re: Outdoor Wood Fire Oven

When I poured the slab, I emptied half the bags on top of the plastic sheeting covering the ground. I added water and mixed it in place. I added rebar on top then mixed the remaining bags in a wheelbarrow. With a helper, I think we finished in about an hour. Later in the build, a friend let me borrow a mixer, but it was easier just to mix in a wheelbarrow. I used the home brew high temp mix, the fire clay came from a ceramic shop in the Mammoth Drive area and the lime came from the hardware store on Foster. That’s the only place I could find the right type of lime. I think the common stuff for agricultural use won’t work. Portland cement and sand came from Home Depot. It’s been a while so I may have fire brick brands wrong, but the Butler bricks around town are not as dense and uniform as the Halsey brand I bought in New Orleans. For a 42” oven I think I used 250 bricks. All that said, if I did it again I would strongly consider building a poured dome using refractory. The bricks look a lot better though. My dome is stucco. I added waterproofing to the mix, but it does get damp when it doesn’t have frequent use. To do a 90 second pizza cook, I do need to light a fire a day or two before to dry it out so that I get 900+ temps at the dome and 650 on the floor. I cook right on brick floor. Preheating isn’t necessary when I use it frequently. When it’s dry and I do a long/hot burn, the oven will still be a few hundred degrees days later. I bought the insulation from Distributors International in Gonzales. I have 3 to 4 inches of insulation board under the floor and a few inches of insulating cloth over the dome. That’s the key to holding in heat along with an insulated door. Email me at my screen name at g mail if you want some pics.