How to Build a  Wood-Fired Oven – Pompeii Pizza Oven Style

This time we will build a wood-fired oven and learning from the mistakes of the previous build. Hopefully you have read the first oven build and the mistakes I made with the oven floor. Well I have learnt from my mistakes and this one is better.

This time I have built a wood-fired  oven made of brick with good quality insulation. I went for a Pompeii Oven using plans from Forno Bravo. These are common ovens and they have an excellent forum on their website. I used the plans as a rough  guide, and then built the oven with what I had and the space I had to work with.

Now I am not one for writing things down or drawing up my own plans. Typically I hold the design in my head, and then just start building. I regularly stop to think out the design, next steps and issues I might get. A big mug of tea usually helps in this sort of situation.

Apart from not catching fire, the big drivers for me when building this oven, were an oven fast to get to cooking heat, maintaining the heat, and keeping the cost of the build down. It is for these reasons I went for a Pompeii oven with reduced sized bricks, quality insulation and a Naples style dome. More on these decisions as we go through the build.  But for now here is a quick 2 minute video on the building of my Pompeii Pizza oven:

OK lets get on with seeing how to build this oven.

Series links

1. Introduction
2. Base
3. Naples Dome
4. Entrance & Chimney
5. Insulation
6. Outer Layer
7. Best Clothes