. The more you know.
@@308dad8 even pizza is political now. 🍕🤠 Which is why easy backyard pizza ovens are important to know how to build. Good for cooking more than pizza too. 👍
@@308dad8 I think we're sort of on the same page, but...where I am in Asia it is the Russian sourced timber that has been cut off and created a shortage. Bidenomics don't have much to do with the massive clearing of rainforest habitat throughout Borneo and other areas of asia/ PNG/ South America. I'm happy to pay a little more, use less [kinda forced to when a 2x4 is no longer a 2x4!] and leave a bit for the future generations.
I like how you give credit where credit is deserved. You’ve earned my subscription.
Feels like an old school TKOR video. Keep growing Nate!
it's his comfort level, and the experience presented now, but it's all nate, which is great.
Nate from the internet everyone XP
I knew this guy looked familiar
I was just thinking the same thing. It majorly reminds me of Grant's old videos on TKOR. It's as if he was reincarnated. I know that doesn't make sense on multiple levels, but I have an imagination I guess. Lol
I live in Italy near Naples, and I'm impressed with the final product. By the way, Italians make pizza with what Americans call pepperoni, but they call it "Diavolo," because they use spicy salami. ("Peperoni" in Italian means "peppers," so if you ask for a pepperoni pizza in Italy, you're going to get one with peppers on it.
I have a pizza oven attachment for my Weber, which works with a little massaging. The hardest part is getting the thing to 700F.
One little pointer is that pizza makers in Italy don't use corn meal, they use a flour called Semola (or Semolina) rimacinata. You can probably find it in any grocery store. It doesn't stick as much to the dough, so less comes off in the oven. And you don't need to use much, just a sprinkle. Shake the pizza back and forth on the peel to make sure it's loose.
You may want to use a pizza stone, because I'm not sure pavers are food grade.
Anyway, nice job. Your pizza looked perfect.
Hi sir I'm from India, please suggest me can I granite stone slab for cooking pizza in this method of pizza cooking
@@kloapan I don't know, but I suppose if the slab can tolerate 1000 degrees Fahrenheit without cracking, it might work. Note, however, that we don't use granite as a pizza stone, so I don't know what the result would be. If you try it, use a stone you don't care if it breaks. I suggest buying a real pizza stone or pizza steel.
That's exactly what happened to me when we visited Pisa, Italy back in 1989. I was stationed at VQ-2 in Rota, Spain and my wife and I did a Eurail tour around Europe before transferring back to the states. I ordered a pepperoni pizza and they brought out a pizza with big banana peppers on it. When I tried to explain what I wanted the waiter said "Oh you want salami" They fixed it for me and it was the best pizza ever ! We loved Italy ! I wish I could post a picture from then.
Peppers are great on a pizza. But if like some kind of meat too lol
@@Michaelhendersonnovelist1 Yes. granite is ideal as a prep surface, but 100% NOT at a pizza stone. refractory firebricks in a herringbone layout are your best bet.
you can also add a pizza stone or steel to the top of the cooking surface to remove any fears of lead and also reduce the fears of the paver crumbling.
At those temps the lead would vaporize.
@@spencers4121 lead vaporizes at 760 degrees ferenheit, pizza ovens are usually around 600 which is just under the melting point!
@@GoldenBoy-et6of You can clearly see, it was hitting 730 when he probes it.
@@spencers4121 730 is not 760
@@Leo-dal water boils at 100c and yet still evaporates in warm weather. Sure it will vaporize slower at 730 but there will still be fumes.
