How to Build a Pizza Oven

Hey , everyone , Jason and I are gonna show you how to build a backyard pizza oven .

If you love making pizzas , then this project is for you .

Not only is this a totally doable diy but a pretty sweet thing to have in your backyard .

Heads up , you can find all the links to the products we're using in the description below .

Are you ready for a pizza party ?

Let's go .

So the first thing you want to do is figure out where you're going to put your pizza oven location is very important and here are a few things to consider .

This is going to be a permanent installation .

So plan accordingly , install your oven on sturdy level ground .

You may have to create your own foundation .

You want the oven to have at least three ft of clearance on all sides , consider a location that's easily accessible to dining , entertaining area for our oven location .

We've chosen this area of the patio because it checks off all the boxes for us .

Now that we have our location , we need to determine the design .

There are many ways to make a pizza oven , all different shapes , sizes and materials from clay to concrete to brick .

It really will depend on your location , personal preference and di skill levels .

We're building a three ft by three ft base to accommodate for a 34 inch oven .

We're going for a wood fire design built from both bricks and pavers .

It will have a dome shaped oven and will even create a spot for firewood storage in the base .

Not only is this oven going to be functional , it's gonna look great too .

We know that our patio's 12 ft .

First thing I'm gonna do is measure and find the center and make a mark .

That's where our first block will go .

We're going to do a dry run with our first course to see how our layout looks .

The base is going to be a three by three each .

One of our blocks is 12 inches .

We're creating our base out of concrete pavers .

We chose this material for a few reasons .

They're strong and sturdy enough to hold the weight of the oven while still working aesthetically with the patio .

We don't have to worry about the heat of the oven for the base .

So the pavers don't need to be fire rated since we've decided that our base is going to be 36 by 36 .

And our full blocks measure to 31 a half , we're going to have to make a few cuts to cut our papers .

We're first using a speed square to mark our measurements , then taking an angle grinder to score the paper on each side .

Cutting about a quarter inch one score will use a chisel to finish the job , making sure that we're both level and square on our first course for our base is the most important step when building before we can go up .

So what we don't want is our joints to line up .

We want to stagger them for structural integrity .

After we set our first row , we can start building upwards to add here our block together .

We're going to use this landscape adhesive , specially formulated for this process .

When I'm laying my glue down , I'm keeping it in towards the middle a little bit more just so we're not getting any squeeze out now that we have our course laid here , let's make sure we flush it all up , give it a couple of tens and then always check for plumb and level on every course we do .

All right , we've got our desired height .

We're gonna check our level here .

And if you haven't caught on already , our theme of the day is make sure everything is level .

All right , we're ready for our capstone .

Our next step is to set the capstone that the oven will actually be built on .

We built our base to the exact size to accommodate our capstone to secure it .

We're adding landscape adhesive on top of the paper base .

Once it's in place we're ready to start laying some brick .

So we're gonna start with the fire brick , which is going to be used for the floor where hot coals make direct contact with at the brick , fire brick is essentially the same sort of brick you'd find inside of a fireplace .

We'll also lay the first course of our dome shape for the oven for this .

We're using clay brick which will go around the perimeter of the fire brick .

It's a good idea to first lay out and dry fit your pattern .

Traditional pizza ovens have a hair and bone floor .

So that's the design we're going to do now that we have our layout , we're going to mortar our brick .

We're using high heat mortar suitable for ovens .

We're mixing our mortar with water following manufacturers guidelines for ratios for this application .

We want our mortar to have a consistency of a melt shake using a 10 inch brick trowel .

We're applying a thin layer on the underside of the fire brick .

We don't want to raise the height of the brick with a mortar .

So just a thin layer will do the trick .

Any mortar spills or drips onto the face of the brick can be easily cleaned up by using a damp sponge to make any cuts .

We're again using an angle grinder .

Once we get this brick laid , we're going to wait 24 hours for it to set and then we're going to start our dome .

The reason you see the dome shape for most pizza ovens is science .

It's an efficient design for cooking mainly as it radiates the heat evenly from above while also storing heat in the oven floor .

The dome shape allows a space for air circulation above the cooking surface , creating high heat and kind of an oven inside an oven .

That's why you can cook pizzas so quickly in a brick oven like this .

In order to make the dome shape , we're going to build a mold out of wood .

This will be a temporary structure that we build our brick mold around .

Then we'll remove it .

We know that our fire brick floor is 27 inches .

So that's the first measurement we have to take and then we'll find center .

So essentially , we'll be making an arch shape and what we need to make that shape is a nail string and a pencil .

The string will be attached to the nail at one end .

It will be attached to the pencil and that's how we're gonna make our arch .

Now , we're gonna cut this shape with a jig .

Now we have our oven opening , we're gonna make one exactly like this by tracing it on another piece of wood .

We'll attach each arc using two by fours cuts of size .

Our last step is to take 11 and bend it over the structure .

When complete , we'll have a solid mold to build our brick around .

We finish our mold and remember our bricks are going to go around it and this will be removed to help with that process .

I'm going to drill a couple holes .

All right , our dome is in place .

We're gonna get our mortar mixed up , get our bricks ready .

We're gonna start building this dome for this mortar .

It's going to be a little bit thicker than what we use for our fire brick so that everything sticks properly as we start to form our dome .

So we're going to do the whole face here and we're going to do one side for our vertical joint .

When building our dome , we want to keep a stagger just like we did in our base .

This keeps the dome stronger .

So we're gonna end up with half bricks throughout the process .

This is a tuck pointer .

But what I'm going to go back and do with this is fill in our voids .

You can also use this to pump up your level of your brick to match our dome mark .

Not only is this going to make it look good , it's also going to help support our next course when we go up .

So we want to keep in mind that we want to roll each brick to the shape of our dome as we build up .

Now that we've made some progress , I want to show you how we varied our mortar lines to make the shape of our dome .

As you can see at the bottom , it starts off as a little thinner .

And as we work our way up , that mortar line gets thicker .

So we're almost to the end and now we're going to move on to our chimney .

So we left an eight by eight square and then we're going to go four courses high with our brick to build our chimney .

Our chimney is located at the front of our oven so that fresh air gets drawn in hits our coals rolls through and comes out of our chimney and creates a nice natural convection .

All right .

So our oven is complete and it looks pretty incredible .

We're just gonna wait a few days , wait for our motor to dry up once our mortars dry , it's gonna release from our wood .

It'll make it a little bit easier to pull our mold out .

After all this hard work , I can't wait to cook some pizzas .

So we've waited a few days for our mortar to dry .

And what we're going to do next is remove our wooden mold in a perfect world .

This may come out in one piece , but we may be forced to break it down piece by piece .

For our removal process .

We're using a combination of a hammer pry bars , a utility knife and an oscillating multi tool to cut out and remove the wood in multiple pieces .

Be aware of any exposed nails in the wood once removed .

We're cleaning up the inside of the oven of excess mortar and dust and then it's time to light this thing up .

We're building our fire in the back corner of the oven to allow space for pizzas and optimal heat distribution .

And now we have an amazing wood fired pizza oven .

It's also become a centerpiece on our patio .

We hope you enjoyed the process as much as we did and feel confident to build your own pizza oven at home .

All the products we use in this video can be found in the description below .

Thanks for watching .