You can get a hotter fire (with the same amount of fuel) if you put the burning wood up on a grate, or anything that lets some air in under the fire. This creates a stronger draft through the whole burning chamber and out the chimney, which is what we want.

Feels like an old school TKOR video. Keep growing Nate!

you can also add a pizza stone or steel to the top of the cooking surface to remove any fears of lead and also reduce the fears of the paver crumbling.

You can also turn the top bricks on it’s edge to increase the area available for larger pizzas.

I've been cooking in one of these for years. Generally I haven't had an issue with needing to cook from the side, but I will consider it. The design of the oven naturally draws in air on the bottom and the flame/heat moves to the rear to go up the gap to the top chamber. If you can't weld, just build yourself a base out of inexpensive cinder block to the height you like and put a paver on top as your oven base. this allows you to place the oven on whatever surface you like, preferably a concrete patio of some sort. Cinder blocks in the center will support your base pave stone if you get heat cracks. My oven is on the ground for now. I have 2 pieces of 1 1/2" angle iron about 3 ft long turned down with the angle facing up that I use as rails for a piece of expanded metal that I build my fire outside the oven on and then slide to the rear once it is burning well. I always cook pizza on parchment paper. Lightly coat with olive oil and easily spread your dough out to form the crust. Parchment paper makes it super easy to get your pizza peel under, and you don't have to worry about contaminates from the stepping stone. Put a little flour on the pizza peel to help things slide. I have found getting my cooking stone to about 450f gets me perfect leoparding(brown spots on the bottom). I've gotten it to 600f before, but the bottom of the crust burns before the toppings are cooked crispy or the cheese begins to brown. Rotate pizza around a couple of times during the cooking and monitor closely so you don't burn. The slot that the flame/heat is coming up produces a lot of heat. I rotate on my pizza peel gently grabbing the corner of the parchment paper and put it back in. The more you use your oven the more you will develop skills and senses for the process. Be careful, your friends and family will love coming over for wood fired pizza. I just make them bring beer.

I live in Italy near Naples, and I'm impressed with the final product. By the way, Italians make pizza with what Americans call pepperoni, but they call it "Diavolo," because they use spicy salami. ("Peperoni" in Italian means "peppers," so if you ask for a pepperoni pizza in Italy, you're going to get one with peppers on it. I have a pizza oven attachment for my Weber, which works with a little massaging. The hardest part is getting the thing to 700F. One little pointer is that pizza makers in Italy don't use corn meal, they use a flour called Semola (or Semolina) rimacinata. You can probably find it in any grocery store. It doesn't stick as much to the dough, so less comes off in the oven. And you don't need to use much, just a sprinkle. Shake the pizza back and forth on the peel to make sure it's loose. You may want to use a pizza stone, because I'm not sure pavers are food grade. Anyway, nice job. Your pizza looked perfect.

Your genius is exactly what I needed for a pending diy pizza outdoor oven. I was inspired and encouraged. Your creativity and thoughtful analysis was point on. And yes, the pizza looked perfect! Thank you!

Personally, I wouldn't use paver stones as the base. It might not have lead, but that doesn't mean it's food safe. I'd place something like a pizza stone on top of it and cook on that. Secondly, just use fire bricks. They cost a little more than regular bricks, but they're designed to handle direct exposure to flames. They won't fall apart, so the build would last long.

Make extra dough and when you’re done with the pizzas use the residual heat of the oven to bake your own bread. Leave a few bricks to warm up on the top of the oven while you’re cooking the pizzas and use it to close the entrance of the oven to bake you bread.

Nate's been lately doing quite a lot of cooking related projects and I love it haha, it's like the perfect mix between a home cook and a scientist.

This is the best build that I have seen for this pizza oven. I don't weld so I am going to just stack up some cinder blocks to raise it higher. Going to build it next week when we get back from vacation!

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but didn’t know a good way that didn’t cost a lot or take forever, this is awesome!

Welp, I'm making my man one of these for his birthday next week. I can't weld, but I have an older rusted out fire pit I can cobble up for a base. Getting it off the ground was my issue and you gave me a solution. This is the shizzle! 🎉 Thank you!

I'm italian and I have to say your pizza looks beautiful!!!

It's always amazing to watch video recorded at a higher altitude, and in clear air. The sun is so much stronger, and the shadows darker.

Finally I see a truly "cheap DIY" pizza oven! Your title was not misleading as a lot of them are. I will definitely build one like this!

Great idea/project! An idea I had when you were talking about not putting on concrete directly but building a gravel or sand place to put it, what if you just put down another paver? Then it would all be removable/portable and you wouldn't have to have a gravel or sand place to put it. Also, if you wanted to use on concrete, the paver would absorb and block some of the heat from damaging the concrete. And it would help with leveling the other layer. Get the bottom paver level, and everything else above already will be.

