Build your own Pizza Oven

DIY Pizza Oven in your Garden

Having a pizza oven in your garden makes a great talking point and a good reason to invite friends over. If you want to join in with the experience, you can buy complete pizza ovens, build one from scratch or opt for the best of both worlds by incorporating specialist parts into your design. Using purpose made fire bricks and other refractory materials from Vitcas that are designed to withstand high temperatures will result in a more efficient and long lasting oven than using ordinary masonry products. No matter which method you choose, building your own pizza oven will give you satisfaction and will create new opportunities to gather your friends and family around.

Below are the materials you need for building your garden oven for baking pizza.

Materials required to build best pizza / bread oven

Vitcas provides all the materials that you might need when building garden wood-fired pizza oven. We also have for sale a Pizza Oven Kit containing the necessary materials to build a pizza oven of 1 m diameter.

This kit contains:

• 280 fire bricks
• 34 arch bricks
• 5 packs of heatproof screed (100 kg)
• 1 ceramic fibre board
• 2 ceramic fibre blanket 50mm (2x3.66m = aprox. 7m long) 
• 1 ceramic fibre adhesive 310ml
• 1 wire mesh
• 3 packs of outdoor oven cement (60 kg)

You will also need some additional materials and tools such as:

• sharp sand (general purpose sand)
• builders sand (for detailed work)
• pieces of wood / foam / polystyrene for shaping the arch
• spade
• trowel for bricklaying
• concrete, breeze block, house bricks, railway sleepers or wooden pallet for the base
• trammel for shaping the doom

So let's start! 

The base - solid foundations

Depending on the location, you may need to start by laying a concrete foundation. Supports for your outdoor pizza oven can be made of concrete, breeze blocks, house bricks, or even old railway sleepers, but they must be strong and level, as the oven is going to be heavy. If you are using bricks or breeze blocks connect them together using cement. In case of using wood elements screw the pieces together. Remember: plinth must be steady and withstand the weight of the whole wood-fired oven. An interesting solution is to prepare some free space in ovens plinth for storing logs. Thanks to this you always will have fuel to your pizza oven close at hand. On top of this, a layer of bricks make up the base of the oven. The bricks should be laid flush to each other on a thin layer of sand to make the smooth and level surface. Prepared in that way the oven floor will serve as a place for cooking and baking your food.

Tip: Make the oven floor from the best bricks you got. Choose those that do not have cavities and are perfectly even.

Materials required to build best pizza / bread oven

Vitcas provides all the materials that you might need when building garden wood-fired oven. We also have for sale a Pizza Oven Kit containing the necessary materials to build a pizza oven of 1 m diameter. 

The Arch

For the arch which forms the opening of the oven, it is possible to buy a ready made one, or specially tapered firebricks which make the job easier than using rectangular bricks for the less experienced DIYer. Always use outdoor oven cement between the bricks or heat proof screed for larger gaps.

TIP: To make a perfect arch use the semi-circular sand mould and on it put brick by brick. You can use wooden or polystyrene template as well.

The Dome

The simplest shape for the main dome of pizza ovens is a circle. This can be constructed by placing rings of bricks one on top of another without any need for support. If you want a barrel shaped dome, you need to construct a supporting structure for the brickwork or clay. This can be as straightforward as building up wet sand to create what will be the interior, or making a wooden support. Remember to connect bricks using oven cement.

TIP: Fine solutions is to use special trammel as well - You can see how it works on this animation https://youtu.be/L8n-zkEhOyc 

If you want to have a chimney in your construction, you should leave a hole between doom and an arch - you can protect it with a round bucket the size of a chimney - or form a flue from clay.

The Door and Flue

Bread bakes in the residual heat of the oven after the fire has died. To keep the heat in, it is vital that the garden oven has a door. Ovens designed specifically for pizzas do not always have a door, because pizzas cook so quickly. But without sealing the oven and minimizing the heat loss, your loaf will not cook properly. If you already have a garden wood-fired oven, you can buy cast iron doors separately or have one made to fit, and create a tight seal with fire rope and an appropriate adhesive. Insert a stainless steel chimney flue into the previously prepared hole.

It is important that the flue has an internal damper so you can close off the flue and keep the heat in.

Insulation

Good insulation is the key to obtaining an even temperature throughout the cooking area and not wasting heat to the outside. This starts at the top of the supported structure. You can buy ready made insulation concrete plinths or insulate under the base of the oven with a ceramic fibre board. Insulate the dome further with a layer of exterior cladding. This can be a thermal blanket made of ceramic fibre attached with a suitable adhesive, then chicken wire or another similar material to create a key for a thin (~10mm) covering of outdoor oven cement.

Hand made or from prefabricates?

With this small guide, building a garden pizza oven is not as hard as it looks . If you want to enjoy cooking and baking in the fresh air you definitely should try to make your own. If you have no patience, check our premade outdoor wood-burning pizza ovens - ready to use and easy to assemble. The article The BEST Pizza Ovens: A review will help you decide which oven will be the best for you.

Once you have a pizza oven in your garden, you will probably be interested in this article: How To Use A Wood Fire Pizza Oven The Right Way