Hi everyone,
well the stone, is a local English stone which we had in our garden and we chose correct size and shape so they aligned in a rectangle.
We pointed the stone with mortar after they had been fixed down, this was to make the base look more professional.
The bricks were sourced from our new neighbors who are doing up their house so we recycled them as they were very robust and handmade.
As we did not have the equipment, we mixed the mortar by hand which took a lot of work.
Oven placed on stone base
Stone base with brick top
We truly did not mind the exercise, rather, it was prosperous for the muscles.
We have been testing out different pizza dough recipes by adding other kinds of flours not just the wheat mainstream kinds, and new toppings, we really enjoyed cooking in an oven that took so much hard work it really payed off.
Stone base for brick oven
The whole project was a father son project, with my dad providing the expertise with the building side while I provided the labour, it was all really good fun working together to make an oven that will hopefully be in our home for years to come.
Using barrel for a mould
This was the stone base. On top of this we then started to align the bricks and start up to the arch, we used a plastic mould to build around.
We fired this oven up for the first time yesterday and it takes about an hour to heat up fully. So far I have only baked some bread in it, but the taste of it really makes the brick lifting / concrete mixing worth while.