Grumpy Bee Vineyard: Outdoor Oven

Well, this isn't directly related to the vineyard, but good bread and pizza do go well with wine. So, I'll document here our process building an outdoor wood-fired pizza/bread oven. Why I decided to take on such a project given my recent bout with sciatica is totally beyond me. Fortunately, that hasn't really slowed me down much on this project, but I've had tremendous help from a good friend, Steve Rennekamp. Without his tools, help and expertise we would never have gotten this far already.
I'm following the basic plans I got from the BrickWoodOvens site. Very good directions, and we have followed them so far with little change. I definitely plan to buy some tools from them, since their plans have been a huge help.
Not only did we decide to build the oven, but we also decided to replace the patio where the oven will stand. That will be tackled as the oven part is being built, since that will be done in a number of stages with some waiting time involved between each phase.

Here is the area before the work. The flag marks the location of our gas line feed, which should be well below the area we will be digging in. I never encountered it when we first put in the old patio.

Here is the form for the base. It was poured 5 1/2 inches thick, with reinforcement.

"Grambo" made sure no animals would go traipsing over our fresh concrete.

This is the old but very reliable mixer Steve brought to the site. Definitely save a lot of work.

After the pour, putting tennis balls on the re-rod that will connect the base to the concrete block part of the base.

Here is the concrete block base. The basic plans called for a base up to 5 blocks high, but we felt this was way too high.

Building the top part of the base. This is the 5 1/2 inch hardened concrete section that has an insulated center, with a 5 parts perlite to 1 part Portland Cement mix. This part will sit right under the oven itself. Here, thanks to Steve's suggestion, we departed from the plans which called for building this section in 3 parts. I agreed that even 1/3 of this section would be very heavy, so we built it with supports instead. The pour went well.

This is the finished upper section of the base. The two boards across the structure hold the center cavity section, which will later have the perlite mixture installed.

While waiting for the top base section to dry, I built this frame form that I will build the oven around. If I can't tear it out after the oven is built, I'll just have to burn it out!

Here is the mostly finished base. Note the dark area in the top, which is that perlite insulation area. At the base, we'll have brick coming up part-way, with an earth-tone stucco finish the rest of the bottom of the base. On top of the base, firebrick will be placed in a herringbone pattern which will be the cooking surface of the oven. It is in a herringbone pattern because that will make it easier to pull things out of the oven without catching on brick edges.

Kathy has been working repurposing the tiles that made up ourold patio, using them to create a border along the flower beds adjacent to the house. Nice work!

Almost finished laying out the firebrick base. This was a tedious process, workingt to keep the firebricks level and tight against one another. It took all of a day to finish this, with a lot of cutting along the edges.

It took a long day to put up all the firebrick on the form. Fortunately it was a mild day and the rain held off. I still have the back to put up yet.

The refractory mortar is a mix of Portland Cement, Dehydrated Lime, 200 mesh fireclay, and fine silica sand, in a 1:1:1:3 ratio. I mixed 2 qts. of each (6 sand) in the wheelbarrow. The mortar was really getting stiff by the time I was finished with one batch. It does stick well. We'll see how it holds up.

Here is the oven with the firebrick installed, except for an arch in front. After that is installed we'll spend about a week to two weeks drying it out.

Below is the oven all wrapped with two inches of ceramic fiber blanket, aluminum foil and chicken wire, ready for the stucco.

One of six "curing" burns. We needed to build fires, increasingly hot, over a period of days to dry out the firebricks and mortar, to help prevent cracking. Small cracks did appear in the mortar, but this is normal due to expansion and will not be a problem for the oven.

Steve is working on finishing touches with the first stucco coat. It took almost two bags of stucco base, about 160 more pounds.

Here it is with one stucco coat, drying.

Added the door. I want to add some design to it, but that can wait. The door has 1/16th inch sheet metal behind it.

The area for the patio is now roughly dug out and almost ready for gravel. That was a fair amount of dirt to remove, to get 7 inches below grade for 4 inches of packed gravel, an inch of sand and two inches of paver.

Now we have 3 inches of washed 3/8 inch gravel with 2 inches of crushed limestone they call limestone screenings. The object with the blue tarp is the compacter, which really packs this down so it's almost like concrete. We will do a little leveling and it will be ready for sand and pavers!

July 9

Pavers installed! What a job, and again special thanks to Steve for helping with the equipment and muscle!

We'll put the locking paver sand in later today and will then need (sometime in the near future) to fill in around the pavers and do some grading and seeding. For now, we're concentrating on getting ready for a Colorado trip and a fly-in Canadian fishing trip plus much neglected yard/housework. The final exterior finish on the oven, which is totally functional right now, will come later in the summer or early fall.