Why Build a Pompeii Brick Oven
Instead of a Barrel Vault Oven
1. The round Pompeii Oven design heats up much more
quickly than a barrel vault oven -- less than an hour,
compared with 2-3 hours or more for the heavier
rectangular oven. The round dome is self-standing (as is
the Duomo in Florence), so it does not require concrete
cladding to hold it together. Because the barrel vault has a
great deal of outward thrust, it needs a lot of concrete for
buttressing. As a result, the round oven can be much
thinner; 2”-4”, compared with a 9”+ thick barrel vault dome.
2. The barrel vault oven burns more wood (which isn't
good for the environment or your pocketbook). For many
owners, heat up time is the difference between using their
oven during the work week, or not at all. Round oven
owners use their ovens a couple of times a week, and
sadly, we know barrel vault oven owners who never fire
their ovens.
3. Pizza should bake at 750ºF, or higher. The Pompeii
Oven can easily reach and hold that heat, baking
authentic Italian pizza for long periods of time. The heavier
barrel vault oven has serious trouble reaching and holding
those high temperatures. The problem with too much
thermal mass is that the heat from your fire must heat the
entire mass in order for the oven to work properly. When
the oven dome and floor are not fully heated, the heat
from the fire is continually moving away from the inside of
you oven, where you want it for cooking, toward the outer
edge of the thermal mass. That continues to happen until
the entire mass is heated, which can take a very, very long
time in a barrel vault oven. For more information, read the
Thermal Mass Primer (Appendix 4).
4. The Pompeii Oven is designed for fire-in-the-oven
cooking and pizza. With a round oven you have room for
your fire on one side, and your food and pizza on the other
side and in the back. The entire oven can be easily
reached. With a 32” x 36” rectangular cooking floor in a
barrel vault oven, there is not a good place for the fire. If
you put it on one side, you have very little room for food on
the other side, and you cannot access the back. If you put
the fire in the back, the heat and flame do not reflect to the
front of the oven. A 35" round Pompeii Oven gives you
much more usable space than a 32” x 36”. For all the effort
you are going to be putting into installing a wood-fired
oven, a 32” x 36” rectangular oven is a one-pizza oven --
which is a shame.
5. The Pompeii Oven cooks more evenly. The round,
spherical dome does a better job of bouncing heat evenly
on the cooking floor. You can cook pizza everywhere (or
roasts and veggies) in the oven, and it cooks evenly. That
is how Italian pizzerias bake all those pizzas every
evening. The rectangular barrel vault design gives you hot
and cool spots, depending on the location of the fire.
6. The Pompeii Oven provides better airflow, as cold air
draws in lower half of the oven opening, up the oven walls,
and cross the top of the oven dome, before it exits the
oven as hot air through the top half of the oven opening.
7. The round oven is easier clean up.
The only downside is that a pizza oven can only bake
around 20-30 loaves of bread from a single firing, not 75.
But for a home oven, that typically works well. You can
bake more bread than you could ever eat.
There are millions of pizza ovens in Italy, and they are all
round. I also think it is interesting that there is a great deal
of wood-fired bread in Italy (Pane Cotto a Legna), which is
baked in large commercial, rectangular barrel vault ovens.
It is clear that there are two basic wood-fired oven
designs: pizza ovens and bread ovens, so you should
think about how you want to use your oven.
Pompeii Oven Instructions
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