I've been cooking in one of these for years. Generally I haven't had an issue with needing to cook from the side, but I will consider it. The design of the oven naturally draws in air on the bottom and the flame/heat moves to the rear to go up the gap to the top chamber. If you can't weld, just build yourself a base out of inexpensive cinder block to the height you like and put a paver on top as your oven base. this allows you to place the oven on whatever surface you like, preferably a concrete patio of some sort. Cinder blocks in the center will support your base pave stone if you get heat cracks. My oven is on the ground for now. I have 2 pieces of 1 1/2" angle iron about 3 ft long turned down with the angle facing up that I use as rails for a piece of expanded metal that I build my fire outside the oven on and then slide to the rear once it is burning well. I always cook pizza on parchment paper. Lightly coat with olive oil and easily spread your dough out to form the crust. Parchment paper makes it super easy to get your pizza peel under, and you don't have to worry about contaminates from the stepping stone. Put a little flour on the pizza peel to help things slide. I have found getting my cooking stone to about 450f gets me perfect leoparding(brown spots on the bottom). I've gotten it to 600f before, but the bottom of the crust burns before the toppings are cooked crispy or the cheese begins to brown. Rotate pizza around a couple of times during the cooking and monitor closely so you don't burn. The slot that the flame/heat is coming up produces a lot of heat. I rotate on my pizza peel gently grabbing the corner of the parchment paper and put it back in. The more you use your oven the more you will develop skills and senses for the process. Be careful, your friends and family will love coming over for wood fired pizza. I just make them bring beer.
I think you could go no less with the temperature, but go higher.
The reason why pizza oven have temperatures above 700°F is that nothing has time to burning before other things have time to Cook.
And its literally a 90sec job for one pizza.
Some good ideas, especially the sliding fire, especially if it was on a grate for more airflow, and ash falling down for later cleanup, gotta try incorporaring that to mine.
Im doing meetups with my famili and friends where a single person if there aren't many of us, or pairs/teens each do their own pizza with ingridiends i prepare for them, and then I put the all for about 1.5, 2 minutes, and we have a game who made the better pizza, based on look, and taste if there are enough slices so everyone can take everyones pizza
You can also turn the top bricks on it’s edge to increase the area available for larger pizzas.
This is the best build that I have seen for this pizza oven. I don't weld so I am going to just stack up some cinder blocks to raise it higher. Going to build it next week when we get back from vacation!
I'm italian and I have to say your pizza looks beautiful!!!
U just changed my life , was gonna build one more complicated , I will just modify your idea , thank you so much for tip with crack and check the chemicals
This is the smartest design that I ever watched. I watched the old first version and now I watch the improvements.
Personally, I wouldn't use paver stones as the base. It might not have lead, but that doesn't mean it's food safe. I'd place something like a pizza stone on top of it and cook on that. Secondly, just use fire bricks. They cost a little more than regular bricks, but they're designed to handle direct exposure to flames. They won't fall apart, so the build would last long.
I used regular bricks for my pizza/bread oven
Works great. First time you fire it up just go slow to build up the heat.
th-cam.com/video/wuvRWU1hyzs/w-d-xo.html
Even better a pizza steel
Even firebricks can break from fast temperature swings
I used you ideas , I found 24x24 papers.
I used 3 high cinter blocks that i had available. Free I put sand in the holes of the block for insulation.
But had to add block in the middle to raise the fire . My oven sits above 30 " high and sits on a 4x4 concrete pad I had Free again.
My fire is in the back of the oven
My oven temp has reached 780 to 830.
It's hard to keep the temp for long periods of time.
@@tompoynton No, pizza steel and open flame will just result in a burned pizza
Make extra dough and when you’re done with the pizzas use the residual heat of the oven to bake your own bread.
Leave a few bricks to warm up on the top of the oven while you’re cooking the pizzas and use it to close the entrance of the oven to bake you bread.
Finally I see a truly "cheap DIY" pizza oven! Your title was not misleading as a lot of them are. I will definitely build one like this!
Welp, I'm making my man one of these for his birthday next week. I can't weld, but I have an older rusted out fire pit I can cobble up for a base. Getting it off the ground was my issue and you gave me a solution. This is the shizzle! 🎉 Thank you!
