During the last years i have been interested in building a wood fired pizza oven. I have investigated many possibilities ranging from building a brick pompeii oven, a barrel shaped brick oven or doing the gym-ball casting trick.
What i didn’t even consider in the beginning was using metal. Then i heard some good reviews about pizza oven made from sheet metal, (Uuni pro and such). That got me thinking that steel could also be an option in cases where you didn’t need to store the heat or make bread long after firing up the oven, only to make pizzas.
The build i came up with is inspired by the Pizza oven made by Pete’s Shredder. It is made up from Stainless Steel pipe with a hatch for adding firewood/kindling at the back.
Here are the pictures from the build process.
Takeaways:
The oven makes fantastic pizzas but does not store heat as a brick oven would. The bottom stones store heat though, and if you heat it up a lot then there might be a big difference in the temperature of the stone and the air. If the stones are too hot compared to the air, you might get a burned bottom with running topping.
To remedy this, I sometimes add a cast iron frying pan on the stones to soak up some heat in between pizzas.
Another thing i will tink about if i make another oven is to take thermal expansion into account. Everything is now welded together leaving no room for play. So something is going to bend. In my case it was the floor (as can be seen in the last picture) and the back wall where the hatch is. It is nothing i can’t live with but in futre models i would leave some gaps for the metal to expand.
Anyway, iIam glad you read this far. If you enjoyed the build, say hello in the comments 🙂
It might be that the next project in this genre is to make a brick oven. I am playing with the idea of making your own fire bricks as I have access to clay.
Hi Christoff,
very nice project, my compliments.
I am about to buy a steal over, but due to the price (700 euro), I might decide to build one by myself.
Your project is great and perhaps can give me some good indications.
Can you please share with me some details, like measures, material, etc?
Thanks
Cristiano
Thank you. I had access to the steel pipe quite cheap, so that is why I went with the pipe. You could also check some junkyard for materials that could be of good use and adapt the build to what material you can get your hands on. The dimensions are roughly based on the Uuni Pro, except that it is a bit deeper (one bricklayer deeper) and I added enough room in the hatch for the firewood to fit nicely. I actually haven’t written down the measurements I think, I started with determining the cooking surface size, and then how much room I need for the fire and adjusted the rest based on those sizes.
I would be interested in experimenting with cutting a well-ring in half and use that as the dome for an oven. It could work.
Also, i noticed that there are pizza oven “attachments” to put on top of a barbeceue, that are quite cheap. It would be super interesting to either build one of those or buy a cheap one to see how they perform.
Hello Christoff
Lovely oven for a DIY.
I have been eyeing the Pizza Party oven for a long time but it never came in my budget to buy one. I figured, if I can’t buy it then maybe I can build it so I started looking around and glad to have found you project.
I have a design in mind and fortunately have a friend with access to a Steel Bending machine so i can get the dome bent into shape. My only concern when I look at most Steel Ovens is Thermal Mass – like you said, if there’s no flame then the oven cools pretty quick. Did you ever consider adding some thermal mass to the dome to store some heat?
I would be interested in know what suggestions you may have seeing that you’ve already gone through the building of one of these already.
Take care and thanks for sharing the wealth of info here.
Which type of insulation did you use between the sheets?
Seems as you are living in Sweden, do you remember the origin of the steel pipe?
Hi, I used normal Rock Wool that I had laying around. I Live in Jakobstad in Finland, and we have a stainless steel pipe factory here. OSTP.
Hey nice to see someone diy pizza oven
I am making one with stainless plate rolled in a half circle and it will be set in a encosure of cinder blocks.
I intend to use gravel as an insulator, about 12″ all the way round.
A poured concrete base topped with fire brick should work well
I bought the main piece of stainless 18 gauge from metalsupermart for 140. $ the rest is out of my boneyard I split a commercial stockpot for the tunnel entrance it was a bin find
Hoping to be up and running in a week or two should be under 300$
That sounds like a lovely plan.
Hi there,
Lovely DIY oven – I’m looking to build one myself and would like some guidance please.
1. What stones have you used for the base? Do you think Ceramic stone would be a better idea?
2. Are you happy with the overall performance of the oven? Would you change anything in this to make it better?
3. Insulation: How important is this? Do you think its a good idea to have insulation at the bottom as well i.e. under the bricks?
4. Does the length of the Chimney Matter?
I’ll be starting the project using stainless steel. Do you recommend any thickness level?
Hi. For the base I have used fire bricks. They can handle the heat without cracking.
I am quite happy with the oven, it would, of course, be nice to also have heat radiating from stone bricks from above, now you are dependent on keeping the flames going. But it makes good pizza. It takes a few pizzas to get the hang of it (not burning the pizzas)
I do not know really what length of chimney is best, I just cut it short enough to fit where I want to store it 🙂
I will someday experiment by cutting a concrete well-ring in half and using that as a barrel shaped oven. I guess anything that you can have fire inside can make good pizza 🙂
Hello Christopher,
Thanks for sharing your wonderful DIY oven.
I’m looking to build one myself and would like some guidance.
1. What material do you recommend? Is Stainless Steel good? If yes, what is the thickness of this?
2. Is there insulation at the bottom underneath the stones?
3. What baking stones do you recommend? Do you think Ceramic Clay would be good?
4. Where can we install the temperature gauge?
I’d be grateful if you could respond.