We gave the pizza oven another try for lunch and dinner tonight. It is too hot on bottom relative to the top. I think that’s because we’re not sufficiently controlling the flow over the top. But having some good radiative surface above the pizza would help too.

I insulated the chimney. It seems to have helped. Now the temperatures of the chamber under the metal plate get very hot. Like over range on the infrared thermometer. At that temperature, putting a pizza directly on the aluminum obliterates the bottom.

A video:

A shot of the chamber temp. Had to try a few times to get the right spot because many were over 999:

Here is the improved brick setup to constrain the flow:

After burning the bottom of some pizzas during lunch, Thuy suggested putting the grill on top:

Here are some pictures of the bottom using the grill method:

This one was slow cooked before we added the grill; it came out good but took a while:

So I got the parts from eBay to test things out. Some insulated bricks and a large aluminum disc.

Here is the basic setup:

And here is it with the lid on (from the kettle grill):

I let it heat up for about fifteen or twenty minutes before starting to cook.

Here is a pizza crust (gluten free) with one minute of cooking:

After toppings and two more minutes:

The bottom of the crust was nearly perfect, with blackened spots but not overly burnt. I meant to take a picture but we ate it all before I could. The top got brown but could use some more focused heat.

Here was a test of the temperatures; I’m pretty happy:

Finally, here is a video:

Things should improve when I insulate the chimney and also when I can control the exhaust to focus it on the top of the pizza more. Right now a lot comes out at the sides. I can throw something together to improve this with more insulated bricks but ultimately I think we can come up with a more elegant/permanent design.

Come eat pizza with us!

While Tavian was at chess camp.

a video