I did the same mod for my outdoor masonry grill, but added a 30psi regulator and 5 inch burner to the back inside of the unit; 900 deg in 12 minutes; a medium pizza is done in 90 seconds on a round pizza stone. Great video, thanks, I feel validated now!
you're the closest person we have to grant and it makes me really happy to see you on your own channel
Was this person associated with the king of random?
@@chrisc9611 Yes
It's always amazing to watch video recorded at a higher altitude, and in clear air. The sun is so much stronger, and the shadows darker.
I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but didn’t know a good way that didn’t cost a lot or take forever, this is awesome!
Okay so, Common Sense dictates there's two pavers, how many bricks 5256? Give me a tear down
@@TheRealElectrofox Common Sense dictates that you pause the video and count the bricks. 7.5 bricks per layer, 6 layers of bricks + 2 smaller bricks to get the bottom level. Now, common sense also dictates that if your pavers for the floor and roof are different to the ones used in the video, you will need a different number of bricks.
Awesome video. A tip I use when cooking pizza is to brush olive oil before you do sauce to help so the pizza is not soggy under the crust.
If your pizza is soggy, you used too much sauce
I'm a little confused by this comment. Where exactly do you brush the oil? Under the pizza where it would become the bottom or the place where you are laying the sauce directly on top of?
@@AimForTheBushes908 You brush the top of the dough with olive oil before putting sauce on it.
Great looking DIY project! Gonna try this one myself. Tip from a former pizzaiolo, though: Don't try to 'launch' your pizza into the oven. Instead, get the pizza positioned in the oven where you want it, still on the peel, then quickly pull the peel back from underneath the pizza. It'll take a few tries to get it right, but once you get the hand of it, you won't have any more issues with pizzas hitting the side of the oven.
What he said.
th-cam.com/video/HKF3D5r0fAs/w-d-xo.html
That is an amazing way of making a dirt cheap, but effective diy pizza oven.
I've never even considered doing this.
Excellent video, Nate.
💯
I'm going to home depot tomorrow!
@@AimForTheBushes908 I'd make a few alterations to have a more even heat. Like more space around the sides. Enjoy the video.
how did it go?
@@dzibanart8521 I never went or did it hahahah. Started a new job and stuck in training for several months so going to wait till after.
@minameise but what's the new job? And 3 months later have you built one yet? 😅
Nate's been lately doing quite a lot of cooking related projects and I love it haha, it's like the perfect mix between a home cook and a scientist.
fantastic tips Nate... it's great to see something so simple that's pretty accessible to a lot of folks.
I'd love it if you could build a version 2 with a little more money spent as an intermediate vs the bottom end 'cheap' version you've shown here.
> perhaps using 24x24 unglazed ceramic tiles as the oven's base which I believe would be a lot more heat-tolerant than your pavers.
Great idea. I hope he does this too.
The beauty is in the build and the getting a good alternative for the less money. You could get an artisan to build you one if you want a costlier version. Love Nate's just as he built it.
I saved this video to my watch later based on the thumbnail and my 5yo loves watching food videos. When it started and I saw Nate I thought great how did I find a TKOR video and nearly turned it off. My son convinced me to keep watching and I realized this content is what I missed about TKOR, building to learn and experimenting in a more mature way. I am definitely subscribing and I hope we get more of the same.
The addition of the supporting steel is genius. I think Grady of Practical Engineering has a video about it as well, but essentially in many area of engineering, creating a visible partial failure before a full catastrophic failure allows for a "slow failure" which allows you to repair during downtime rather than having a fast failure during a key moment (and dropping your pizza into the flames as your hungry guests watch on). Great video!
I laughed thinking of so-called guest looking on in horror as I smile back embarrassingly while picking up the phone to dial out for delivery.
Most times when I see a pizza cooked on YT it just looks NOT RIGHT, yours looks absolutely perfectly done!
Great idea/project!
An idea I had when you were talking about not putting on concrete directly but building a gravel or sand place to put it, what if you just put down another paver? Then it would all be removable/portable and you wouldn't have to have a gravel or sand place to put it.
