Everyone i know who built a pizza oven used it twice and then never again

It's the journey, not the destination

That tarp would be melted if that thing was to temperature.

I bought an indoor unit, used it nearly 3x a month for 4 people over 10 years. It was fun as we all made our own and then I coked them, At least until my kids grew up and moved out. I would have loved an outdoor unit, wood fired had that amazing smoked taste to it and I’ve gone to parties at a friends who had one he put together “and used twice”. Effort for 90 seconds of cooking was just not worth it, but when cooking for 15 people he loved when I’d come over and light it up. It really was the journey for him.

Now I’m in Spain and single, I’d do it for me but the effort of planning just 1 pizza never appeals to me more than just getting out and seeing people at my local pizza place.

I built one with just clay and straw, used it every weekend for years, it cracked, rebuilt it, used for another two years, cracked again, rebuilt it a third time. I've moved to a new house and already miss it. Even if I'm not making pizza, it's great just for an outdoor fire while sitting in the hammock. It's contained and uses like 1/4 of the wood while not being as dangerous.

A great way to spend a weekend afternoon is to fire it up and loaf on the hammock. I'd also use it to bake bread, make peach cobblers in cast iron, and smoke bacon. Great times. Maybe I could get the parts to rebuild it this weekend...

Long ago I had a girlfriend who had a neighbor who built one in his backyard and would have at least monthly (weather permitting) block parties where he'd provide the dough and the oven and everybody else would bring sauces, cheeses, toppings, etc. Great way to bring people together and freaking delicious.

The chimey is hot, but the outside of the oven is usually well insulated with e.g. rockwool.

No they’re hot enough to melt tarps.

He looks exactly like the kinda guy I would expect to make a lot of pizza.

It's 40 - 80 °C depending on how well it's inulated.

Not in my experience.

Sounds like Emily doesn’t like waking up to fresh baked pizza for lunch from her loving father in a house large enough to have a yard you can build a pizza oven in. Poor Emily, she must live a really difficult life.

This is basically what I say to my wife when I get an idea like this and the result of said idea will only benefit her. Her response is almost always something to the effect of “well ok hang on”. Lady, I know you well enough to know the things you like. Let me help you

And guess who loves the pizza I make for her in the pizza oven, the fresh baked sourdough bread I bake for her, the tomatoes from the garden I dug, the beer I brew, the pasta I make, and the deer meat I shoot? What a terrible life she has

lawl absolutely true, but also it gets below freezing here and rebuilding it only take a few hours so it's nbd. I'd rather just rebuild it every few years vs stress out super hard a fancy one cracks

Her steak too juicy and lobster too buttery

Primitive Technology would be so proud =)

Hey Emily, can you introduce me to you dad so he and I can become friends?

Boys will be boys.

Her boyfriend dick too big

My wife has learned by now that I follow through.

She won a gift certificate to a kitchen store and I asked for, and reluctantly got, a cast iron pan.

Dozens of delicious pizzas (and other stuff) later she just buys me kitchen stuff she thinks I can use.

What makes you think, she is complaining?

Why does this photo look like it was taken in 2010?

Looks like a picture I would take on my old 3GS.

20 years ago my friend asked me to help him build. It sat in his yard and we fired it up probably once a month th 7 months of the year for around 5 years. Then we pulled it out of the ground, cut the base short, and mounted it onto a trailer. It went to another friend's house, where it sat for a couple years and cracked. Maybe got used 2x. ~5 years ago, we got it back in good shape, now with a coat of cement over the bricks, and used it for another friends wedding, ended up selling it to another friend who had a catering buisness, and now it does 3 days a week at the brewery

Because it was from 2016

I helped build a similar one one that traveled around my friend group for a bit and now does 3 days a week at the local brewery. Ours stays under 150°F... After a 10 hour day of continuous use in 90°temps.

the exterior is always comfortable to the touch- some times i climb up on top of it and sit and watch the crowd/ music/ call out orders for the guys if its busy.

They're usually that layer of bricks, a layer of insulation, then like 6-8" of cement. The whole point is to keep the heat reflecting on the inside.

If the one you have access to is reaching more than 200°F, it means the interior has cracked somewhere, and it shouldn't be used until repaired. Your risking the insulation catching, or burned through it already, contaminating the pizzas, and rhe exterior concrete layer being damaged.

When she called it a “god damn pizza oven” it came off as snarky to me

Let him bake

What's the basics of using clay and straw to make stuff like that?

https://www.themudhome.com/mudbuilding/how-to-make-a-cob-oven-and-avoid-the-common-pitfalls

https://theyearofmud.com/2009/09/12/outdoor-cob-pizza-oven/

There's a book too, if you want more detail, that's what I used when I first made mine like 12 years ago

https://permies.com/t/223763/Cob-Oven-bible-Build-Earth

The simplest explanation is you pile sand into a dome shape, then mix clay and sand and pile it on the sand, then mix clay sand and straw and use that for the outer shell. After the walls dry you can scoop out the inner sand dome.

I highly recommend renting a cement mixer, doing it with foot stamping takes a very long time.

I mean that's an actual problem to have

You mean that?

I want exactly that

Legend

My wife and I are very frugal. And we love to cook. And we love pizza. We make pretty good pizza with just our pizza stone and our shitty oven. I can tell you right now, if we had a pizza oven, we'd be using it twice a week, because that's about how often we have pizza. I've developed a habit of making dough when I've had a stressful day. It's healthier than drinking. Just knead that dough.

It's because making actual great pizza is super fucking hard and 99% of RESTAURANTS can't even do it properly, let alone great. Making great pizza is an artform that requires a shit ton of control and balance over like a hundred variables.

Most people just want cheap and easy pizza at home, not a multi-generational, obsessive hobby that requires deep scientific knowledge and data tracking that's basically a universally devalued trade.

We have to go to Hammerbarn.

Making pizza is easy, making good dough takes a lifetime to learn

People need to get off the idea that only doing things perfectly is worth doing.

No, making even mediocre pizza is still worth doing, because even mediocre pizza with an oblong shape and lumpy topping distribution can be pretty great when it's still hot and crispy and you're having fun making it.

I have a pizza oven. I make a lot of pizza at home, and I eat a lot of pizza out at restaurants. I enjoy it even when I know it's not perfect. Because pizza is fun and even bad pizza is good in its own way.

making good dough takes a couple tries.

Making the Perfect Dough is a lifetime task

Awesome, thanks for the advice, I saved your post for reference.

There's a lot of ways to say God damn and you've picked the most uncharitable one of them.

Yeah that doesn't sound right man, if that much heat is escaping then there's something wrong.

That's awesome, thanks for sharing it! Been a while since I considered making a backyard pizza oven, and now I'm down that rabbit hole again.

godSdamn pizza oven emily we don't want to exclude the polytheists from the godsdamn pizza party

I feel you. We have fantastic cookware. We almost never use it. Why? I don't know how many years ago, I told my wife i wanted to buy a cast iron pan so sorry i know the budget's tight but i'm spending some date money. three date nights later, she told me we needed another cast iron pan.

hot smoke or cold smoke bacon? i need like 90 bucks worth of parts to turn my smoker into a cold smoker and i've been putting off bacon until then

You joke, but my very Catholic grandmother will say things like that as a workaround to avoid blaspheming.

Although it's never been clear exactly which gods she's been referring to all my life - maybe I should ask her.

We now have two cast iron skillets and a cast iron bread pan, which was used on the last loaf I posted. (It has a top so you get the full extra crust)

I love cooking for her.