BBQ Smoker under the pizza oven

[FlGator]

Has anyone built a pizza oven with something else under the pizza oven instead off wood storage? What I am thinking of building is a BBQ smoker under the oven instead of having it wood storage.

For those of you not that familiar with BBQ (not grilling which excellent but another separate cooking style) it involves burning wood down to coal and then smoking the meat at approx 250 degrees for many hours depending on the cut of meat. A large piece a pork shoulder may take in excess of 10 hours but it tastes out of this world!

Normally a fireplace is used to burn the logs down to coals but my though is why not combine the two and get two for the price of one. I have shamelessly based my smoker on one built by Dave named The "Wilber D. Hog" Pit and adjusted it to put a pizza oven on top. (You can see his creation at http://www.ibiblio.org/lineback/bbq/wdh.htm).

My masonry skills thankfully exceed my computer skills but I have attached a rough sketch of my idea. What I would like to know is:

1) Anyone built anything like this?
2) Would there be any problems have a 10+ hour fire in the pizza oven?
3) Do you think that given the significant extra weight that I would have to increase the thickness of the foundation?
4) Would there be issues with having heat above and below the slab that holds up the pizza oven?

I truly am amazed at the beautiful ovens that I see on this board and do not want to bite off more than I can chew but this seems like a marriage of my two culinary loves.

Any input would be appreciated.

[jengineer]

link won't work

since the last ) is included in it

http://www.ibiblio.org/lineback/bbq/wdh.htm

should work

[FlGator]

Thanks for that, I don't know why the ) was included.

[Kinsman]

I am a barbecue cook too.

I'm going to be building a Pompeii oven this spring. I had seen Wilbur a couple of years ago and recently I got to wondering what kind of heat would be generated by the exhaust from a pizza-type heat, and if you couldn't run that through another chamber, and then keep that chamber at BBQ temps.

My first guess is that the temps would be too high and it might be easier to just go ahead and do a separate BBQ pit. But maybe a damper could be used to divert just a part of the exhaust gases?

Anybody out there measured the temps of the exhaust from their oven?

[james]

It's hot

I have pointed the Infrared at the vent area, and it gets hot. Into the 700s. Still I haven't thought about the heat of the exhaust air itself. One way of thinking about it is that the heat exhaust from the fire chamber below is used to heat the baking chamber of the Scottish ovens used in many commercial bakeries.

James

[FlGator]

Is there an issue with sharing a flue for both cooking vessels? Should I worry about the heat / smoke backing up into the smoking chamber or does the heat always just rise? I am thinking that just building two flues is likely the better choice but I don't want to make unneeded work / complexity.

Thanks

[james]

I have seen a number of ovens share chimney with a wood fired grill (typically on the side). Not sure if it is worth the time and energy to engineer it (two chimney sections going into a Y and a single external chimney), vs. simply having two stacks.

James

[dkoenig]

smoker/oven

I like the idea of this combo. I like the smaller footprint. i would also keep the chimney stacks seperate. the nice thing is you could be fireing your pizza oven, stealing some of the coals, putting them down below to smoke the meat.
Start on a Friday night, and you could have pizza/bread/brisket/pork all from 'one' fireing.

[bmansfie]

Combo unit

A while back I had hopes of building a combo unit with a Rumford fireplace on bottom and a Alan Scott style oven on top. The dilemna was, one flue/chimney or two, and how to route it all? Someone on another forum sent me these drawings of a project they had done involving a fireplace below with an oven above. Hope this helps!

[stuart]

I'd sure like a little more information on this design, even access to the individual who designed it. My plans have been to build dome type oven and a separate fireplace out by the pool. This design would allow a significant space savings over what is planned.

[FlGator]

Does anyone know why the height of the oven floor in the design was made? Could I make it one block higher (how about two). Making the oven floor higher would open up alot of possibilities.

In the current design do you need to look down into the oven? If it was 12 inches higher would it create issues?

[james]

Floor height

My math shows that oven floor at 4' 6", or 54". Right?

I just measured that on the wall, and stood there with a pizza peel. It's pretty high. Usable definitely, but well on the high side of average. You could use a peel at that height without having to put the handle of the peel above your shoulder, which would be pretty difficult to do to. I think higher would make it difficult to get food in and out of the oven.

My guess is that the floor is at that height to "just" allow for venting of the fireplace.

James

[stuart]

Seems the best way to gain better drafting of the fireplace would be to lower it. Go without the 12" tall hearth and set it at floor level? Does anyone know of a source (book) for fireplace design? I doubt I'd attempt building one, but I'd like to know more about the construction before I attempt to explain this set up to a mason.