Pick Your Pizza: 6 Outdoor Ovens You Can Build

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Pick Your Pizza: 6 Outdoor Ovens You Can Build

If you like pizza, what could be better than having your own wood fired pizza oven at home? Very little, I suppose. The effort required to make these ovens varies from extreme to quite easy. Maybe one will suit your needs, depending on your commitment to quality pizza at home!

Wood Fired Barrel Pizza Oven

oven3

If you would like to build your own pizza oven, I should first point you to Make:‘s own instructions, in which a metal barrel is used as the cooking chamber.

The smoke from the fire below actually has to curve around the barrel before exiting the smokestack, for an efficient use of the energy provided by the burning wood. The instructions focus on the oven itself, but the “pole barn” structure protecting it looks quite nice as well.

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Portuguese Wood Fired Brick Oven

oven2

According to this build’s Instructables article, “Portuguese ovens are characterized by higher dome than the Italian/Neapolitan ovens,” which results in a less intense heat. Besides this energy-transfer characteristic, the build looks quite good (sort of “tigeresque”), and the build process is illustrated in an accompanying video.

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Wood Pallet Pizza Oven

oven4c

For this build, the creators used bricks, cement, a few other materials, and, uniquely, a wood pallet. As the author puts it, “it always ends up getting lit at every party.” I suppose this could be taken as a double entendre, but it looks heavy enough that it won’t be driving anywhere. Either way, it’s a clever build!

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Adobe Dome Pizza Oven

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Instead of cement, this oven uses a mixture of clay and sand (adobe), as well as clay, sand, and straw (cob) as an insulating material. As seen above, the resulting pizza looks quite tasty!

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Extremely Simple “Portable” Pizza Oven

oven6

This oven could be called “portable” if you want to break down the bricks used and haul it to your baking location. Although this task might be a bit much to ask of someone every time you want a pizza, it appears to be the simplest design shown here by a wide margin. It would be a great way to try your hand at pizza-making before committing to a more permanent installation. You could probably recycle the bricks as well once you’re ready to commit!

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Excellently Constructed Argentine Grill and Smoker

oven1

This outdoor oven isn’t actually for pizza, although I decided to include it for the build quality and brick-based design. Perhaps the design could serve as inspiration for your own oven, and the time-lapse format of the build video should give you some idea of what it takes to construct it. Plans are available online for a nominal fee.

Go To The Build

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Jeremy is an engineer with 10 years experience at his full-time profession, and has a BSME from Clemson University. Outside of work he’s an avid maker and experimenter, building anything that comes into his mind!

View more articles by Jeremy S Cook

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