Long ago I had a girlfriend who had a neighbor who built one in his backyard and would have at least monthly (weather permitting) block parties where he’d provide the dough and the oven and everybody else would bring sauces, cheeses, toppings, etc. Great way to bring people together and freaking delicious.
It’s because making actual great pizza is super fucking hard and 99% of RESTAURANTS can’t even do it properly, let alone great. Making great pizza is an artform that requires a shit ton of control and balance over like a hundred variables.
Most people just want cheap and easy pizza at home, not a multi-generational, obsessive hobby that requires deep scientific knowledge and data tracking that’s basically a universally devalued trade.
People need to get off the idea that only doing things perfectly is worth doing.
No, making even mediocre pizza is still worth doing, because even mediocre pizza with an oblong shape and lumpy topping distribution can be pretty great when it’s still hot and crispy and you’re having fun making it.
I have a pizza oven. I make a lot of pizza at home, and I eat a lot of pizza out at restaurants. I enjoy it even when I know it’s not perfect. Because pizza is fun and even bad pizza is good in its own way.
My wife and I are very frugal. And we love to cook. And we love pizza. We make pretty good pizza with just our pizza stone and our shitty oven. I can tell you right now, if we had a pizza oven, we’d be using it twice a week, because that’s about how often we have pizza. I’ve developed a habit of making dough when I’ve had a stressful day. It’s healthier than drinking. Just knead that dough.
20 years ago my friend asked me to help him build. It sat in his yard and we fired it up probably once a month th 7 months of the year for around 5 years. Then we pulled it out of the ground, cut the base short, and mounted it onto a trailer. It went to another friend’s house, where it sat for a couple years and cracked. Maybe got used 2x. ~5 years ago, we got it back in good shape, now with a coat of cement over the bricks, and used it for another friends wedding, ended up selling it to another friend who had a catering buisness, and now it does 3 days a week at the brewery
I built one with just clay and straw, used it every weekend for years, it cracked, rebuilt it, used for another two years, cracked again, rebuilt it a third time. I’ve moved to a new house and already miss it. Even if I’m not making pizza, it’s great just for an outdoor fire while sitting in the hammock. It’s contained and uses like 1/4 of the wood while not being as dangerous.
A great way to spend a weekend afternoon is to fire it up and loaf on the hammock. I’d also use it to bake bread, make peach cobblers in cast iron, and smoke bacon. Great times. Maybe I could get the parts to rebuild it this weekend…
The simplest explanation is you pile sand into a dome shape, then mix clay and sand and pile it on the sand, then mix clay sand and straw and use that for the outer shell. After the walls dry you can scoop out the inner sand dome.
I highly recommend renting a cement mixer, doing it with foot stamping takes a very long time.
lawl absolutely true, but also it gets below freezing here and rebuilding it only take a few hours so it’s nbd. I’d rather just rebuild it every few years vs stress out super hard a fancy one cracks
I bought an indoor unit, used it nearly 3x a month for 4 people over 10 years. It was fun as we all made our own and then I coked them, At least until my kids grew up and moved out. I would have loved an outdoor unit, wood fired had that amazing smoked taste to it and I’ve gone to parties at a friends who had one he put together “and used twice”. Effort for 90 seconds of cooking was just not worth it, but when cooking for 15 people he loved when I’d come over and light it up. It really was the journey for him.
Now I’m in Spain and single, I’d do it for me but the effort of planning just 1 pizza never appeals to me more than just getting out and seeing people at my local pizza place.
Everyone i know who built a pizza oven used it twice and then never again
Making pizza is easy, making good dough takes a lifetime to learn
making good dough takes a couple tries.
Making the Perfect Dough is a lifetime task
Not with Granny Boyle’s starter dough
Nahhh. It’s easier than making a baguette.
Long ago I had a girlfriend who had a neighbor who built one in his backyard and would have at least monthly (weather permitting) block parties where he’d provide the dough and the oven and everybody else would bring sauces, cheeses, toppings, etc. Great way to bring people together and freaking delicious.