Also, if you wanted to use on concrete, the paver would absorb and block some of the heat from damaging the concrete.
And it would help with leveling the other layer. Get the bottom paver level, and everything else above already will be.
Your genius is exactly what I needed for a pending diy pizza outdoor oven. I was inspired and encouraged. Your creativity and thoughtful analysis was point on. And yes, the pizza looked perfect!
Thank you!
I love your videos so much. You are the only person that I know of, who is making old school content, I just love this so much. Don't upgrade your cameras or hier any people to do on-camera stuff
Nice video. Some mods I did. I use clay brick which can tolerate more heat and for the bottom layer use brick that has holes in it such that the fire gets more airflow from the bottom. I also used old granite counter tops I found to make the main slabs. Thinner and can tolerate massive heat. I am concerned your metal base will accelerate the cracking of your slabs as it will quickly concentrate heat in one area, thus accelerate the cracking. You want evenly distributed heat to avoid cracking.
Great video - lot’s of really useful ideas! Just one quibble: What we call “pepperoni” here in the USA is called “salame piccante”. It’s a very popular pizza topping in Italy. So no Italians will be offended by your pizza. They’ll just laugh at the name a little.
That's amorre 🤌
The sauce and cheese though... use a can of good tomatoes and get a mozzarella ball, it will taste 1000x better! Don't waste a nice oven with jar sauce!
I do like this design, especially the side loading idea and the framing.
Somewhat more expensive than using the middle paver stone, use a Steel rather than a stone at all. This way you get the benefit of the fire below as well as the heat circulating above.
At these temps, a steel would be too much, and would burn the pizza! A steel is good for a home oven that only gets to 500-550, but at the 700-750 of this oven, it would conduct heat too quickly.
This went well. Built it and made three pizzas in 30 minutes. Love it.
Nice! Fuck delivery and digorno.
Great ! How long does take to get the oven at temp ?
OMG,
EXCELLENT!!!!
and Cheap, Cheap. I’ve watched tons of videos. Your is the best yet. It looks easy and I will try tomorrow. Thank You. Store bought you don’t know what’s in it. I can make my own even using cauliflower dough, just became pre-Diabetic. The less cars the better.
OK so quick few questions. Could you compare this with using Refractory brick and Cement to create your own pavers and end up with something that works more efficiently and lasts longer? (Yea It would be more expensive but it is a thought.)
great idea. turning the design 90 degrees for the feed opening is ingenious.
one question i have (in general) is what about adding a .375" slab of cordierite to use for the pizza deck? could it withstand the temps? i'd imagine so, but don't know for sure.
I'm a thin crust pizza guy, but...that thick, semi-charred pizza that is in your thumbnail (and I don't think appears in the video) looks amazingly tasty. Love the hacks in your video. How about this one...incorporating a commercial pizza stone as the base/cooking surface. I got one from Amazon, I think for about 40 bucks, that is rated for about 2,000 degrees F. I have done hundreds of pizzas on my gas grill at temperatures over 800 F and it has been rock solid. PEACE!!!
A brand a link to the 2000 F pizza stone. Do you just throw right on the grill grates?
@@mrstoneybrew I must have been drinking when I made that comment. It is some Rock Sheet brand I got from Amazon and according to the box is rated for 1,4000 degrees. But yes, throw it right on the grates.
@@p.w.7051 thanks
I wonder if using a pizza steel might give even higher heat!
Grab a large terracotta floor tile at home depot. Worlds lowest cost pizza stone.
Nate, this was great..(right after I typed this, I realized the rhyme...lol...). Seriously, though...I'm an old guy now, 56, but I can still spin a pie (was a pizza-maker in my teens). I completely appreciate this episode about the pizza oven.
I've never thought about doing an oven this way. You got my wheels turning....I may have to try this.
Thank you!
p.s. I liked, and subscribed.
