come rain or shine pizza always has a special place in my heart, blooming love the stuff,
today it's a special day, finally want to master something,
an idea, that's been rumbling on and off in my head for the past three years, come with me
i want to put myself to the test and see if i can fabricate a beautiful pizza oven that
cooks a perfect pizza both at home and while camping. luckily i'm not new to pizza rooms
i've built two previously and i'm going to pull together the knowledge from these
this idea is ambitious, i want it to... be used at home, be portable for camping trips,
be used as a barbecue, be a fire pit and most importantly look astonishing, oh yeah it needs
to cook the perfect pizza. now this is not going to be easy. the previous two are not perfect. we've
had some really good pizzas from them and some pretty good parties using them but there are
some issues. this is something that's going to take some thought, but we will master it in the new one.
before we jump straight in, we need to have a look at how a pizza room works, because there is one
key feature that we need to get right before we can even think about creating the perfect pizza,
and this is where my two previous ovens have let me down. heat is generated often by a wood fire
this heat is guided up the side of the oven and circulated in the dome
on the pompei oven there is a fire at the side and on the portable one there is a
fire underneath but there is a gap at the side of the pizza stone to guide the heat
into the dome, and trust me they get hot i've lost many an eyelash removing pizza.
they both have a stone hearth that nearly gets as hot as the oven itself, this enables the base
of the pizza to be cooked from underneath. all these come together to cook the perfect pizza.
experience tells me that the one thing we need to get perfect is the differential in temperature
between the dome and the stone. this is where all my problems have come from in my previous ovens,
the pompeii oven often has a dome too hot and in the portable oven
the stone is often too hot. this is where we need to put our efforts... this pizza oven will be made
from some salvage bits, some bought bits and some basic tools, and it will look something like this...
the outer wall of the oven will be made from an old helium party cylinder, which for some reason
seem particularly difficult to recycle in the uk. in the base of this there'll be an adjustable air
inlet, this will allow us to control the intensity of the fire and thus the temperature in the oven,
but more importantly in the dome. this will work by having a series of overlapping holes
both in the cylinder and in a sheet of stainless steel running around the inner diameter. we'll be
able to adjust the inner sheet, opening and closing the holes and adjusting the airflow
above this we'll have a heat shield and this is the most important feature. it will work the
same as the inlet and will consist of two discs sitting just below the pizza stone.
this will allow us to control the heat that gets up to the base of the pizza.
it will be a slight angle and have a gap at the side allowing the majority of the heat
up the side into the dome. in the roof we will have a chimney, the most important part of this
is that the inlet for the chimney sits right at the front of the pizza, drawing hot air over it.
finally, we'll have two doors one to get the pizza in and out and the other for the wood or charcoal
all this will be finished off with a beautiful paint job with high temperature paint. now that
seems to make sense but there's only one way to find out, let's make a start and see how it goes
right it looks like we've hit a problem, this large hole i've done
looks like it's going to be too big, i've done a smaller trial hole
that looks much better but we need to think what we're going to do with this larger hole
right i think we've sorted it, look at this end and look how well it fits in this hole. all we
need to do is grind off this inner lip so it goes all the way down the threads and i think we solved
our problem. the whole aside is going really well so let's get on with the rest of the build
look at it, so pleased with how it's turned out and it's not even finished yet,
but i'm at a stage where i want to get it lit, see how well it works
and also see if there any modifications that are needed, after that we can get it painted,
buy a decent pizza stone for it and work out exactly what we're going to do with the legs.
okay so it's not perfect, there was a lot of smoke coming from around here, i've got a few ideas
what i think might be causing that and let's face it we've come too far now to give up. so i'm gonna
think about some modifications possibly to the chimney and the heat shield and also it's not
all bad news, the differential in temperature between the dome and the pizza stone is good.
right, here it is, there's only one thing left to do let's go and cook some pizza
the British weather aside, it's has gone really well and i think we've met most our aims. be
used at home, now it's perfect to be used at home, so big tick against that. be portable for
camping trips, now it's absolutely fine for how i camp where i'm parked close to where i'm camping
but it is reasonably bulky so it won't be ideal for all camping trips. be used as a barbecue, now
absolutely perfect as a barbecue and a reckon it can use it as a smoker as well. be used as a fire pit,
now it's not going to be great as a fire pit, so i think i'll have to take one camping with me separately.
look astonishing, now i'm really pleased with how it turned out. if i had a plasma or a water jet
cutter, some of the cuts would be neater and also i'd make the air inlet at the bottom more on ornate.
at some point i want to swap the legs for some Victorian bath feet,
so i'll keep an eye out at some salvage yards. cook the perfect pizza, now what can i say about that
the pizzas have been delightful from it and let's face it that's the most important point.
as always, thanks for watching, it's been a pleasure.