It’s because making actual great pizza is super fucking hard and 99% of RESTAURANTS can’t even do it properly, let alone great. Making great pizza is an artform that requires a shit ton of control and balance over like a hundred variables.
Most people just want cheap and easy pizza at home, not a multi-generational, obsessive hobby that requires deep scientific knowledge and data tracking that’s basically a universally devalued trade.
People need to get off the idea that only doing things perfectly is worth doing.
No, making even mediocre pizza is still worth doing, because even mediocre pizza with an oblong shape and lumpy topping distribution can be pretty great when it’s still hot and crispy and you’re having fun making it.
I have a pizza oven. I make a lot of pizza at home, and I eat a lot of pizza out at restaurants. I enjoy it even when I know it’s not perfect. Because pizza is fun and even bad pizza is good in its own way.
My wife and I are very frugal. And we love to cook. And we love pizza. We make pretty good pizza with just our pizza stone and our shitty oven. I can tell you right now, if we had a pizza oven, we’d be using it twice a week, because that’s about how often we have pizza. I’ve developed a habit of making dough when I’ve had a stressful day. It’s healthier than drinking. Just knead that dough.
It’s the journey, not the destination
20 years ago my friend asked me to help him build. It sat in his yard and we fired it up probably once a month th 7 months of the year for around 5 years. Then we pulled it out of the ground, cut the base short, and mounted it onto a trailer. It went to another friend’s house, where it sat for a couple years and cracked. Maybe got used 2x. ~5 years ago, we got it back in good shape, now with a coat of cement over the bricks, and used it for another friends wedding, ended up selling it to another friend who had a catering buisness, and now it does 3 days a week at the brewery
I built one with just clay and straw, used it every weekend for years, it cracked, rebuilt it, used for another two years, cracked again, rebuilt it a third time. I’ve moved to a new house and already miss it. Even if I’m not making pizza, it’s great just for an outdoor fire while sitting in the hammock. It’s contained and uses like 1/4 of the wood while not being as dangerous.
A great way to spend a weekend afternoon is to fire it up and loaf on the hammock. I’d also use it to bake bread, make peach cobblers in cast iron, and smoke bacon. Great times. Maybe I could get the parts to rebuild it this weekend…
What’s the basics of using clay and straw to make stuff like that?
https://www.themudhome.com/mudbuilding/how-to-make-a-cob-oven-and-avoid-the-common-pitfalls
https://theyearofmud.com/2009/09/12/outdoor-cob-pizza-oven/
There’s a book too, if you want more detail, that’s what I used when I first made mine like 12 years ago
https://permies.com/t/223763/Cob-Oven-bible-Build-Earth
The simplest explanation is you pile sand into a dome shape, then mix clay and sand and pile it on the sand, then mix clay sand and straw and use that for the outer shell. After the walls dry you can scoop out the inner sand dome.
I highly recommend renting a cement mixer, doing it with foot stamping takes a very long time.
That’s awesome, thanks for sharing it! Been a while since I considered making a backyard pizza oven, and now I’m down that rabbit hole again.
Awesome, thanks for the advice, I saved your post for reference.
lawl absolutely true, but also it gets below freezing here and rebuilding it only take a few hours so it’s nbd. I’d rather just rebuild it every few years vs stress out super hard a fancy one cracks
hot smoke or cold smoke bacon? i need like 90 bucks worth of parts to turn my smoker into a cold smoker and i’ve been putting off bacon until then
I don’t remember, I’d just put some raw bacon in there on a rack and eat when it was cooked and smokey
Primitive Technology would be so proud =)
I bought an indoor unit, used it nearly 3x a month for 4 people over 10 years. It was fun as we all made our own and then I coked them, At least until my kids grew up and moved out. I would have loved an outdoor unit, wood fired had that amazing smoked taste to it and I’ve gone to parties at a friends who had one he put together “and used twice”. Effort for 90 seconds of cooking was just not worth it, but when cooking for 15 people he loved when I’d come over and light it up. It really was the journey for him.
Now I’m in Spain and single, I’d do it for me but the effort of planning just 1 pizza never appeals to me more than just getting out and seeing people at my local pizza place.