You're here because you're thinking of building a pizza oven. You can buy them, but they cost thousands of dollars. THOUSANDS. You can build a pizza oven for around $150 in a few weekends.
Table of Contents
If you missed the tutorials on how to build your own pizza oven, click through the links below.
How to Build and Use a Pizza Oven
How to Build a Cob Pizza Oven Part 1. (the base and the basic form)
How to Build a Cob Pizza Oven Part 2. (making cob & forming it)
How to Build a Cob Pizza Oven Part 3. (the insulation layer and lime plaster)
After a bit of money a lot of work and a little bit of time, the pizza oven is complete. I've been using it for 4 years now and it's held up perfectly. I haven't had a single problem with it. Since building the oven I've also built a custom insulated pizza oven door that can withstand heat so I can keep the oven closed while baking things like bread or whole chickens.
But what do I use this pizza oven for mainly? Pizza of course.
As you can see, the fire goes right inside the oven. And it keeps going for 3 hours.
The great thing is when it isn't being used to make pizza, bread, roasts or pie it still looks really great and inviting.
If you aren't prepared to spend a few weekends building your own pizza oven but still want pizza that's as good as wood oven pizza (at least nearly as good) just go and read this post of mine. It's is an insanely detailed post on how to make the BEST pizza in your oven.
But yeah. It does look its best with a crackling fire.
I have potted herbs all around the backyard to use when making pizza or chicken or whatever else I might throw in the oven. You haven't lived until you've had a wood fired pizza with fresh basil on it straight out of your backyard oven. Unless you're an astronaut. If you're an astronaut that trumps eating pizza. No it doesn't. I was just kidding. Pizza rules.
As does bread. This shot I must admit has been set up. I actually baked the bread in the oven the day before and just rolled it out for this photoshoot. But it was cooked in the oven and it did turn out as perfect as it looks.
3 loaves fit in the oven and they took about 2o minutes.
So every night when I have to do horrible tasks like turn the compost pile or wash the green bin that smells like the death of a thousand rotting monkeys, I still smile. Because I get to see this.
If you stumbled upon here by chance, I made that pizza oven. And you can to. I have a 4 post tutorial on how to do it.
For everyone else, I TOLD you it was easy. Once you get past the sore feet, massive ass you build up and straw covered feet you won't be able to imagine how you even lived without a pizza oven. Even if you don't like pizza. I mean look at the thing. AND unlike most cottages or swimming pools, it's 4 season friendly.
Now I suppose you want to see it in action and I can't blame you for that. I had my mother and Fish Pedicure over the other night and made them pizza. It was their first time eating pizza from my wood burning oven.
Just the three of us lounging by the oven, talking, laughing and having, really, what can only be described as a picture perfect day. The kind of picture perfect day you're only likely to find on the Instagram or Twitter account of someone who constantly needs you to know how perfect their husband/wife/children/life is. You know the type.
Well now I'm one of them 'cause take a gander at this.
Pizza Oven
After the bleeding knuckles, the sand in your underwear and the straw covered feet you too can have your own pizza oven. It takes about a month at a leisurely pace working weekends. And THIS is why ...
So there you have it. The perfect life of this little blogger.
If you noticed the crack in the oven (and chances are yours might develop a crack too) don't worry about it. It's a small crack in the lime plaster which expands when the oven heats and closes again when it cools down. It's just cosmetic. You can fix it if you want but you don't have to.
I hope you liked my little tutorial that lasted for an entire week on how to build a pizza oven. As I've mentioned if it seems like the sort of thing you want to do you need to read my tutorials, buy this book
and watch these videos from architect Sigi Koko who specializes in building naturally and specifically cob. Once you do all those things I think you'll be fully prepared to build your own oven.
I'm not at all sure how you can become an astronaut.
Wow, I am so impressed! Great job.. I enjoyed my glass of wine while watching your video:) Hope all enjoy your pizza. Do you have a sauce recipe too?
Karen, what bolts/screws/thignies did you use to attach that sliding door metal panel to the table area? Thanks.
