This book provides a step-by-step guide to how a couple of amateurs created a working oven for year round use and enjoyment. You too can make bread from scratch, starting from the ground up with a wood-fired oven in your own yard. See what it takes to enjoy a wood-fired brick oven - how to build it and how to use it - with this hands-on project for wholesome living. Available on Amazon.com or from wagonbridgepublishing.com

Here is a picture of the wood fired oven my husband and I built two years ago. We took a class at North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN to learn how to do it.  Using plans from Alan Scott, and directions from Derek Luchesi, 15 people built an oven in 3 days. 

But when we got back home and started building our own, we realized that the plans without pictures weren't enough.  So we photographed each step of the way as we built our oven, and then wrote an illustrated how to book to help other people like us without a lot of masonry experience.  My book is called From Brick to Bread: Building a backyard oven.  I'm putting an advertisement for it on the for-sale page of this forum.

Hey Everyone,

I received some good response and thought I would post another link to another video.  This is on how to stretch a pizza, Franki G style.

http://fgpizza.com/videos_howto.php#Frankie

I hope you enjoy.

Frankie G

http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=154698f919d69ec9bc1b46e4e&id=8220a92253

I made a brick oven using regular bricks (revovered from distroied houses) and local clay.

I described my experience at http://www.casa-cu-zorele.ro/cuptor_eng.html

For any questions, please contact me at eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%74%69%62%69%2e%67%68%69%74%61%40%63%72%69%74%2e%72%6f%22%3e%74%69%62%69%2e%67%68%69%74%61%40%63%72%69%74%2e%72%6f%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b')) .

Hi all I am think ing about opening a wood fired brick oven pizzeria.  The town I wanted to open in is about 2.5 hours away from where I live and has a larger population that i think will support such a pizzeria.  Some have suggested that I start smaller and open in my town and if it goes well then go big with it to the banks for financing.  I do have the capital and investors for the small operation I am just not sure of our town, or have i found a location that I am really excited about.  i have a friend who owns a few places in Atlanta and as he says location location location is key and I agree plus I believe I have a better product than anyone else in the city.

I have done my business plan and put together all the financials, I'm even heading over to Italy to work with some of the pizza people there next month.  Just undecided if I should go BIG and open up in the bigger city or start smaller and stay at home.  

The cost to open big about 225,000 cost to start small about 85,000.  I would have to have two homes as my family would not move til we are established plus she has 3 years to go before retirement so she would have to stay behind to finish work.

Any thoughts?

thanks

Cliff

We visited Nashoba Brook Bakery in West Concord MA and had a chance to see the oven - up close and personal. It was quite an experience. We do bakery tours for fun but this was the first time I ever got close enough to touch the oven. (Yes, it was hot.)

Mimi

This is My oven as of July 2nd. I have a number of pictures of the project leading up to this but they are on a couple of diposible cameras wiating to be put on a CD. I'll post them soon.

http://s933.photobucket.com/albums/ad175/CJtheDeuce/July%20Oven%20foundation/

Charlie

Pizza baked home at 650 degrees

Ever since reading about Jeff Varasano and his obsession for the perfect pizza I find myself regularly revisiting his sight and learning more every time: http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm  The sight is highly educational and a fun read and recommended by many other Fresh Loaf posts.  There is lots to learn from this sight including dough hydration (very wet), hot oven (how to modify yours at your own risk!), flour types, use of a starter and several days of cold fermentation, dough technique, aspects of creating a superior sauce, homemade mozzarella, toppings, and pizzeria ratings and technique, technique and more technique.

His holy grail is a 2-3 minute pie at 850-950 degrees - obtained in his home oven by rigging the cleaning cycle to stay on such ovens being designed to reach up to 1000 degrees to burn off any spills.  I have made very good pizzas at 550 degrees in my oven baking at 7 minutes or so.  I easily rigged my oven as Jeff did.  As others on this site have said proceed at your own risk and every kitchen should have a fire extinguisher near.  I am very happy with a 4 minute pie at 650-700 degrees rather than seeking 850-900 degrees (someday).  Preheating to 650-700 can take 80-90 minutes and longer to get to 800 plus temp.  Use of an inferred thermometer nails the temp.  After all is said and done I find the higher temp pie to be far superior to pies coming out of a standard 550 degree max oven, even though I have made some very good pies in a standard oven with stone.

