Installation guide

Pompeii Oven Instructions
© Forno Bravo, LLC 2007. All Rights Served. Ver. 1.2 61
Appendix 2. Brick Primer
Choosing the Right Brick Oven Bricks
Deciding what type of brick you will use is one of the first
choices you will have to make when starting to build a
Pompeii Oven. You will use brick in the cooking floor, the
oven dome and perhaps for your decorative vent arch,
oven landing and other decorative trim.
This page explains the different types of bricks and what
the trade-offs are between them. It should help you decide
what types you are going to use, and it can help you find
the right brick at your local masonry supply store. It might
be useful to take this page with you when you go
shopping.
Here are some basic brick types:
Low to Medium Duty Firebrick
This is the brick that we recommend for both the cooking
floor and dome of the Pompeii Oven. Low duty firebricks
are comprised of roughly 30% alumina and 50% silica.
They heat up quickly, withstand the 900F heat your oven
will reach, and are designed for the rapid heat-up and cool
down (thermal cycling) that your oven will experience.
Firebrick will also reach the heat required for pizza more
quickly than clay brick, because they are more efficient at
conducting heat.
Further, because firebrick is designed to withstand thermal
cycling, your oven will last longer, though for most home
ovens this is not an important issue, and your oven will
probably outlast you whichever brick you choose.
There is also a medium duty firebrick designed for higher
heat. We recommend the low duty firebrick, but medium
duty is acceptable.
When choosing your firebrick, look for a brick with straight
edges for your cooking floor. It is important that the bricks
in the floor fit snuggly against each other, and a curved
edge will result in a gap between the bricks and in your
cooking floor.
A typical firebrick weighs about 8 pounds and is yellow.
The price of a good quality firebrick should be around
$1.00.
Red Clay Brick
This is the traditional red clay brick that you find at Home
Depot and at masonry supply stores. They are made from
clay, and fired in a kiln. They are typically made from local
clay, as shipping is too expensive, and fired to between
2000F - 3000F (high enough to fuse the minerals). You
can use clay brick in the oven dome, but we would not
recommend using them in the oven floor. There are trade-
offs to consider.
There are two shortcomings to using a clay brick in your
oven dome. First, thermal cycling will cause clay brick to
spall, where little pieces of the brick flake off, and could
cause individual clay bricks to crack. It has happened to
us. Second, clay brick is not as good a conductor as
firebrick and as a result will take longer to heat up.
Still, you can find clay bricks for about $.25 at Home
Depot, which make them the most cost-effective option.
Our view is that unless cost is a prohibiting factor, we
would recommend firebrick. For example, a 42" oven
some has roughly 180 bricks in the dome, so the
difference in brick cost should be around $100. In the
context of the overall cost of the oven, and large amount
of human capital you will be investing in your oven, we
think the extra cost of worth it.
If your choice is to build your oven with clay brick or not at
all, we would strongly recommend building your oven with
clay brick.