Having used wood-fired pizza ovens in the catering trade over many years, I know the value of using them! Although I love pizza (and baking bread in the oven, apart from focaccia) my personal favourite is roasting whole linefish or Greek style lamb!

Although I have used many ovens in various restaurants over the years, I have never built one myself, mainly because of the methods that I have seen used being quite costly and involving arcane calculations i.r.o. the volume of the oven and the width of the flue, etc. Also – all the ovens that I ave sen have been built from fire-bricks and fireclay, and the drying-out process and intial firing also seemed beyond someone with no experience. You seem to have taken to this lke a duck to water – and you very coyly mention the tips that you learned that enabled you to build and fire an oven on the same day.

Any chance of my being able to learn this? I am looking towards building my own home at a point not too far in the future – and I will be building in cob (pretty much adobe, or wattle & daub) Iw oudl value any info that I can get!!

Roy Herold

Garden Route
South Africa