I found you on Guga's Channel and I am so looking forward to building this. I was surprised that it cooked the right side since the heat from the exhaust is on the left and can escape right out the front left. Glad I found you.
he is also on another channel called the King of Random
Love it! How about turning the furnace 180 degrees and frame the opening with brick so you can create a fire crack on two sides? Or maybe drill holes instead to control the evenness of convection heat?
Thanks for a good show, its good if you also can have international standard for temp like celsius also Thanks 😊
Nice result another improvement. Instead of 1 gap at the back on the inside have 2 or 3 since you have the metal support frame you can get more heat from 3 sides of the pizza from the fire. 👍👍👍💡
You could even make it adjustable by covering the gaps selectively.
With your raised oven, since you're building a fire directly on a paver stone base, you might consider replacing it with fire bricks. In fact, since the entire first level and the cooking surface are exposed to the highest temperatures, you might use fire bricks for them as well
Have you seen the price of fire bricks? I think the point of this video is to make a cheap and easy DIY oven.
@@TiltmanMusic 2000F rated firebricks are 4 dollars a piece, but are 4-1/2 in. x 9 in. x 1-1/4 and he only needed 48 of the smaller ones so with this he’d use half of them so less than 100 bucks when you only need 24.
@@omarious The comment was referring to the paver base that the fire was on, and the base that the pizza is on that is under the fire. There is no reason to use firebricks for the side walls. Normal clay building bricks are fine, and cheaper. How are the fire bricks going to work as a base? You need a big slab as a base.
@@TiltmanMusic I've made a oven similar to this. I cook my pizza on a "base" of firebricks. Six in total. The rest of the oven is made from clay bricks. The firebricks rest on 4 rebars, stretching across the width of the oven. I cut slots in the clay bricks for the rebar (about 1 inch wide) and as deep as the rebar. That way the rebar is flush with the bricks and I could stack more bricks to make the "roof" without leaving a vent. For the roof I did the same thing with the rebar, but used clay bricks. I'm actually considering replacing the roof with firebricks too, for that extra but of heat reflection.
Post pics please!
Some sort of bellows might be useful and like someone said use a grate under your fuel so that you can get some airflow below it.
Cracks come from excess moisture in the bricks and being heated to fast. Low and slow is the name of the game in addition to keeping your brick oven dry.
While true, a lot of those paver bricks that come from a department store have fillers of some form in them. Since it is not a homogeneous brick like an actual wall brick, filler and stone expand and contract at different rates.
@@lordofthenotes true. I’ve also used 100% red clay bricks in similar applications and will still get cracks after some use.
I cook pizza in my wood stove all the time. All I have is two bricks and a Pizza pan. 3 to 5 minutes and it's done amazing. SIMPLE AND CHEEP
Can you tell me how to make it
@@philipchang4453 No problem!!! people overthink it. Put two fire bricks on edge inside your wood stove. To hold the pizza pan above the coals about 3 or 4 in. Or anything you can finagle together to hold a pizza pan above the coals. Obviously burn some good hardwood down to embrace. Slide your pizza and on that rack maybe rotate and it's done. ENJOY MY FRIEND. 👌🙏🇺🇲🇺🇲
Brilliant solution in cold climate areas!
@@markimarku northern Maine
Might be interesting to make an aerocrete base to insulate against the heat.
You get lots of bonus points for going easy on the sauce. Great looking pizza!
He actually has pizza building down to a science. Perfect stretch on the dough also.
What a great project, i'm definitely gonna build one myself. Also to answer your question, if you move the entrance to the side, the hot air will not flow over the whole pizza/stone anymore.
It still will, just it will be from the side, this not getting even heating like he said. So it should be rotated
th-cam.com/video/HKF3D5r0fAs/w-d-xo.html
LOVE LOVE LOVE your content Nate!!! This is wayyy cooler than the TKOR's content and why I subscribe to you! I understand that it was Grant's wishes for the TKOR channel to become a hands free business sorta thing but I'm not in elementary school anymore and your projects are more sophisticated and mature. This reminded me of the time grant made his own dough in the wild with stones and wheat and I believe he made a small pizza with it lol.
