Ferro Cement Pizza Oven

[pjk]

Re: Ferro Cement Pizza Oven

Cool photos. I had to re read the original post to try and put it all together, but I think I've almost got it. Post a few more as you move along, and then when you light the little baby up for a cook.

Cheers,
Peter

[cvdukes]

Re: Ferro Cement Pizza Oven

Figured out how to downlaod the pictures from the cell phone so attaching a couple of shots of the oven from earlier in construction.

First one shows the ferro cement dome from the back side (from the top of the dam). I figure the finished dome weighs about 250 pounds. It took three of us to get up on the base, and even then we ended up putting metal rails down from the top of the dam and sliding it down from above.

The second shot shows the basic ovens arrangements and the metal framing under the concrete backer board. The pizza oven vents out thru the smaller chimney in the center of the picture (shown only in its metal skin... since ahve covered with the backer board). Rest of the ovens vent thru the larger back chimney.
Weather here turned cold and windy today, so slowing down my construction. Mortared a few bricks in place, and they seemed firmly set so hoping the freeeze won't undo them.

[cvdukes]

Re: Ferro Cement Pizza Oven

Attached (i thinK) is a picture from last weekend. As I said, its a huge mess out there, but you might the gist of what I described. Most of my early construction photos are on my cell phone and I haven't figured out how to get those to computer.
I got a little work in this afternoon (80 degrees!) and was going to take a better picture but the wife took the real camera with her on a trip.
Still need to do some brickwork on the left end (oyster pit) and over the top of the pizza oven doorway. Been covering the roof of the pizza dome with tin (over lots of vermiculite). Plan to top it all off a 1 1/2 inch layer of vermiculite- concrete (vermicrete?)...figure it will dry to a rustic brown that kinda fits in with the rest of theme out there.

[pjk]

Re: Ferro Cement Pizza Oven

Yep, I want photos too, it sounds great.

I'm only starting to learn myself from this site a little after I'd planned and purchased a heap of stuff, but sometimes you can't beat learning on the run. Like you, I figure it will all work somehow at the end of the day.

Well done.

Cheers,
Peter

[DrakeRemoray]

Re: Ferro Cement Pizza Oven

We need pictures man!

I like the signature line...paradise is where you make it...that fits well with my philosophy.

[cvdukes]

Hi ya'll, I'm Craig and i've been lurking on the forum the past month or so. Wish I had read a few of the posts months ago before i commited a few things to concrete.

My oven complex is about three weeks out from completion...of course its been three weeks out for the past four, so something ain't right with the calender. Actually its just the little nagging details that take all the time.

I'm sort off the books here in my constuction. The oven complex is a monster retaining wall cut into the side of my pond's dam...risky, but I needed the space. there are actually 3 cooking ovens/ surfaces. On the left side is basically my oyster cooking oven... a fire box holding up a metal plate that will be covered with half cut 55 gallon drums. Still have to attach the hinges and now I'm thinking about coating the drums with a vermiculite concrete...more about that later. Base of the oyster pit is brickwork, but I have to admit that I'm no mason. "Function over form" best describes my methods.
Smoke from the oyster pit normally will be routed up a chminey made of 14 inch flue tiles covered with steel and concrete backer board. The flue tiles are oversized but were free for the hauling from a former coworker's husbands junkpile. Also, all the metal in this project (a lot!) came from another former co-worker in trade for a pickup load of turkey litter. All the concrete backer will be covered with fiberglass reinforced concrete (bonsal surwal)... looks enough like stucco plus adds strength.
I've also constucted a damper arangement that will allow the smoke to shunt into oven #2, the pig smoker oven. Pig oven is all brick with a couple of metal removable shelves. I figure it'll hold 200 pounds of porker. There is a firebox opening at the bottom of the pig oven that I can transfer hot coals from firebox 1 if I want to do hot smoking, otherwise, just shunting smoke will be for cold smoking. Also made some provisions to hang fish or jerky in the top of the pig oven when its in the cold smoking mode.
The pig smoker oven supports my pizza / bread oven. This is made from ferro cement, which is simply concrete mortar mix packed into an armature frame made of hogwire and chickenwire. Ferro cement is cheap but does take a lot of handwork. I know from reading this forum now that I didn't make the pizza oven the optimum shape and its probably too small.... consider it a cross between a dome and a barrel. Inside width is about 24 inches, depth is 28 and max height is 18 inches. It'll work, but one pizza at a time and the fire will have to stay at the back.

I ended up lining the inside of the dome with cone 6 earthware pottery clay because I didn't like the roughness of the ferrocement...(figuring the heat would fire it in place)...Big cracks developed in the clay as it air-dried becasue of how it adhered unevenly to the ferrocement. After a couple of sessions re-claying the cracks, I gave and coat the inside with the bonsal. Then, because I didn't want fiberglass particles flaking off into the food, I messed around and came up with a formulation of portland cement, fireclay and powdered kaolin clay (Just happened to have 1/2 bag of kaolin laying around from use with shrimp bait...it has ~35% alumina content so very heat resistive and retentive). Floor of the oven was made of a 2.25 inch thick smooth pour of the portland/fireclay/kaolin mix with a little bit of sand mixed in. The Floor is supported by a ferrocement slab (1/2 inch thick) resting on a couple inches of 5:1 vermiculite/portland mix.
Fired the pizza oven up two weeks ago for first time. Worry was that the mulitple layers would delaminate. Progressively hot fires in suceeding days. My infared thermeter maxes out at 968 degrees. Sunday I maxed it out in about two hours of fire. No delamination and just one minor crack. Temps were ~600 two hours after the fire died. 30 hours later, inside temp was still 95 degrees... thats without a door and with night temperateure dipping down to 36, so it seems like there is decent mass.
Building the outside enclosure now... more concrete board and lots of vemiculite. (Forgot to mention that I found a vermiculite mine about 90 minutes away that sold me 42 4-cubic foot bags at $5.60 each... more than the oven needs, but I got other uses for the rest when I put a new liner in the pool)....
Figure my cost for the pizza oven part of the project is less than $95. Haven't advanced to cooking yet as its a major construction zone out there, but I'll send some pictures when I get it cleaned up.