Awesome video. A tip I use when cooking pizza is to brush olive oil before you do sauce to help so the pizza is not soggy under the crust.

I did something similar but I built the base out of 6x8 wood blocks at 28" off the ground. I also used 2" thick x 4" x 9" fire brick for the cooking surface supported by metal "L" channel with a 24" paver as the base. The 24" paver on the top cracked severely after a few fires but it hasn't fallen and I'll prolly use some fire proof adhesive to to secure it. I'll off set the direction next. That's a great idea! thank you for this video, it was very helpful. Keep up the good work!

Thank you, Nate! Very nice! I am a pizza lover and so definitely am going to give this project a shot!

I like how you give credit where credit is deserved. You’ve earned my subscription.

I did the same mod for my outdoor masonry grill, but added a 30psi regulator and 5 inch burner to the back inside of the unit; 900 deg in 12 minutes; a medium pizza is done in 90 seconds on a round pizza stone. Great video, thanks, I feel validated now!

Great sharing of the inexpensive brick pizza oven. I use a Cuisinart propane pizza oven. The pizza came out great-liked the build on the frame the best (no kneeling on ground to cook). The side fire & opposite for the entrance makes sense.

you're the closest person we have to grant and it makes me really happy to see you on your own channel

Several years ago, I got several hundred bricks for free from an old building that was demolished. The owner was happy I took them and built a mean oven that was great for pizza parties. One trick that I learnt from a chimney guy was to use mud and molasses or brown sugar for the mortar mixture. As the heat, burns the sugar it foam to create a glue. Worked great! We moved to another state and I still miss my oven. :( I might give this a try since they are selling reclaimed old bricks now in my area.

This is the smartest design that I ever watched. I watched the old first version and now I watch the improvements.

What a great job, perfectly explained, just cheap enough for anyone to do thank you for your time Peter looks great

Great looking DIY project! Gonna try this one myself. Tip from a former pizzaiolo, though: Don't try to 'launch' your pizza into the oven. Instead, get the pizza positioned in the oven where you want it, still on the peel, then quickly pull the peel back from underneath the pizza. It'll take a few tries to get it right, but once you get the hand of it, you won't have any more issues with pizzas hitting the side of the oven.

fantastic tips Nate... it's great to see something so simple that's pretty accessible to a lot of folks. I'd love it if you could build a version 2 with a little more money spent as an intermediate vs the bottom end 'cheap' version you've shown here. > perhaps using 24x24 unglazed ceramic tiles as the oven's base which I believe would be a lot more heat-tolerant than your pavers.

That is an amazing way of making a dirt cheap, but effective diy pizza oven. I've never even considered doing this. Excellent video, Nate.

Awesome use of an old bunk bed. Really like this idea.... Great video.

I do like this design, especially the side loading idea and the framing. Somewhat more expensive than using the middle paver stone, use a Steel rather than a stone at all. This way you get the benefit of the fire below as well as the heat circulating above.

U just changed my life , was gonna build one more complicated , I will just modify your idea , thank you so much for tip with crack and check the chemicals

Excellent video, loved the simplicity of the project. I always thought a pizza oven was a way to complicated project to attempt, but this is something even a klutz like me could attempt with a fairly high probable outcome of success! Of course the welding is way out of my league but I am sure there are other ways to support the pavers and raise it up high enough to use it with ease. Thanks very much for making this video!

Nice work Nate! I like this one. I like the king of random style format of showing how to make it, how it works and using it.

Great Video Nate! Very informative and some great ideas for a cheap pizza oven!

Might be interesting to make an aerocrete base to insulate against the heat. You get lots of bonus points for going easy on the sauce. Great looking pizza!

Nice video. Some mods I did. I use clay brick which can tolerate more heat and for the bottom layer use brick that has holes in it such that the fire gets more airflow from the bottom. I also used old granite counter tops I found to make the main slabs. Thinner and can tolerate massive heat. I am concerned your metal base will accelerate the cracking of your slabs as it will quickly concentrate heat in one area, thus accelerate the cracking. You want evenly distributed heat to avoid cracking.

Nice result another improvement. Instead of 1 gap at the back on the inside have 2 or 3 since you have the metal support frame you can get more heat from 3 sides of the pizza from the fire. 👍👍👍💡

I love your videos so much. You are the only person that I know of, who is making old school content, I just love this so much. Don't upgrade your cameras or hier any people to do on-camera stuff

This went well. Built it and made three pizzas in 30 minutes. Love it.