Ok so I found you a while back, put you on as an icon and then forgot. Just played you today after supposed to have left NYC on Monday at 5, sat on Tarmac 3 hrs w/ no food or water then flight canceled due to pilots being timed out and then flight canceled :) then not put up in hotel so I was lucky enough to pay for the $200 airport hotel where my shoes stuck to the bathroom floor and plugging in my charger to the wall only shocked me and broke my charger cell phone remained dead and then was lucky enough to not get my direct flight home the next day but two legs where I had got to be able to move my own luggage around. So after getting to the airport at 6:00 am after leaving it the night before at midnight to pay that $200 for that lovely room next to the chlorine drenched pool which oh, btw, had no working air, I find my flight has been delayed and I won't make my connection. I'm stopping there. I'm home now Friday but your post just changed my outlook and my day. You crack me up and since we are both karen it's obvs we'd be besties I am now still chuckling and thinking after I finish my ottom and feather light countertop in the guest bathroom I'm making my own cob pizza oven bc that bread omg that bread. And what pizza cheese do they use in NYC that's so much better than Houston Texas?
You TOTALLY ROCK. THANK YOU.
You truly do have the perfect life and I just watched the video to prove it! Cheers to Betty! BTW Love your pizza oven. You did a fantastic job on it!
Ohhhhh not perfect. The only people who have perfect lives are those people on Twitter who lie about perfect their lives are. But I'm happy with mine. It's perfect enough for now. ~ karen!
I wish you were my neighbor...
I love this project and plan to show it to my hubby so we can plan to build one! We have so many projects of various priorities going on though that it will have to get in line.
Your DIY barn door hardware intrigues me and I would love to see you provide instructions for it!
And last, I have to tell you that you are an amazing lady and at the top of my favorite bloggers because you are so involved in the continuing conversation. So many write the instructions but never respond to comments or questions. I believe I can speak for all of your followers in telling you how much we appreciate this about you! Thank you for the great inspiration, instructions, and laughs!
Best DIY Post... EVER. Seriously. I don't get by here as often as I used to, but when I realized you'd show me how to make my own wood-fired pizza oven, I read every post. I am a little confused by one thing you said:
"Once you get past the sore feet, massive ass you build up and straw covered feet you won’t be able to imagine how you even lived without a pizza oven."
What? How do you build up a massive ass? Or is that the result of eating great pizza every night for the rest of life? Totally missed the part where you explained this...
LOL, thanks Marti. It is GREAT. One of the best things I've built. So you get the massive ass from stomping and squishing and mixing the cob. It's a LOT of ass and leg work. Once the pizza and bread making begins the ass turns a bit yeasty. ~ karen!
Wait, you are saying workouts make for massive ass, then? And standing around, eating pizza... your ass gets light and fluffy? Your ass is clearly very different from mine in nature (we don't need to go further on that) and you have turned away from every day, M-F posts?
?? No. My yeast ass posts every Monday to Friday. ~ karen!
You make me want to be a better person. As long as that desire remains unfulfilled, we should get along just fine. :)
Great video, Karen! I noticed a couple of things:
You measure your oven temperature at the floor, whereas I measure the heat of the inside of the dome. If you try aiming up at the dome, you will find it is way hotter. You and I probably achieve the same oven temp. Mine is usually about 700 degrees (F) on the floor, and more than a thousand in the dome. How long does it take to bake pizzas in your oven? Mine take about 90 seconds to two minutes.
I don't heat soak unless I'm making bread, and I do that after I scrape out the live embers. I bake pizzas with live embers beside them, but I only make bread after I'm done making pizzas, and after I scrape out the fire. Do you find the heat soak makes a big difference?
Even though my oven has more thermal mass than yours (I built a 4" thick cob sub-hearth on top of the wine bottle insulation layer and under the hearth bricks), it only takes about 45 minutes to get blistering hot. I wonder why yours takes longer? I would have hypothesized that your oven is still not entirely dried out, but obviously it is since you built it a year ago.
Here's where I become a total buttinski: you use a much stiffer dough than I do. If that works well for you, more power to you, but if stretching the dough out is ever a challenge for you, try making a higher hydration dough, make sure it "windowpanes", ball it into individual pizza portions, and rest it in the fridge in lightly oiled tupperware for at least a day and up to a week (!), and it will offer no resistance when you go to stretch it--it will practically fall into a circle over your knuckles. Ignore me if you are happy with your dough! I teach pizza dough classes, and so I can't help but make know-it-all suggestions.
