Home built in South Arica

[codec]

After seeing a pizza oven being built on Youtube, using an exercise ball and pumice/cement, I decided to make my oven using perlite/cement mix also using an exercise ball as my mould.
We have a local product called Pratlyperl available here in Johannesburg, so I used this. I ended up using 3 x 10kg bags of Perlite and 1 x 50kg bag of cement, mixed 5:1 (Perlite/cement)



I am extremely happy with the outcome. I have cooked pizza, bread, pudding and slow roasted a pot of oxtail.

[david s]

Hope it continues to work well. I would have thought some lime in the mix would help make it more refractory. Unfortunately pumice will weaken any concrete it is added to just like perlite and vermiculite, leaving you with problems of abrasion, so be careful how you throw wood into your oven and take care, particularly around the door, with your oven tools. The other problem of a pumice/cement concrete is its relatively low density, which results in an oven of low thermal mass that doesn't store a lot of heat.

[codec]

Hi David, thanks for your input. It is still early days, so time will tell. I agree with your comment re the thermal capacity, but on my second firing I got it up to 450 deg C after about 2 hours of firing. It cooked 8 pizzas, then a peach cobbler, which burnt a bit as it was still too hot, then later 3 loaves of bread. At this stage the temp was around 200deg C. I put in the oxtail and left it overnight. In the morning, the pot was warmish, certainly not cold, and the oxtails was great. Thats all I want from the oven.