OMG, EXCELLENT!!!! and Cheap, Cheap. I’ve watched tons of videos. Your is the best yet. It looks easy and I will try tomorrow. Thank You. Store bought you don’t know what’s in it. I can make my own even using cauliflower dough, just became pre-Diabetic. The less cars the better.

Those are some clever improvements! You actually blew my mind a little bit because I've been planning an insulated oven with the same layout as the original and hadn't considered the practical bit of not wanting to always need to reach over the fire box. Brilliant!

Cracks come from excess moisture in the bricks and being heated to fast. Low and slow is the name of the game in addition to keeping your brick oven dry.

Great video - lot’s of really useful ideas! Just one quibble: What we call “pepperoni” here in the USA is called “salame piccante”. It’s a very popular pizza topping in Italy. So no Italians will be offended by your pizza. They’ll just laugh at the name a little.

That's a good looking pizza you got there Nate. Love how the pepperoni curls into cupperoni.

Now I too want to build this in my backyard. Thanks for the inspiration. 🍕

The addition of the supporting steel is genius. I think Grady of Practical Engineering has a video about it as well, but essentially in many area of engineering, creating a visible partial failure before a full catastrophic failure allows for a "slow failure" which allows you to repair during downtime rather than having a fast failure during a key moment (and dropping your pizza into the flames as your hungry guests watch on). Great video!

I found you on Guga's Channel and I am so looking forward to building this. I was surprised that it cooked the right side since the heat from the exhaust is on the left and can escape right out the front left. Glad I found you.

Awesome special effects in this one Nate!

Excellent built, excellent cook. I love the modifications.

I'm a thin crust pizza guy, but...that thick, semi-charred pizza that is in your thumbnail (and I don't think appears in the video) looks amazingly tasty. Love the hacks in your video. How about this one...incorporating a commercial pizza stone as the base/cooking surface. I got one from Amazon, I think for about 40 bucks, that is rated for about 2,000 degrees F. I have done hundreds of pizzas on my gas grill at temperatures over 800 F and it has been rock solid. PEACE!!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE your content Nate!!! This is wayyy cooler than the TKOR's content and why I subscribe to you! I understand that it was Grant's wishes for the TKOR channel to become a hands free business sorta thing but I'm not in elementary school anymore and your projects are more sophisticated and mature. This reminded me of the time grant made his own dough in the wild with stones and wheat and I believe he made a small pizza with it lol. The question now is do I build this at home? I will in the future... but for now tryin to lose some weight 😅

Very wholesome build and video. Nothing wrong with making a great pizza for cheap.

Thats a freaking wicked pizza oven Nate, and your pizza looks perfectly cooked 👍🏼👍🏼🇦🇺🇦🇺🦘🦘Cheers from Melbourne Australia

I need to watch this about 50 more times so I can find some minor imperfection to make a federal case about and then offer my stellar expertise (despite that I have _never_ attempted this) 😂

OK so quick few questions. Could you compare this with using Refractory brick and Cement to create your own pavers and end up with something that works more efficiently and lasts longer? (Yea It would be more expensive but it is a thought.)

It's cool the see the soot marks as the video goes on as they demonstrate Nate is actually using it

Nate, excellent job at making the pizza oven, and the pizza! I would love to see you build an offset smoker from a 55 gallon drum for beef brisket or ribs.

With your raised oven, since you're building a fire directly on a paver stone base, you might consider replacing it with fire bricks. In fact, since the entire first level and the cooking surface are exposed to the highest temperatures, you might use fire bricks for them as well

Much better than a snack launcher =]

What a great video! I am inspired. I have most of the items needed in my yard already.

I'm glad you are still making video. you are awesome

Now you need to make your own pizza cutter

maybe having the hole in the back would allow the hot air to go over the entire pizza before it leaves which would allow your pizza to cook more evenly without having to rotate it even if it does have the disadvantage of having the fire closer to you.

About to close on my first house....I have plans to make a large cooking/patio area with a pizza oven as the center piece. that pizza looked incredible!

I saved this video to my watch later based on the thumbnail and my 5yo loves watching food videos. When it started and I saw Nate I thought great how did I find a TKOR video and nearly turned it off. My son convinced me to keep watching and I realized this content is what I missed about TKOR, building to learn and experimenting in a more mature way. I am definitely subscribing and I hope we get more of the same.

For the turning part, it'll give your pizza very uneven heat. The back left will be the hottest part, with the front right being super cold and the front left being somewhere in the middle. By putting the exhaust completely at the back, you make it so the back of the over is equally hot left to right and you can controll the temp through just moving the pizza front and back.