The question now is do I build this at home? I will in the future... but for now tryin to lose some weight 😅
That was my TKOR video and made me fall in love with the channel
tkor should of died with grant but nate is what grant sent us from beyond we love you bro and i miss grant i miss the videos with both of you guys
What a great job, perfectly explained, just cheap enough for anyone to do thank you for your time Peter looks great
I need to watch this about 50 more times so I can find some minor imperfection to make a federal case about and then offer my stellar expertise (despite that I have _never_ attempted this) 😂
Kudos on your dough handling skills. I’ve watched at least a hundred pizza making videos on TH-cam and they often fall short on handling even when they’re trying to be instructive.
Great Video Nate! Very informative and some great ideas for a cheap pizza oven!
Awesome use of an old bunk bed.
Really like this idea....
Great video.
Thank you, Nate! Very nice! I am a pizza lover and so definitely am going to give this project a shot!
I'm definitely going to build one of these. I got a wood fired Pizzello oven but it's only 12 inch..
maybe having the hole in the back would allow the hot air to go over the entire pizza before it leaves which would allow your pizza to cook more evenly without having to rotate it even if it does have the disadvantage of having the fire closer to you.
@@adolfpickler4295 no it wouldnt be the same...
having the air come up from the back forces it to evenly go over the full width of the pizza.
the hole in the side lets the hot air from the front of the hole escape almost immediately and the air from the back will also stick mostly to the side with the hole leaving the opposite side of the pizza with noticeably less hot air.
the best way would be having the top paver leave a gap opposite the gap in the lower paver and a means of closing up the access hole with bricks or a slice of paver with a handle bolted to it.
that way you get the even draft over the pizza, dont have the giant hole on one side leaking heat AND have the fire off to the side
No matter what kind of oven you use, you still have to rotate the pizza for even cooking. I have an old Blackstone that rotates for me, and even then, it's hard to get a perfect launch, so i shift and move it. It's just a fact of life, and that's OK.
For the turning part, it'll give your pizza very uneven heat. The back left will be the hottest part, with the front right being super cold and the front left being somewhere in the middle.
By putting the exhaust completely at the back, you make it so the back of the over is equally hot left to right and you can controll the temp through just moving the pizza front and back.
Exhaust at the back would be best! But with the size of pavers I have, that would require putting support bricks on the left AND right sides of the cooking paver, leaving it too narrow to cook the larger size pizzas that can be made in this oven. If you can find the 24 inch pavers, a back exhaust is definitely what I'd recommend!
or exhaust up the two sides.
@@macrumpton That's actually a super interesting idea. Might honestly even work better than the original, but don't know enough about thermodynamics to completely verify.
@@BlueDragon1504 You might need a cover for the front to prevent the heat from escaping. But I think it could work.
Brilliant! Love the side loading upgrade and the flat metal frame to keep the paver intact. I wonder if you made a slightly deeper frame to increase the depth of the oven. That would increase the depth and add another slit in the new back for the fire to send heat into the cooking chamber. Would you then be able to heat the food from 2 different directions (side and back)?
I feel like this is one of those things where I would rather spend the money on building something better that will last longer than spending less to build something that heat is going to destroy after a few pizzas. The money you spent continually repairing it will add up.
I've seen a lot of builds of DIY pizza ovens on TH-cam, some portable and some not. I'd love to see you tackle one of those.
The beauty of this you can experiment before you commit to a final design and materials before a final build.
Great sharing of the inexpensive brick pizza oven. I use a Cuisinart propane pizza oven. The pizza came out great-liked the build on the frame the best (no kneeling on ground to cook). The side fire & opposite for the entrance makes sense.
