Hi from the east coast UK

[RichieCullercoats]

Hi folks ! I got given a set of pompei pizza oven plans from a pal (v1.2) and have embarked on a pizza oven build !

I have made my plinth and I am ready to purchase my dome building materials. Can anyone recommend companies to buy from ? I had a look on the Vitcas web page who do a kit for £1000 (OUCH) it seemed to have most of the bits I needed, however the dome and construction of the bricks was vastly different from that of the Forno Bravo ovens.

I plan to make a circa 41" diameter dome which I want to screed then tile on the outside (pretty much the same as one I saw on youtube)

any help anyone can offer that'd be swell.


Many thanks

Richie

[UtahBeehiver]

Have you looked at the eplans from Forno Bravo, they are a good baseline for building a pompeii oven and they are only 2-3 USD.I can't comment on the oven plans you have, I am not familiar with this plan set. There is a section on the forum for Europe builders, there are quite a few UK builds that have been done over the years and their threads can help you with material resources for your area. A 41", Assuming ID, is a fairly large oven, you need to decide what you are cooking, how the oven will be used, etc. Larger is not always better. I have a 42" and it is a party oven for large groups but too big to fire for just a couple pizzas.

[rwiegand]

Russell-- Curious what makes an oven "too big to fire for just a couple pizzas"? I'll be sorely disappointed if I don't end up using mine. Too long to get hot? Too much attention required to manage the fire? I've been imagining firing as being a 1-1/2-2hr process where you add wood once or twice. Time to adjust expectations?

Roger

[UtahBeehiver]

Roger,

There are trade offs between small ovens, for example David S in Australia, which I believe is something like a 21 incher vs mine which is a 42 incher. No question it takes longer my my oven floor and walls to saturate, sure I can get the dome to temp fairly fast but that does not help the floor saturation. Since there is only 2 of us at home, I use the oven for family and party get togethers where I am doing 20-30 pizzas as well as extended day cooking. At least for me it is more than just loading the oven once or twice with wood, I am regularly monitoring the flame, too much wood it smokes,too little wood the temperature rise is slow. But this is my experience, I am sure there are others with different usage patterns.

[david s]

If you double the diameter of the oven then you increase the volume of the chamber by 8 times. Fuel consumption is roughly directly proportional to chamber size, so cooking a couple of pizzas or a couple of loaves of bread in a large oven is hardly worth the trouble.And again, because of the mathematics of volume the larger the oven the greater the cost blow out for materials and labour.
You may find the UK wood fired oven forum useful for obtains materials access.

[JRPizza]

My oven is 39"~1 meter diameter which we found a good compromise between the 36 and 42" ovens in the FB plans. I don't think of it as too big to fire for a couple of pizzas as much as too big to fire for a single meal. We typically fire to make 2-3 pizzas in the evening, then throw in a little more wood to pump some more heat into the dome. When that dies down we put in the insulated door for the evening. In the AM we cook a few chickens (sometimes 3 as we cook for our elderly parents) and roast some veggies, then later in the afternoon put in a pork roast or a bunch of ribs to slow cook. This gives us food for the week and makes good use of the wood heat. If we don't want pizza we might cook some steaks on the tuscan grill and then heat/close/cook the following day. I just find getting more than one meal out of a firing to be more economical in terms of time/labor/wood (even though we get most of our wood for free).

[shanxk8]

Not meaning to hijack this thread, but it seems to be a recent discussion of firing ovens.
JR, can you give an idea of how much wood and how many times you need to add it to the fire when getting the oven up to temperature for pizza?
(I acknowledge mine will be different 36" vs 39”) I'm seeking to figure out before the first such firing, hopefully tomorrow.

[rwiegand]

I was the thread hijacker, so I'd better say something to address the original question-- based on prices in New England, £1000 for a complete kit would be a good deal. I spent that much on insulation, another $600 for bricks, $400 for concrete, $350 for mortar. Let's not even begin to discuss the cost of stone veneer or copper flashing for the roof.

There are great scroungers on this site who have built ovens for much less, and in the old days I might have been in that camp. Now that I'm old I just want to get the silly thing done (and have it be beautiful), so I swap money for time.

I am also very interested in the firing discussion. I seem to have hit a plateau in my conditioning. I'm getting to 650-700 deg in the dome, 500 on the floor with keeping a constant 3-4 log fire going. Flames lick over the top of the dome and it turns 75% white after 3-4 hours. I burn maybe 20-25 3-4" x 18" chunks of well dried hardwood (typical fireplace split) over that time. I've been afraid to make a much bigger fire yet, but pizza is calling!

[JRPizza]

Check out the threads under this sticky - I think they cover starting and firing the oven pretty well.
https://community.fornobravo.com/for...ring-your-oven

[george441]

Nice to know you RichieCullercoats
Lots of experience here to help.

[PeteH]

Hi Richie
I also planning am to start an oven build soon currently on hearth stage, and have been looking at firebrick costs try kilnlinings.co.uk for firebricks a little cheaper than Viitcas although their shop seems to offer everything needed
the home brew mortar used by the builders on this forum also will save you a packet!
I suggest you don’t rush into it as I did before I found this site and study many of the builds as they are a wealth of info!
Good luck with your build I’ll be a few weeks behind you

Pete