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Wow. That’s gorgeous. Nice job

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I have long wanted a pizza oven. Would love to see photos of it.

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There are photos of his bread and/or pizza somewhere on the forum. I believe the oven is in some of them.

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Indeed. Right in this very thread no-less! Thanks for the reminder!

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You have a pizza oven? What kind? (I’m just a little obsessed with brick oven pizza.)

Search this thread for pics of it firing and some of the product. It is amazing. I guess I’ll do a video and post it on YouTube next time I fire it up. It’s so amazing to taste the difference.

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Neat. I did the initial design of the Pompeii oven (plans available free on the Internet) something like 10 or 12 years ago. I recall Rado’s stuff but wanted a design good for both food & pizza (I do the Thanksgiving turkey, prime rib, bread, etc in addition to pizza in the oven). I was trying to do something that didn’t require any special materials you couldn’t find locally.

I still get emails from folks all over the world who have built one and see what they’ve done to the housing from an artistic viewpoint.

I got my start from The Bread Builders book too but that design didn’t meet my “mission profile” (heat in under an hour, cook at least 3 pies at once, capable of long retained heat cooking as well as high heat fast pizza.

Not many better ways to host a party than everyone around the oven creating their own custom pizzas :slightly_smiling_face:

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Ok let’s turn this into the all about wood fired ovens thread. I’m a little embarrassed based on @marmak3261 's oven as it’s incredibly nice but here’s my build process from 5 years ago, and the final oven on Canada day this year.

And as an added bonus my brother in law’s oven that he finished this summer.

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Love the Flag! and of course your creation too! :grinning:

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Nice ovens. Thanks for sharing. I am 50 miles from my cabin in the woods where my oven is and I don’t get to fire it up often enough. One of these days a portable.

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Next project…maybe once the workshop and forge are done :smile:

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Wow! Don’t know how I missed it earlier, but that is great!
Nice masonry there.
How long to preheat it?

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On a warm day, three hours to get the base hot enough for three or four pizzas. I like to do four hours so that I have enough in the base to really work on the crust and cook from underneath. It’s easy enough to get it hot for the toppings, but the moisture in the dough and crust means that the crucial part is getting the base hot. It’s fairly big for a pizza oven, but I wanted to get two full sheetpans in or a small pig or a lamb.

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That’s why I designed the Pompeii myself. I had 4 kids and they didn’t want to wait hours for it to heat up. My design criteria was that it heated up as fast as we could make dough so we could just decide to make pizza without having to plan. It takes about an hour to make dough (although an overnight slow rise in the fridge makes for better crust). So the oven needed to heat up in under an hour too. The Bread Builders design has too much thermal mass for a good pizza oven - it’s okay for a continuous fire operation like a bakery.

One trick to help keep the deck hot when cooking lots of pies is to mix coal in with the wood - makes for higher heat densities. The small stuff (pea coal?) works great. I cook on a 650-700 degree deck for 90-120 seconds. It sits on the marble tile skirt that fronts the oven longer than it cooks - otherwise it’s molten when I cut it.

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Do you do 10" and smaller pizzas? That helps. I designed for large crowds and knew that I’d be firing it up on days off when I’d have plenty of time. I’d make my portable easier to fire. And overnight is so essential for flavor. Do you have Peter Reinhart’s American Pie? I have all his books and they made the difference for me to understand dough, aside from Raymond Calvel’s Le Gout du Pain. I use half KA AP and half KA Bread flour and it makes what I like to work with.

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13" Napolitano official standard pies only :slightly_smiling_face:

Spray of olive oil on the crust before saucing & toppings keeps the crust from pulling water from the sauce.

Reinhart does indeed rock! Father Dominic’s stuff is good too.

I’m either a KA AP with added KA gluten enhancer or Gold Medal pizza flour (gotta get it commercially - a friend owns a pizza place and will let me have 10lbs out of a 50lb bag).

Light on the toppings - Americans tend to over-top their pies which makes them overly heavy.

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Definite about the toppings. I used to always do the olive oil on the crust, but generally skip it now because I am usually cranking them out at a fast pace and don’t take the time. It does make a difference. What is gratifying is the number of people who say that it’s the best pizza they have ever eaten. I think it is because there is such a good balance with the ingredients, no over-powering tomato paste sauce, and the amazing complexity of a good hydrated crust that crisps up so perfectly in the hot oven.

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I am in the process of editing the part 2. There will part 3 and part 4 also dealing with the electronics and case details. You are welcome to subscribe. I will however write a bit about the whole process and link all the videos to this blog (https://indukudesign.com/blog/) when everything is done.

Also looking forward to making more raspberry pi cases!

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Yep. Except those Chicago folks :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

I want to place my order for large pepperoni :pizza: and mushroom, and a few onions.

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