Pizza has taken the world by storm, and so did COVID-19. Now, people are stuck in their houses, doing whatever they can to take away their boredom. While many people enjoy the company of the internet, social media, and gadgets, some people look for activities that involve physical contact with their hobby. One such hobby is cooking the iconic pizza. But wait, this article won’t be about how to cook. It will be about how to build a brick pizza oven stand. Let’s begin.
History of the Great Pizza Oven
According to historians, the first modern wood-fired brick oven was discovered in ancient Rome. However, new evidence suggests that it is as old as the dawn of humanity. One amazing recent discovery is the completely preserved brick oven of the fallen kingdom of Pompeii, which is a once-famous city of Rome. It is a one tough wood-fired brick oven mainly because it has survived the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius. It looks and works like what we call today the old-style oven or the brick oven, only much older and dates back to the past’s great civilizations.
The story of Rome and Pompeii might have succumbed to a natural disaster, but not the story of the brick oven. Medieval Europe also had brick ovens, which were a little bit bigger and had little improvements than ancient Rome. Most of the time, larger brick ovens can only be seen in the house of a Lord. The smaller ones typically belong to individual families, it might not mean as much as the larger ovens, but it is actually where the pizza made its humble beginnings. As you may already know, this paved the way for Italy’s modern pizza business.
The only time the oven got its modern look is during the Victorian Era or, more accurately, during the industrial revolution, where the brick was substituted with metal. Metal ovens were just as good as the brick ones and lasted for years. The best and last makeover of the oven came in the 1990s, where it received a ceramic insulation upgrade, which made everything about an oven even better.
Building a Brick Pizza Oven Stand
The brick pizza oven would not survive the test of time and be here today without its trusty ‘stand.’ This is the part where you learn how to build a brick pizza oven stand. Just prepare the materials and instructions below, and you will have an amazing brick stand for your pizza oven in no time.
Materials
First, you will need bricks. They will be the ‘stand’ for your pizza oven. Next, you will need gravel to act as the base of your pizza oven’s bottom layer. You will also need a concrete mix to operate as the cornerstone for your mortar and slab. Lastly, you will also need three buckets (for either blending and digging), rebar, a measuring tool, and optional paint.
You might already have some of these materials in your house, and if not, you can grab them at your nearest home depot.
Instructions
If you have acquired the materials above, you can now follow these instructions on how to build a brick pizza oven stand. Make sure to follow them carefully to avoid unnecessary building mistakes that can ruin your brick pizza oven experience.
Keep in mind that the brick pizza oven stand will be an outdoor one.
The Foundation
The first thing you will need to do is establish your brick pizza oven stand by digging the ground. Dig only to the point where you can be sure that the bricks will stand firm because digging a deep one will be a waste of bricks and time. You need to make sure that the corners are equally even for the sake of the bricks. After digging your little pit, apply a trivial amount of your gravel into the bottom. If you have acquired rebar, this is the part where you need to put in the grid. However, if you did not prepare rebar, you can always improvise. Next, you need to precisely level your concrete mix to the top with a measuring tool. Cover your pot with a plastic sheet or any material and make sure it will not touch the concrete mix, or it will stick to it. Let the concrete mix dry for about two days.
Building the Brick Stand
This part is the heart of our how to build a brick pizza oven stand guide. The next part is the building of the brick stand itself. The only important thing to remember while putting the bricks is to check the sides if they are perfectly aligned.
Glue the bricks together using the mortar until you achieve the height wherein you can easily put your pizza dough in the oven.
Crowning the Pizza Oven
The last part of building a brick pizza oven stand is, of course, the crowning of the oven dome itself. Note that you can only do this after the brick and mortar have completely blended for two days.
Benefits of a Brick Pizza Oven
A brick pizza oven might look outdated, but it turns out it has a lot to offer than just what meets the eye.
- The first and the most obvious reason you would want a brick pizza oven is because it is both efficient and economical. No electricity use means a lesser bill for you.
- You can cook your pizza faster because of the high temperature that the brick walls can store. This is amazing, especially if you have impatient mouths to feed.
- It comes without saying that a pizza cooked in a brick pizza oven will have a nice crispy topping due to the extreme heat and good airflow inside the brick walls.
Conclusion
The pizza oven itself is incredible on its own, but it can perform better together with a brick stand. Now that you know how to build a brick pizza oven stand, you are assured of having a wonderful time with your family by cooking the best form of pizzas that can only be created through the amazing works of a pizza oven on a brick stand. Know more about pizza tools.