If you get past the angst of the oven, then the trick is to use dough that is very wet as it can stand up to the heat and still be crisp on the outside and moist on the inside.  My experience has been that an 80-85% hydration works well.  And following Jeff’s method of storing in portion sized plastic containers in the refrigerator from 3-5 days to give the dough superior flavor. 

After trying his technique for dough mixing many times I was not getting the proper dough development.  I found this YouTube video “That's Alotta Ciabatta! Start to Finish” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v24OBsYsR-A which shows how to make 90-95% hydration Ciabatta using the flat beater for most of the mixing and eventually to the dough hook.  Having used this technique several times, I can say it is the way to go on high hydration dough and achieving the window pane effect.

My recipe is simple:

Build Starter: 120 grams total consisting of 60 grams of rye and 60 grams of water (note: you can use 100% white flour.  I prefer having up to 20% divided evenly among whole wheat and rye which adds a subtle flavor profile.  And my starter is 100% rye).  After five hours to build to peak activity add the following:

60 grams (10%) whole wheat

472 grams (80%) bread flour

410 grams water

15 grams of salt (2.5%, higher than the typical 1.75% for bread)

3 grams of yeast (.5% given the use of starter)

Total 1,080 grams, enough for three 12”-14” pizza rounds at 360 grams each

See links above for mixing technique (YouTube) and storage on Jeff’s site.  The sights are worth a look for any baker using high hydration dough, and pizza lovers.  Jeff has opened his own pizza place in Atlanta, Ga which seems to be getting great reviews.  His story of a passion that turned into his business calling is very interesting.  I found it inspiring to read and learn as we all do when sharing our experiences…

Hi.   I am in process of building a small and simple brick oven.   I bought Kiko Denzer's book, and am using some of its principles, and also the lovely picture that someone on this list referred to which shows an oven of stacked bricks.    So far, I've dug a hole as far down as I could before I hit ledge.   Not very far.   I filled the hole with small rocks that I found around, and then poured in 200 pounds of gravel on top of that.   Then I put down a layer of cinder blocks, and then foot square granite slabs on top of that for the oven floor, which incidentally Denzer recommends against, but they make a very nice surface.  Now it's time for the brick walls.   I was shopping at home depot and found some very nice and inexpensive red bricks.  They are labeled as concrete brick.   Now that I'm making the part of the oven that will contain both the fire and the food, I started to wonder whether these materials, that were really made for landscaping,  will be safe for food.   I have no reason to think they won't be, but then on the other hand who knows how things are made these days.   Does anyone have any information about this?   I could try to reach Old Colony, the manufacturer, but what with liability law, I doubt I would get any real information.   Incidentally, it never occured to me that the gravel could be a problem, but after dumping the third 50 lb bag of it, I read a warning that says it may contain silicon dust, which I think is only a problem until it settles, but I should have worn a mask while I was dumping it.   I thought gravel was just gravel.  Thanks for your help!  -Varda

I would like to build a small - 2 loaves max - brick oven for making bread during the summer.   I have a lot of wood I could use for fuel, and my main goal is not to have an oven going in the house.   I am not particularly handy, and have never mixed, poured, rebarred, etc. concrete.   I downloaded the plans for dome ovens from Forno Bravo, and I think I could never successfully build to them.   I was hoping for something a lot simpler.   I am guessing I will have to pour concrete no matter what I do, but I just want to start smaller and simpler.   Also, unless I'm misunderstanding, in Forno's design you have the fire and the bread in the same compartment.   I was thinking you could build the fire underneath and bake the bread on top.   Is that a misconception?   I have absolutely no need to make a lot of bread at a time.   Usually I bake a single loaf.   Very occasionally two.

Thanks for any pointers you can give me.