Installation guide

Pompeii Oven Instructions

5. Setting the Cooking Floor

Overview

Your cooking floor can be made from either individual

firebricks, set in an offset or herringbone pattern (Photo

5.1), where the oven walls rest directly on the cooking

surface, or from a round refractory floor provided by Forno

Bravo. The advantage of the firebrick floor is that it is

made from materials you can purchase locally. The

advantages of the round floor are that it has fewer seams,

and the oven dome itself sits directly on the hearth, not the

cooking floor, which is more efficient.

5.1 A herringbone pattern.

Instructions

These instructions show how to build a cooking floor using

firebricks. With this method, you do not mortar the bricks

in place, but rather spread a thin layer of paste made from

sand, fire clay and water as a "bed" for the floor.

To make the underfloor paste, mix 1 part of fine sand with

1 part fireclay, then add water until you reach the texture

of a sticky mortar (but without the cement). Spread the

underfloor using a notched trowel as the ridges will make it

easier for you to get your floor perfectly level (Photo 5.2).

The process is similar to setting ceramic tiles.

5.2 Ready for the cooking floor

Measure your hearth to ensure that you are centering your

cooking floor left and right on the hearth. How far back you

set the cooking surface will depend on the size and

material you are using for the oven landing in front of the

oven opening. Use a chalk line and measuring tape, locate

and mark the center of the oven, and where the front of

the oven (the vent floor) will meet with your oven landing

(Photo 5.3).

5.3 Measure carefully where the oven will sit.

Laying your floor in a herringbone or offset pattern to will

help avoid having seams line up that will catch your pizza

peel. Build the floor out and back until you have gone far

enough to hold the oven wall. Lay your bricks on their flat