How to Build a Pizza Oven at Home

Building Your Pizza Oven

Before doing anything else, you first have to choose the perfect spot for your pizza oven. Whether in your garden or in the corner of your patio, make sure you pick a spot you would like to stay. 

Once you’ve chosen your favorite location for your homemade pizza oven, you must gather the appropriate materials next. Brick and clay are ideal for your pizza oven build. For a more stable and durable structure that’ll stand up well to weather, combining both of these materials is recommended. 

Below are the different materials you will need:

• – 20 cinder blocks, or 6 to 8 large square concrete slabs
• – Approximately 40 bricks
• – 11 pounds of cement
• – 440 pounds of builder’s sand
• – 385 pounds of clay
• – Glass bottles (approximately 20 to 30 wine bottles)
• – Pebbles, big stones, and rubble
• – 13 pounds of wood shavings
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Instructions

Now that you’ve got what you need grab your wagon or wheelbarrow, a whole bunch of water, and get ready to make your own brick pizza oven.

• 1. First on the task list will be building your oven’s base. Using your concrete slabs, or cinder blocks, make a hollow, sturdy square shape. Think of a 3D cube, but with the top face missing. This gap is where you will place your materials beneath where the pizza oven is going to sit. To stick the cinder blocks or slabs together, use the cement. It’ll be like creating a concrete sandwich.
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• 2. In the hollow center of your concrete square, set down a layer of rubble and stone and top it with sand. Next, top the sand by laying down your glass bottles. Position them so that they are all flat beside one another. 
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• 3. Now, it’s time to fill in the absent face of your cube with the remaining concrete slabs or cinder blocks. This is where the insulating magic occurs, so make sure it’s snug. 
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• 4. This is the part where you get to build your pizza oven’s dome. Using about 265 pounds of your sand, create a dome shape right in the center of your oven floor. Make sure it’s around 18 inches high and 32 inches in diameter. Next, cover the sand with newspaper – this will keep the sand from drying up as you mold the clay around it. 
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• 5. Around the base of the dome, make a thick tube-like shape with the clay, similar to a sausage. From there, mold the rest of the clay around the dome accordingly. You want the clay to completely dry before doing anything else, so after you finish molding it, wait about 4 hours.
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• 6. Using a kitchen knife, cut a door in the shape of a semi-circle that will be able to accommodate a pizza tray. Make sure it’s not too big, however. Surrounding this oven entrance, build a brick-wall type rim. Behind this arch made of brick, cut a large hole – this will be the oven’s chimney!
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• 7. To your dome, you will need to add two layers of additional insulation. For the first layer, it’s best to use a mix of wood shavings, cement, and water. Let this dry before adding your second layer using sand, cement, and water.
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• 8. Once your homemade pizza oven has dried all the way through, your oven is ready to be fired up! By the mouth of the oven, place newspaper and firewood or coal (up to you). This will get the fire nicely started. Then, using your pizza tray, push your fuel source toward the back end of the oven.
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• 9. And finally – add your pizza!

Conclusion

Once you’ve got your own brick pizza oven nicely set up in your outdoor backyard area, you and your family will find yourselves sharing quality time around it often. The process of building your own can be messy and require some good old elbow grease. 

So, if the task seems like too much, you can always just go ahead and purchase a professional-grade pizza oven of your own for your backyard kitchen. Either way, once you’ve enjoyed the authenticity of fire-cooked dishes in the comfort of your own home, not only will you not have to order takeout anymore – you won’t want to!