Gas and wood brick pizza oven
Rado:
I finished (mostly – still a little detail work to do) my oven last November. I built the firebox, cladding and insulation as close to your Masterly Oven a possible. The bricks here in the US are different sizes than yours and trying to do mathematical conversions made it too complex so I just threw away all my drawings and built it by looking at your pictures. This is the first time I have ever laid brick. I nearly killed myself in the summer heat when I got heat stroke working last July. The outer shell design is adapted to my location in my courtyard.
The one city that I live in – Fresno California USA – is part of an Air Pollution control district that does not allow the construction of a wood burning anything! So in order to get the permit I had to make it a Gas Fired oven – and basic wood – but read below. Oven image shows the firing, gas flame of the burner inside.
Another image shows the burner and port. No need for gas unless the city comes down on me for using wood. The oven burns wood so clean after the first 30 minutes I don’t think anyone would really notice the wood. 
This is because all the fume gasses and smoke burn to an extent that only the blurry heat is visible.
I was originally planning to plaster the outside leaving just the black trim bricks showing; so much of the red brick is course and the grout is different colors and unfinished. My wife and all of our friends love the look of it the way it is now! 
So this is how it shall remain. I intend to install a lamp above the opening to the oven (you can see the electrical box) but we have not found just the right one yet.
We will never be able to eat pizza from a restaurant again. Once you eat pizza out of a wood fired masonry oven there is no going back. We have mastered cooking Pizza with my wife rolling out the dough, everyone choosing their own toppings and me working the oven. 
We mostly use your Pizza dough recipe and it is the standard by which we measure others that we experiment with. Whole foods Market located here in the states makes pretty good whole wheat pizza dough but I still prefer yours home made. One of my favorite toppings is marinated dried tomatoes and as you can see we are growing some to dry with residual oven heat.
Recently I built the door and I am amazed at the ovens heat retention ability. I am just now studying the numbers so I can utilize a single firing to its full potential. Test with the door closed and oven not heated to the high pizza cooking temperature: It took seven hours to drop from 480F – 250C to 300F – 150C and nine more hours to drop to 250F – 120C and from there it takes another 24 hours to drop to 140F – 60C at which so much drying or warming can be done. The next Holiday plan is to have top Pizza for lunch, Bake bread in the afternoon then slow cook a prime rib beef roast and vegetables for dinner. 
Then if I have not had too much fun I might dry some tomatoes.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I would not have attempted this project if it was not for your plans with 1000 pictures and my life would be unknowingly poorer.
Thank you
Ralph (Randy),
Fresno, CA, USA
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I am so happy in the way you are proud of what you have made with your own hands, its priceless. I am building one also and know exactly what you mean about the difference in the size of our bricks. I live in Canada and our standard sizes are pretty well the same.
For now happy motoring ups happy cooking. Bart Parete
By Bartolomeo Parete
Wood fired brick ovens have certainly added extra fuel to the LA pizza debate burning over the very last few years. So the new modern movement is quite recent. When a new Italian food restaurant opens, it is most likely already having a brick oven built in by a food fired/burning oven builder so the proper pizzas can be produced fast. Now we have such a varieties of “authentic” pies to decide between and not only in LA, it’s difficult to choose which restaurant is better. We may say, what makes every restaurant mainly unique and incredibly delicious starts way before the dough’s are made: the toppings used, the fire woods storage, the temperature or atmosphere inside the oven and the actual pizza making time with the pizza chef’s distinguishes the quality between them.
By Current pizza restaurants
nice job,I too have an outdoor pizza oven………….would like to add the gas feature to my oven,if possible could you e-mail me as I would like to ask you some questions about gas feature..Thanks…………………………..
By RENE NIETO
When we cook a pizza for 2.5 minutes in a gas oven that requires ten minutes (100%) of heat up to the actual required cooking temperature, then only those 2-1/2 mins = 25% of the total energy is spent in the actual cooking mode. The other 7-1/2 minutes = 75% of energy is required for preheat. Thus for example if cooking some other things for an hour, the preheat energy surcharge ratio drops to just 15% and all the culinary activity becomes a lot more efficient on gas.
By Claudia
Very nice oven! I am interested in the type of burner that you used. Could you please tell me, is it off-the-shelf? Or, did you have it custom made? Where could I purchase one? Specs?
Thank you in advance,
Frank
Honduras
By Frank
Very nice job Randy. If you don’t mind, can you give me some details about the gas feature? How does it work? Where to get it? How long does it take to heat the oven with gas?
Bruno
Saint Lucia
By Bruno
Randy,
Very good looking oven, and flexible set up. Where did you get your gas burner, who makes it, and how long does it take to heat up the oven with a gas burner?
Thanks,
Cal
By Cal
I need the same info for gas burner.
By al
I have a wood burning pizza oven and am trying to find the natural gas burner to turn my oven into a gas pizza oven. Can you please tell me where you got the burner you are using?
Thanks,
Chris
By Chris
I have built an oven mainly to bake bread. Is there a safe way to convert it to a propane fired oven? Anyone has a solution I would like to hear about it.
By Albert
Me too, have you had any luck to find a safe way to convert between gas and wood fuels options?
By Albert
Writing to hear if you ever got info on adding a gas option to your WFO. I am experimenting making a venture valve (venturie value) to my propane brush burner just to see how it works. A potter who built his own kiln is advising me. Please let me know if you picked up any pointers.
Carl Schick
By Carl Schick
Very nice oven, it looks like you have a good solution for the gas firing! I have same problem total fire ban days in summer means no WFO cooking. Can you email me details about the gas burner you used as I am seriously considering retrofiting gas to my WFO.
