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Thanks for the positive comments. I did two tours in Sicily, Italy during my Navy years. Pizza ovens are relatively common there, kinda like built-in BBQ's here, but in the more affluent areas. I built the oven in 2008. There's a forum like this on the website: Fornobravo.com. You have to ignore the store-bought ovens on the main web page and go directly to the forum. I don't hang out with that crowd anymore, so I've forgotten much of the details of the site. They have very specific instructions for the entire build, but there are many members that changed things up to meet their own desires, and so have enormous volumes of building information from various members that dovetails into the main instructions. If you decide to try to build one, the forum members are very willing to help you out along the way. Photos of my build should still be on that site. The dates were roughly July - Nov. 2008 (forgive me if I messed that up). I don't even remember my user name, so I'm not much help directing you towards my individual oven. Regardless, for the most part, they are all done similarly, with variations in size, insulation, method of brick cutting, and final finish. The website also maintains really good recipes for pizzas, dough, bread baking, and general cooking with a wood-fired refractory oven. The dough I used is made from standard bread flour - the darkness of the crust comes from the caramelization of the sugars in the dough as it cooks at high heat - just as bread does. I generally end up cooking pizzas right between 750 - 800 degrees. If you get it hotter, it's hard to control the speed of the cooking, and you can end up with scorched product very easily. I still use the Forno Bravo pizza dough recipe, but only use bread flour vs. the recommended Italian flour on that site.I highly recommend building one, or perhaps an earthen oven (mud/straw mix) for those of you who love great bread. You can't beat the quality of the breads that come from a wood-fired oven. Have fun!
Thanks for the details!! I LOVE me some pizza. I have my pellet grill running 500-550 and using a steel plate to get some of that heat radiating down from 4" over the pizza stone. Typical papa murphy's pizza takes 3-5min, home made I have done 4-5min. It is a start, but I want the real thing as some point!I need to work on my dough though so will check out your link!!
Quote from: lamrith on July 02, 2015, 08:22:56 PMThanks for the details!! I LOVE me some pizza. I have my pellet grill running 500-550 and using a steel plate to get some of that heat radiating down from 4" over the pizza stone. Typical papa murphy's pizza takes 3-5min, home made I have done 4-5min. It is a start, but I want the real thing as some point!I need to work on my dough though so will check out your link!! I would like more details on this metal plate you speak of and how you did it. I use a pizza stone but no additional steel plates?I'd love to build me a wood fired oven!