Now you need to make your own pizza cutter
Dude, I've watched a lot of pizza shows on TH-cam l, YOURS IS THE BEST I've SEEN!
Much better than a snack launcher =]
Out of the blue odd comment Nate, I saw you today on Guga, watched you for a few years(the time you worked there) on TKOR. Happy to see you again:)
It's not only lead you should be concerned about in paver stones, there could be all sorts of heavy metals in it, as many are made with fly ash mixed into them, and there's also chromium in cement, so I wouldn't cook anything directly on top of a concrete surface.
After your done with the pizza making and its cooling down. You can often use the left over heat to make cookies.
1st lol. But I'm sad of what TKOR has became, it's so shitty now. Feels like a kids channel with the new girl. Glad you are still you tho!
Nice work Nate! I like this one. I like the king of random style format of showing how to make it, how it works and using it.
I think the opening to the side counteracts what you were explaining of the heat pulling over the pizza. You should see if there is better cooking with the opening back where it was, but the firebox opening at the opposite side of the cook box opening.
Hi there just few tips.
I would make a side burning chamber and not underneath as you did.
Would give it a cast iron dor with an intake air flow regulator to the burning chamber.
Would be nice a rotating pizza plate as well
Fantastic video! Do you think a Natural Gas version of this can be made with a NG burner instead of wood?
Awesome special effects in this one Nate!
As an italian guy. I approve that oven and how that pizza came out. Nice job mate. Gonna follow you.
Great Job!
I wonder if having the fire being able to come up on the two sides (and maybe the back too) might give better heat distribution so you don't have to turn it. That would also give an even larger oven area.
Wood fire will never create even heat distribution. You want to have one distinct hot side so you can rotate the pizza to cook it evenly
This is excellent Nate, mate!
I didn't want the oven on the ground because my knees are shot, so I want to weld up a frame/stand like yours. But, dammit, welding is a big hurdle for a lot of people, so what to suggest?
It has to be bricks to keep the same low-key aesthetic. I'm thinking of using what we call cinderblock or breezeblock in the UK, and then building a small ziggurat with a lot more bricks than in this design, to firm up the base - still no mortar necessary.
I think your upgrades are well thought out. Nice, one mate!
About to close on my first house....I have plans to make a large cooking/patio area with a pizza oven as the center piece. that pizza looked incredible!
Your pizza looks better than most of the ones I have seen that were cooked in the store bought units. I will build one as soon as I can find toe components here in Roatan, thanks
I would stick to regular bricks that are fired, and some other type of cooking surface (ceramic / fired brick). Anything that's not poured and cast, no telling whats in those for dyes etc. That could leach out in the high heat, and into the food.
Still a great idea for a pizza lover looking for a cheap alternative, I would be just a little picky about what I used from the big box store.
exactly.
I would use some cheap “fire bricks” to line the fire box to prolong the life of the outside building bricks. They are sold at tractor supply or anyplace that sells wood stoves. Yes, it will reduce the size of the fire box, but shouldn’t effect the heating of the baking plate above.
Great idea to rotate the oven part 90degrees. But, I'm thinking that a flue arrangement/ gap at the back, that heats the oven more directly will help draw flame rearwards from the fire opening...
Hmm I think the point of the exahust behind at the back of the oven is so the heat is forced to go above your pizza and out thru the front, wouldn't turning it 90 degrees force the hot air to escape immediately?
I did something similar but I built the base out of 6x8 wood blocks at 28" off the ground. I also used 2" thick x 4" x 9" fire brick for the cooking surface supported by metal "L" channel with a 24" paver as the base. The 24" paver on the top cracked severely after a few fires but it hasn't fallen and I'll prolly use some fire proof adhesive to to secure it. I'll off set the direction next. That's a great idea! thank you for this video, it was very helpful. Keep up the good work!
Good ideas. I'm just wondering if moving the opening to the side will affect the airflow. the original structure allowed the air to flow over the entire pizza. That way you wouldn't have to move it about in the oven. I suppose to prevent getting burned from the flame makes it ok. Just a couple of my thoughts.