Thank you,
Claude
By Claude
Hi – Beautiful oven, well done! I’m also interested in the gas burner that you used as well. Can you post a link on where you got it or product detail?
Thanks & Happy cooking!
By Scott
Very nice
I’ve built a different/round design 3 years ago but have problems retaining the heat.
..
I am interested in the type of burner that you used. Could you please tell me, is it off-the-shelf? Or, did you have this burner custom made? Where could I purchase one? Specs? and can I use propane.
Thank you
By Deya
I live in Visalia CA and also has restrictions on wood burning. I ordered the Pompeii brick oven from Forno Bravo and would like to add gas burner. can you give me some details on the burner you use.
By gerard
As with most of the postings above, I would be very grateful if you could let me know the type of burner you used.
Thanks
By Peter
You oven looks amazing. I am also working on an oven and need to have gas as an option. How often do you use the gas burner? What type and size of burner did you use?
By Cliff
Hello Randy: I too, live in Fresno. I am considering building or buying an outdoor pizza & bread oven, and am concerned about air quality and wood burning. Since we are almost neighbors, any chance of us meeting so I can see your oven firsthand? It really looks great!
By George
We have a wood fired pizza oven that we built and we would like to also have a LP gas feature. Can you send me info on what is the best to use and where to buy.
Thank you
Barbara 251-300-9534 Alabama
By BARBARA
I visited your website at this address:
gas burner flame or wood fired brick pizza oven (this page)
There are 18 people who sent messages requesting the name and model number of the gas burner used in the article but I could not find an answer. Do you know or how can I contact Ralph (Randy) Fresno, CA? Thanks
By Joe Dunn
Joe, thank you for the interest in Ralph’s gas fired oven. I am contacting him as of now, if he could describe his gas burner set up in his own words.
I added a new image into the page content depicting this gas burner installation how Ralph has it in closer detail. There are various types and styles of gas burners. Basically it also depends on which gas you use. If you use bottled gas I would ask for a cast iron Venturi burner (as they also make them in aluminium) with added to it the small pivot flame, and both the burner and pivot flame designed with manually adjustable gas delivery, plus attached on top a controlling safety system. Better gas fitting shops will set this up for you easily, especially those who do not focus only on kitchen equipment but also on various kilns or furnaces. Images on google for the gas Venturi burners and gas burner fittings.
It is quite beneficial (in efficiency aspects) to point the gas flame onto one firebrick standing free in front of the burner nozzle, inside the oven away from the burner in distance approximately 3/4 of the flame length, about 10 inches. So that the flame actually hits the firebrick.
By Rado
Burner for gas fired oven
Randy’s valuable reply to 19 people asking for details about his gas burner type & fittings setup, plus the business where he bought it …
Rado:
First I want to thank you again for your knowledge that you so generously shared with me. I have referred countless would be builders to your web site. My wife and I have enjoyed this oven so much over the past 5 years. All of our family, friends, coworkers and acquaintances anxiously await our next pizza party. We can comfortably entertain 15 to 18 persons counting ourselves at one time so it takes many parties each year to include all of our eager guests.
We have tried many dough recipes but yours has become the standard by which we measure any new contender – none have exceeded yours. No two pizzas are ever the same but one spring time recipe has won great favor in our circle: on your dough, good olive oil, gorgonzola cheese, fresh young garlic sliced thin (including the green top before it bulbs up – hence the spring timing) and sliced ripe pear. Then after it comes out of the oven a slight drizzle of Balsamic vinegar reduction.
I almost always cook Tandoori chicken the day after a pizza party to utilize the hot oven. Once I slow roasted a prime rib roast from Lobel’s of New York – hands down the best piece of beef I have ever consumed.
Now to answer your questions about the gas burner, remember that my reason for including it was to get around the air pollution controls we have here to allow me to build the oven. 98% of the time firing is done with wood unless the Air Pollution Control District has designated a no burn day. In that case I use gas or we postpone pizza to another day. The LPG burner I use came from the Ward Burner.
I am using the MR100 at 10 psi it can bring the oven up to 500°F in about 3 hours. I have a cast Iron griddle that I have fashioned into a door that allows me to vent the oven to just allow complete combustion of the gas. You need to daisy chain 3 or more LPG tanks otherwise the gas flow will be too high and cause them to freeze up stopping the delivery of fuel. I would recommend going the B5 burner with the BASO Safety System if LPG is your only source for heat. 500°F is not really good for pizza but lots of other stuff cooks just fine. I like 750°F to 800°F for cooking pizza in 90 seconds!
Sincerely,
Randy
By Randy
Thank you Rado and Randy!
I appreciate the info. I like the burner setup that you describe and was wondering if the burner can be mounted vertically to enter the oven from below. Again thank you both for your time.
Best Regards,
Joe Dunn
By Joe Dunn
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I am delivering the propane (LP) from a 1,000 gal underground tank with 1.25 inch pipe access.
Thanks again
By Joe Dunn
Randy and Rado:
Thanks for the info! Great stuff. I am drawing from a 1,000 gallon in-ground LP gas tank delivering at 2 psi pressure. Can the burner be mounted vertically?
By Joe Dunn
Joe:
2 psi will not work! Talk to the people at Ward Burner they will help you design a burner.
By Ralph Dillard
Can I get the plans for this. Looking to do a pizza oven over a gas log fireplace.
By KAREN DANCISON
Hello Karen, this oven was built from the new masterly tail oven design (3g mto design) plans … you can get every detail for building this same oven by getting yourself its plans from this page and then you you too can go for it: plans for this oven
By Don
Really a superb job. Would you please send me detail instructions for making domestic multipurpose brick oven fired by both wood and natural gas. Thank you.
By Muhammad Arfan