A 32" Cast Pizza Oven in CT, USA

[david s]

What a great little oven. You've obviously done a lot of research here. Thanks also for documenting and explaining your steps and reasons taken. The brick builders end up taking months, sometimes years to build their ovens, while cast builds can be done in weeks with the appropriate damp curing and drying fires included. Keep posting on your cooking experiences.

[sergetania]

A great looking little oven! And the pizza looks just right! Congratulations, well done!

[SableSprings]

That's a thing of beauty and will serve you well for many years! As David said, great job documenting & explaining the "whys" of your build...definitely will be a major resource for future cast ovens here. Thank you and now onto the enjoyable part of learning how to bake & roast in it...and of course you'll need a name for that treasure!

[WaterDog]

Thanks, gents! Another 'practice' session today with benefits. Heating slower this time to better understand how to manage the beast. First pizza party in 10 days. Pressure…the best kind.

[UtahBeehiver]

NIce looking cast oven. It will be a good reference for future cast builders.

[WaterDog]

Learning To Fly

Fired 2 more times. The last was for a gathering of friends. Served up 8 pies. I think I have my head around how to approach the heating process now. I've definitely moved away from thinking about dome temps. I'm more concerned with getting the floor saturated. I think for my oven with a 2-1/4" medium-duty firebrick floor I need to be thinking about a 2 hour heating process. More about building up a coal bed to distribute around the middle and right (cooking) sides, not so much about packing a lot of wood and letting it rip. I keep feeding one or 2 pieces every 15 minutes or so to build up that coal bed. I use the blow pipe to remove ash build up and keep the coals glowing.

After 90 minutes the dome began to clear and I pushed some of the coals to the left and built a consistent flame moving left to right over the dome. The rest of the dome cleared in about 15 minutes. I then push the coals from the middle/right over to the left. Blew away the residual ash/coals and began baking about 10 mins later. The dome hit over 1,000 at times and I never once thought about getting it there. It just happened when I followed this heating protocol.

From what I experienced it seems that this combination of really concentrating on having hot coals over the cooking area, keeping the ash build up to a minimum and having a good flame running over the top really helped to keep the floor charged. I was able to keep consistent temps in the floor of 825 to 875 degrees and never had to wait between bakes. That said, I've only achieved this result one time, but it held for a 2 hour period while I cranked out the pies and sipped a couple of cold ones.

The pizza below is a Margherita with jalapeño slices. The crust is very, very close to what I'm shooting for and cooked in 90 seconds. Time will tell if I can repeat this but for now, this'll do nicely.

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[WaterDog]

Here’ an update on my build. Finished the final protective layer by covering with an elastomeric acrylic stucco coating. It’s quite thin 1/16” or so but contains some aggregate to give it a nice textured look. I’m happy with the result. Provides some waterproof protection and improves the cosmetics.

Been enjoying the hell out of this oven. Elevating my pizza skills to a level that wouldn’t have been possible without the temps this oven is capable of. From here it’s about trying different flavor combinations and sourcing the best ingredients. My next mission is to master making mozzarella using locally sourced milk. And while at one time it may have motivated me to get to this point, I can honestly say I have little desire to seek out the best pizza anywhere that I wouldn’t rather make at home. My family and friends agree.

Here’s the finished oven along with a Pistachio Pesto & Sausage pizza from last night as well as some SD bread made this morning from the residual heat of last night’s pizza bake.

[SableSprings]

Bread looks fabulous and really great to hear that you are enjoying the "fruits" of your labors! Pizza combo sounds delicious and pretty sure it will show up at some other pizza parties.

[WaterDog]

Thanks, Mike!

[WaterDog]

2026 Update

Been awhile since my last post and wanted report on how the oven is holding up.

I fire it regularly. I find it very easy to use and get up to temperature but like most things there is a learning curve. It's been a great adventure.The cracks that developed early on at 12 and 3 o'clock have widened slightly but no others have appeared. After an hour the dome begins to clear and is fully cleared at 90 minutes. The floor reaches 850° in 90-120 minutes depending on how I move the coals around. If I’m in a rush I can go from cold to baking a couple of pizzas in 2 hours but I generally give it 2:30h to let it saturate.

I haven’t done a formal measurement on the amount of wood I use but my guesstimate is approx. 25-30 lbs. I have access to all the hardwood I want so it’s not a big concern. Mostly ash, oak and maple. One of these days I’ll do a more formal test to know for sure.

The floor is the last piece to get to temperature for the kind of pizza I make (Neapolitan) and if I had to do it again I probably would have spent more time thinking about this. I used full size medium duty firebrick because I happened to have them on hand. I believe they are 2.5” thick. A little thinner may reach temperature more in balance with how the dome saturates for when I only bake a couple of pies but then again, when I do parties with 10-20 pizzas in a night, having the floor retain the heat and recharge by moving the coals around, the thickness is a benefit. Ultimately I’m not sure there is an optimal solution for all situations but it should be part of your thinking when planning your build.

One issue I've encountered is dealing with wind. I read about how some people closed off the mouth to minimize its impact. The issue was how big to make the air opening, I looked for a formula to figure this out but couldn’t find anything definitive. Too small an opening can create a blowtorch effect that would superheat the fire and I certainly didn’t want that. I found a reference somewhere where someone suggested matching the area of the opening to the area of the chimney flue. This kinda made sense to me so it built a mock-up to test it. As it turned out this formula seems to have merit. After a few firings it seemed to minimize the impact of a windy day. I'm able to get that desirable lazy flame that seems to heat the chamber efficiently. Below is my current setup to accomplish this. Today was very windy (15-25 mph) and by using this I had no problem getting to temperature in 2 hours. BTW, I call him Norman, he's a real mouth breather.

The other is a pepperoni pizza made today. Naturally leavened for 36 hours using Italian flour. Baked in 80 seconds. It’s satisfying to make foods better than you can buy, in an oven made by your own hand. Strikes a primal chord.