I feel like this is one of those things where I would rather spend the money on building something better that will last longer than spending less to build something that heat is going to destroy after a few pizzas. The money you spent continually repairing it will add up. I've seen a lot of builds of DIY pizza ovens on KZfaq, some portable and some not. I'd love to see you tackle one of those.

My pizza tastes fine in the inside oven. But this is cool to know that we can have a bake oven outdoors if the oven goes out. Lots of people have pavers n brick to put something together. Thanks for this video. And the ideas! 😊

Great ideas. Use clay bricks and 2 to 3 unglazed big ceramic tiles on top of each other for the bases that can take the heat - no need for support and will last long. I will make the top higher to fit a roast pan to make it more versatile

It's not only lead you should be concerned about in paver stones, there could be all sorts of heavy metals in it, as many are made with fly ash mixed into them, and there's also chromium in cement, so I wouldn't cook anything directly on top of a concrete surface.

1st lol. But I'm sad of what TKOR has became, it's so shitty now. Feels like a kids channel with the new girl. Glad you are still you tho!

I remember seeing something similar to this call a Limestone oven the big difference is you would dig a big hole and put the whole thing inside of it which would also help prevent you from putting your hands near the flame since that part would basically would be buried while the rest of the oven will sit above ground and obviously the entire thing would be made from limestone.

Kudos on your dough handling skills. I’ve watched at least a hundred pizza making videos on KZfaq and they often fall short on handling even when they’re trying to be instructive.

Great video and DIY Nate, thank you for the idea and how to!

What a great idea, i have been watching many videos on ovens and I think this one has just become my first! thanks for the video, and I can't wait to get to the store and my my bricks,,,

Nate, this was great..(right after I typed this, I realized the rhyme...lol...). Seriously, though...I'm an old guy now, 56, but I can still spin a pie (was a pizza-maker in my teens). I completely appreciate this episode about the pizza oven. I've never thought about doing an oven this way. You got my wheels turning....I may have to try this. Thank you! p.s. I liked, and subscribed.

I like your build Thanks. I made my own but instead of turning the top oven I added the doors from an old wood stove, from the dump. Then a made a door for the cook chamber. I also curved the brick stacks to dome the top with a couple extra rows of brick.

Love the project vids, you keep me motivated.

Great Job! I wonder if having the fire being able to come up on the two sides (and maybe the back too) might give better heat distribution so you don't have to turn it. That would also give an even larger oven area.

I live in Baja California I went thru the same process you did built one on the ground first bricks cost 10 pesos 50 cents here had to build my own paver with rebar in the middle and concrete 2 inch's thick with a slot in the back for the flame worked good I lost some pizzas in the beginning didn't like bending over so I built mine up with cinder blocks fill it with rock and base rock to light my fire on worked great cooks a pizza in about 2 minutes

Thank you Nate! This is an amazing video. Reminds me of early tkor videos. You remind me a lot of Grant, so thank you

I cook pizza in my wood stove all the time. All I have is two bricks and a Pizza pan. 3 to 5 minutes and it's done amazing. SIMPLE AND CHEEP

Great instruction! I am building one. My contribution to improvement is to build a cookhouse so the wind and weather is not a factor. I can see the opportunity to build a grill as well.

Hi there just few tips. I would make a side burning chamber and not underneath as you did. Would give it a cast iron dor with an intake air flow regulator to the burning chamber. Would be nice a rotating pizza plate as well

used your original design and it worked perfectly, will try the improvements next week. Many thanks.

A lot of gas, commercial pizza ovens have two long ceramic plates above the heat, which split the surface laterally. The seam never bothers the pizza. So you could use two long pavers, if you can find them easier.

I love using fruit wood for flavor! 🔥🔥 I also grab a fresh branch of rosemary, basil, oregano, &/or a handful of thyme. Right away when you put the food on for maximum effect! 🔥🔥

Nice work! Might consider doing the fire from the side and the pizza from the front. I think I’ll try that!

As an italian guy. I approve that oven and how that pizza came out. Nice job mate. Gonna follow you.

Your best video yet Nate, nice job!

You're a good man. This was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Awesome idea Nate, I love it

Beautiful brick oven and it's not permanent and looks like a good pizza

Im so glad you continued on youtube

Dude, I've watched a lot of pizza shows on KZfaq l, YOURS IS THE BEST I've SEEN!

Some sort of bellows might be useful and like someone said use a grate under your fuel so that you can get some airflow below it.

Your pizza looks better than most of the ones I have seen that were cooked in the store bought units. I will build one as soon as I can find toe components here in Roatan, thanks

I would use some cheap “fire bricks” to line the fire box to prolong the life of the outside building bricks. They are sold at tractor supply or anyplace that sells wood stoves. Yes, it will reduce the size of the fire box, but shouldn’t effect the heating of the baking plate above.