Since spending far too long for my wife’s liking queuing for fresh pizza from a small portable clay pizza oven at the Abergavenny food festival, I’ve fancied one of my own. The Eden Project sell one for £600 and apparently Jamie Oliver tries to flog one for over £3000, but you can build one from cob for next to nothing and this article on the Guardian website shows me how to follow the pretty simple process.
Frederika Whitehead learns how to turn a pile of earth into a wood-fired cob pizza oven in a matter of hours
The comments add some useful information – you can use sawdust for the final ‘weather proof’ layer of cob rather than straw – and I’ve plenty of sawdust. I must ask if you can use flag stones for the base…
EDIT: On the Edwards Cob Eco Buildings website (the people who run the courses that the Guardian article describes) they state that “you choose what sort of stone or brick you want” so I reckon I’m OK with a stone base and also that they “lime render the oven” when they build one for you. I guess that lime render gives a more weather resistant shell to the oven – right up my street… lovely lime…
…the comments in the original article also link to some interesting plans for building a brick based oven…fornobravo.com
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