Really cool. And like everyone's saying, it would be improved with a cordierite stone, firebrick, and raising the fire off the floor in a basket of expanded steel.
The only problem is that what you've built is an offset smoker, and you're going to have to manage the quality of the smoke. To avoid bad flavors you're going to have to either control the oxygenation to the fire, or wait til you're down to embers before throwing on the pizza.
I'm so glad you became independent, man. Not happy about what happened but... I love the presence; already collabing with bigger TH-camrs and such, unique videos you weren't able to make before, etc.
You're the real heir to the King of Random throne! The channel sank, but the legend lives on
The concrete in the middle might need a lot of Wood until heated. So metal sticks or plate could Help. Fireclay against burnong Pizza bottom placed in it and the Heat can come from where you want when use Sticks.
So less Wood ist needed?
Nate, could you create a sliding door for the fire box on your original design??…just to use when turning the pizza…then the heat vent would still be in the back of the oven cooking area? All the expensive wood fired ovens have doors, but I realize the fire is actually placed in the cooking area (and the exhaust chimney is at the front). Just a thought…as I’m 79 and going to build one of these after reading all the comments. Appreciate your thoughts on a door…if that would be an option. Thanks!
Suggestion: You are getting a lot of soot from the fire. This could be reduced me thinks in a few ways. 1. Increase the height of the fire chamber. The hottest location of a flame is at its top peak. With the fire box being so low, that hottest peak isn't achieved. The gasses don't get a complete burn....hence the excess soot and smoke. 2. Then, you don't need such a large fire in the fire box. 3. The fire isn't getting enough air. So it will smoke more. Provide for a air hole/slot at the back of the fire base so air can flow from under that up into the fire box. Maybe use a concrete drill and drill holes in that base fire plate. Once a fire starts burning and flowing ai up the "chimney" into the 'cooking plate" area, it will provide for a "draw" of fresh air through the holes into the fire base which in turn will provide to burn the excess unburnt gases at the base of the fire but will also provide for a more efficient burn and less smoke and less soot. 4. Place a wire grill o top of the fire box base. that will make an air gap between the for wood or charcoals so the incoming fresh air and do its thing. Just say'n. Make sense?
I like your build Thanks. I made my own but instead of turning the top oven I added the doors from an old wood stove, from the dump. Then a made a door for the cook chamber. I also curved the brick stacks to dome the top with a couple extra rows of brick.
Interesting idea. When you change the opening like this, the hot air that raises may not go all the way to other end before it exits causing uneven cooking. Why not make the slit for hot air to go up at the back instead?
Yes. Seems like it would work; if the slit is opposite the opening where the pizza goes in- should solve the air flow problem.
That's a good looking pizza you got there Nate. Love how the pepperoni curls into cupperoni.
@Nate You can actually buy "pizza steels", that should hold up to those temps (and remove lead concerns). You might want to check out America's Test Kitchen's videos... I think they've reviewed them a few times.
The side loaded design with the bricks completely destroys the air path. The other side of the oven won't be as hot, and you will lose a lot of smoke that goes directly to exhaust. With proper airflow, you don't have to worry about the fire underneath.
Cool stuff. I would want to have another welded support like you had between layers under the top paver. If that boy cracked, I think it'd be a bad time, especially since it's not supported by a full brick on each side.
Even if the paver develop a crack, it’s going to be fine structurally for a while.
I'm glad you are still making video. you are awesome
I love using fruit wood for flavor! 🔥🔥 I also grab a fresh branch of rosemary, basil, oregano, &/or a handful of thyme. Right away when you put the food on for maximum effect! 🔥🔥
Great ideas. Use clay bricks and 2 to 3 unglazed big ceramic tiles on top of each other for the bases that can take the heat - no need for support and will last long. I will make the top higher to fit a roast pan to make it more versatile