New and need some help :D

[ericbali]

Hey all, new to the forum and need some advice!
I am in Bali and trying to make a pizza oven and running into some issues.

I've built my base, that much was easy. Now I am about to make the oven floor.
For the oven floor I was thinking to use wine bottles and perlite-concrete mixture. Perlite is about 15$ a pound here and bottles are free.
1. Is this a good idea?

Next, my oven floor cannot have firebricks(I have yet to find any on this island.)
2. Do I need fire bricks or would a smooth coating over cement over the over floor work?
3. How long should I wait for the cement to dry before starting on the oven dome?

For the oven dome I will be building a sand mount and then layering perlite over it. I'll remove the sand after the dome is dry.
4. The sun here is SUPER intense, should I protect my oven floor and oven dome from the direct sunlight?
5. Any advice on how long I should wait before removing the sand? Lighting the first fire? - Humidity here is close to 100%

Thanks so much for any advice! I need it!!!!

[ogopogodude]

Welcome to this site. You will get a LOT of information here, but one has to be patient, .. this is what I have found. If you want immediate answers to your Q's don't be shy about personal messaging some of the "higher ups" here. As far as building your pizza oven, it makes much more sense to "over-engineer" than to "build and regret things later" when using questionable build products.

Me thinks that firebrick is a must in one wants to attain b**chin' high temps .. which really is a requirement for getting a great pizza and other recipes. You might have to bite the bullet and make a trip to the mainland and get what you need for your build, . .or perhaps be satisfied with a much lower priced oven and do an "earthen oven" a.k.a. "a mud oven" which can be, in due time, dismantled and then rebuilt again.

[UtahBeehiver]

First question, what type of cooking are you planning on doing, you mentioned pizza, but are you after additional cooking after the pizzas or just firing up for pizzas. I have seen bottles used in some of the old Alan Scott ovens, is it the best type of insulation, no, but again it depends on the type cooking you are doing. I have to agree that you need at least fire brick for the floor. Cast ovens domes with "DENSE" commercial refractory products or home brew (NOT perlite or vermeculite/portland mix) been very successful and can easily reach high temps for pizzas, ie 700-900 F. You can use the p or vcrete over the dense refractory dome as insulation but not the main dome structure. Look at DavidS's posts, he is a resident cast oven expert. I do not believe you would be successful in with portland over the floor surface.