Appendix 3. Why the Pompeii Oven
Plans are Free
When I got hooked on brick ovens a number of years ago,
the choices were very limited. There were plans for a barrel
vault bread oven ($100 for a photocopied set of plans), or
you could pay a crazy amount of money for an imported
oven. I built the oven from the plans, and before I even
finished it, decided to build a second one inside during a
kitchen remodel. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed with
the barrel vault oven design -- for more on that, read our
Why Round page.
Then I started traveling, and eventually came to live in Italy,
where I saw the real brick ovens. The attitude toward wood-
fired ovens is completely different here. There are pizza
ovens everywhere -- in homes, courtyards, covered patio,
freestanding enclosures, take-out pizzerias and fancy
restaurants, and they are used all the time. That is when we
decided to start Forno Bravo, and provide both pre-made
pizza ovens (both precast and true brick pizza ovens), as
well as free brick oven plans.
In Italy, pizza ovens are sold by garden centers pretty much
the same way Home Depot sells Weber BBQs. They line
them up, and they disappear. Prefabricated ovens are
displayed right next to the refractory bricks, mortar, oven
floors and insulation that are used for site-built ovens.
Everyone knows how to install a pizza oven and how to
cook in one, and the prefabricated ovens are priced fairly.
The modular pizza oven kits outsell site-built brick ovens by
a large margin, but hobbyists and muratore (stone masons)
still build brick ovens.
My goal is to bring this dynamic to America -- pretty much
the way you see it here in Florence. Our refractory ovens
are priced fairly (a lot less than the alternatives), and with
the Pompeii Oven plans, we transfer the knowledge you
need to build your own oven. Either way, you get a great
oven, and everyone benefits from your photographs,
recipes and everything you learn.
Building a large English-language pizza oven community is
fun, and will help grow awareness through word-of-mouth,
and through great food. At some point in the future,
hopefully, someone will see a Pompeii Oven, and if they
don't have the skill or time to build one, will become a Forno
Bravo customer.
Join the Forno Bravo Forum, tell a friend, take lots of photos
for us to post on www.fornobravo.com, and send us your
recipes.
Finally, we offer the Pompeii Oven Kit, a complete line of
pizza oven tools, accessories, and pizzas ingredients at the
Forno Bravo Store, so if you build a Pompeii Oven you can
always buy your bricks, pizza peels and pizza flour from us.
Welcome to the community.
James Bairey
Forno Bravo, LLC
Pompeii Oven Instructions
© Forno Bravo, LLC 2007-2009. All Rights Served.
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