this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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Yeah so you gotta do a very long, slow heat up. Then if it gets rained on, cooked again.
The other issue with stone that I've experienced is that it takes a very long time to reheat/ heat transfer. You end up loosing a lot of heat capacity each pizza you cook. Then it takes a very long time for it to get back up to heat. First pie is often a throw away because its so hot it burns instantly (metal grill grate can help with this), the second pizza is great, and by the third and fourth the stone has lost so much energy its not cooking well.
If you are insistent on stone/ wood fire, look at the italian designs. Instead of the fire being below the stone and relying on convection, they put the fire on top. They use a volcanic clay to form their surface and has lower heat transfer, but it doesn't have the scorching issue some modern synthetics have.
I've tried all of these and I just use steel any more. Way more reliable. Way more durable. Way faster to get started. Way faster to shut down. I do have to adjust my burn a bit in terms of style because I do lose energy between pies, but I can kick out a pizza about ever 10 minutes from my oven.
I don't really have the time, money, or room for a proper Italian design. My hope here was to get better than my oven. So your cooking surface is straight steel? Im not opposed to trying this.
But you have enough time to redo it again and again as you do it wrong every time?
So I'm gonna try the concrete pavers. If that doesn't work, we'll just go back to using the stone in the oven. Maybe look for a used ooni.
Im not sure why people are getting so bummed at me for trying a diy way yo do it. I said I'd try a couple of times, not suffer the rest of my life blowing up rocks weekly.
You're trying to reinvent the wheel and people are telling you it should be round so it actually works and you're refusing to listen.
It's an oven, something that has existed for thousands of years at this point, the technology is mature and well understood at this point, if people are telling you you're wasting your time using things that will blow up in your face maybe you should have the maturity to just listen for a second.
I'm not refusing to listen, and I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm talking to a dude in this thread about his mods to an oven. I've read about concrete pavers instead of blue stone. It's an interesting home, diy project I'm hoping to have work a handful of times. I'm not trying to abandon my kitchen and feed my family primarily from this. It's a weekend project, not a life-or-death endeavor. The cost of a real brick oven is more than we're willing, or able, to spend for something that will get used maybe 2 or 3 times a year.
And at the end of the day, I'm outside having fun moving rocks around with my kids.