GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: backyard pizza oven

Pizza Oven Brick, How To Store It

I just pulled a bunch of pizza oven brick out of a dumpster in Brooklyn. The contractors were taking down the parapet wall of a crumbling building near my house. I walked down with my hand truck. The crew were happy to help me sort out a ton of excellent brick.

When I say pizza oven brick, I mean old school clay brick. We talk about this a bit in our pizza oven videos, but we can expand here. We don’t use fire brick in our home made pizza oven, we use used clay bricks. These old kind that we salvage from construction sites or we find online. I wrote about how to find used brick here.

People have asked about the potential for bad things being in the brick that one doesn’t want touching their pizza dough. From what I understand, that potential is low to non-existent, because the pizza dough is only on the brick for a very short time. Not long enough to absorb anything, in my opinion, as long as the brick is clean.

How To Store Pizza Oven Brick

The beauty of our home made pizza oven is you can break it down. But, you have to store the brick somewhere. I learned the hard way that just leaving them out in the yard is bad. Over the winter, the bricks got wet, consequently, they froze and cracked over the winter. Bad Bricks!

Snow and Rain will damage your bricks, don’t do this.

So here is how I now store pizza oven brick.

Grab two pallets, probably an easy thing if you are a GardenFork sort of person. Plan where you are going to store your brick. Ideally, this is not under the overhang of a shed, because we don’t want more water than necessary near the brick. Learn from me…

Plenty of space between the bricks

Put one pallet down on the ground, and stack the bricks on the pallet with air space between them. Because if the bricks do get wet, they can dry out. If they are stack tight together, they wont dry out as well.

Place another pallet of the same size on top of the loosely stacked bricks. Finally, cover the whole stack with a waterproof tarp.

What I have found is the tarp can pool water, so I make sure the side of the pallet with more cross pieces is facing up. Unlike the photo above… It wouldn’t hurt to slide a piece of scrap plywood over the top pallet, then the tarp.

Homemade Brick Pizza Oven Video

December 28, 2017
How To Find Used Brick For A Pizza Oven

People have been asking me how to find used brick for building our DIY pizza oven plan, so as I just found some more brick today, I can share with you how to do this.

The best way is to look around for construction demolition projects going on in your area. Ask you friends if they know of any work being done. I was lucky today to walk down the block to find a crew taking down a brick wall of a building. They were happy to get rid of some brick.

Used Brick sits well in those plastic organizer crates, but make sure they aren’t the cheap flimsy kind.

Perfect reason to ride your bike around, so go look into construction dumpsters and find used brick.

If there aren’t brick buildings near you, check out Craigslist. You’d be surprised how had a pile of brick that they want to get rid of.

You will probably pay more for clean brick, so keep in mind when you want to clean brick and when you to just pay for brick that has already been cleaned.

The issue of using used clay brick has been debated quite a bit. I have used it for several pizza ovens and I am fine with it. You can make your own choice. For pizza, we are not heating up the brick for hour after hour to build heat, we are creating a space to hold fire for a short period to cook some dough and cheese.

How do you find used brick? Let me know below.

November 8, 2016
Rooftop Pizza Oven in Cambodia

Tony wanted to make a brick pizza oven, and he found our pizza oven videos, and then made his own version. On a rooftop in Cambodia, of all places. How cool is that?

Pizza Oven 2.0 from ConceptuallySpeaking.
Tony writes:

“I’ve been meaning to re-visit your site since it provided the perfect solution I was looking for in 2013 when I wanted to build a pizza oven on my roof here in Cambodia.

I stacked and built mine on a custom made angle iron table with the angle iron bars ($40). Then I found these perfect 2 inch think angled cement pieces to put under the oven ($10). Once I found the place to buy the old bricks from the French Colonial buildings being dismantled at a price of $1 for 4, things got a lot easier – but finding the bricks was not an easy task given the language barrier and neither did the fact that it’s a 5 story building with no elevator. Although I did get a great workout bring it up and continue to do so with each or cord of wood. One original modification on made on your design was not to stack the bricks vertically but instead all of them flat.

I have now re-built the oven three times, replacing cracked bricks and modifying the design slightly. I originally had a chimney in the back but found it was really non-essential. One nice feature I added was an elevated level in the front for cooking the pizza on. I also built it up two brick levels higher over all as the brick price is pretty inconsequential here. I use terra cotta tiles to cook on in the oven and on top of the oven to keep the pizzas warm, help the dough rise and get the crust a bit crispier.

Thanks for the inspiring solution. If you are ever in Phnom Penh, Cambodia come over for a pizza with one of the best views in town.”

Not only are they good for making pizza, but our DIY Pizza Oven Plans make for a good workout when you are hauling brick up four flights of stairs!

Interesting that T0ny also found that one does not need a chimney for this pizza oven. I have had many people ask about that.

Watch all our DIY pizza oven plans videos here.

February 14, 2015
Home Made Pizza Oven Photos from John

After watching our brick oven pizza video, John in Arizona sent us these photos of his DIY brick oven. Much like our brick oven design, it uses brick and angle iron. I forgot to ask John where he got his angle iron from. I like that the brick oven fits nicely right next to his propane grill, right off the patio, all set for cooking.

“My wife and I love your show. We put this together and wanted you and your wife to see it”

Cool! This is the second set of pictures I’ve got from a viewer. A big thank you to John for sending these. love it. See the link at the bottom of this post for links to other pizza and bread oven photos.

John tried out his oven with a pizza stone, and I’ve talked with a few people who have tried this method, its much better to just slide the pizza right onto the hot bricks. The bricks are about 700F, so its pretty sterile. And bricks are made out of clay, which is what pottery is made out of, so i’m thinking its pretty safe to do.

More Pizza Oven Plan Photos Here
Love that roaring fire in the photo there, and the pizzas have a smokey hint to them when using wood. Do you have a backyard oven? send us photos or a link to your site, thanks!

January 27, 2012
Backyard Brick Oven Discussion! GF Radio

We talk about the Simple Backyard Brick Oven Plans and Video. The pizza oven construction is discussed, and how to source angle iron using freecycle techniques. Placement of the wood fire within the Brick Oven and the difference between our simple brick oven and those pizza ovens in a restaurant fill out the conversation. Its the perfect brick oven for a pizza party. Mike talks about the ritual of building the oven is akin to BBQ, the ritual of doing it. Having your friends help build the pizza oven when they come over to eat would be fun. How to cut Durock, a cement backer board used in the Brick Pizza Oven is best scored with a utility knife.

What kind of dough recipe to use in the pizza oven comes up. Eric used this pizza dough recipe and found it to be good.

Mike asks if people remember a mimeograph machine, and dates himself immediately, and talks about fishing in winter.

Monica joins us to talk about what Eric should make with what he has in his fridge, the consensus seems to be Mexican Casserole. We also talk about Monica’s trip to Los Angeles.

The 7 bone roast mystifies Eric, and Monica suggests visiting your local butcher who knows about meat. Stew meat, what kind to use, and how Monica and Mike make it is discussed, use what you got seems to be the theme here. Mike has a great suggestion to save food from catering platters, put them in the freezer and use them to make stews.

GardenFork Radio is now available on Stitcher Radio

January 22, 2012