If you would like to see a TRUE obsessive rant about pizza in what can only be called a madman's pizza manifesto, you will be highly entertained by Jeff Varasano:
http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm
Hi Kristin! LOL. K, here we go. I do measure the temp of the dome as well, but for pizzas it's the temp of the floor I'm concerned about. I've started to ignore the heat soak for pizzas as well. :) If I were try to heat it up it might get there by 45 minutes, but it wouldn't stay hot for tons of pizzas. The longer you heat it the longer it should stay hot. No? And the dough I make usually window panes, but I didn't let it rest at room temp. long enough for this video and it was definitely stiffer than I like. I've always liked this dough, but I'm not opposed to adding more water to loosen it up even more. I make tons of dough and freeze it (so I always have some ready for an impromptu pizza party). I'm happy to get pizza dough tips. Who wouldn't be, lol?! I'll take a look at the video now. Thx! ~ karen
I freeze dough for back up. It works so well! I have found that the softer and wetter the dough (to a point!) the better the crust. It comes out light as a feather and crisp, with airy bubbles around the edge. My dough is so soft it is almost more of a batter, until I "turn" it (folding process) and build gluten structure. Curried cauliflower soup sounds delicious.
Hi Kristin! Well I'm going to make another batch of pizza dough for a pizza dinner party I'm having on Saturday night. So I'm going to go with a higher hydration dough just 'cause you asked. :) I guess I'll just make my regular dough with all purpose flour but add more liquid. I'm imagining it to be like a no knead bread dough. Almost goopy. Wish me luck! ~ karen
Karen,
It's beautiful, and I have backyard big enough to make it but the LAST THING I NEED is to eat more pizza!
Anyway, if I may - I would really like to see a layout of your garden and where things are in relationship to your house. I think your garden is divided into sections, no? at least that's my impression from seeing pictures here and in Style At Home etc. Maybe you could draw it one day on a paperbag - a rough sketch will do.
I am sure you can do while you are holding a brush between the toes of your foot and painting of miniature replica of the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.
Please & thank you.
I am too lazy to read through all the posts to see if anyone asked about the crack? Is that just on the lime coating or did the crack go deeper?? Did you not beat the cob enough? Did you get all sucky and wimpy because your knuckles were all bleeding and not beat it the way I will beat my pizza oven when I build it so that my oven is better than yours? I thought you were tough....wimp. (P.S....my oven will not be as nice as yours...I hope it will but I am doubtful. My attention span is not ver
Best. Video. Ever.
Just sayin'.
I need to say that again.
Best.Video.Ever.
hahahahaa!
Oh.my.gawd. That is AWESOME!!! I'm so beyond impressed it's embarrassing. I no longer own my own home so I won't be building this in the corner of my yard (wait, I probably could), but I'm definitely going to pick at my daughter constantly to do this. The thought of peasant bread just sends me in a tailspin!
That video was perfection. The hidden beer was my favorite part.
What kind of wood do you burn in a pizza oven? What do you do with the ashes? Is it hard to clean out?
You and your Mom look like great fun. Can I come to your next pizza party? I'll bring a nice Barolo. And the sun....
Hey Karen,
is that your target dress you got all wet? I think I recognize it from a previous post...The oven looks amazing!
Mariella
Hi Mariella! Good eye. ;) That is indeed the Target nightgown, lol. And thanks. I absolutely LOVE my oven. :) ~ karen!
Karen I love you. I've been following for a while but this is my first time commenting. I'm lucky and live in the country so I have the room to build this but it will have to wait til next summer. Must finish the potting shed first - it's really like a little house, just finishing installing my 1930s cookstove for canning an I think that cob oven would go nicely outside the back door. That and I've got barn board up the hoop, wish I had known you were looking for some!
Question - did you use a special drill and bit to make the hardware, and how hard did you have to hit the iron to bend it? Regular hammer or sledge hammer? Did you make the door before the hole to get the size right or after? Maybe you should just run a workshop on this for us all to come and learn - I volunteer my place!
You are one amazing woman thank you for the inspiration and motivation
Next: Cowboy cauldron! How cool they are and you could also make chilli! (My delete key vbrike when I cleaned my keyboard with Windex...sorry! Can you show how to do that the right way, too?)
OK..I'm pretty sure of this now..I want to marry you..You are everything I ever wanted in a husband..the pizza oven is just what I needed to make my decision..I know..you like living alone..Just build a little shed out back for me..preferably not far from the pizza oven..that way you can just give me a little holler when dinner is ready..yup..let me know soon..I'm hungry..for pizza...and bread..definitely some bread..