Installation guide

Pompeii Oven Instructions
© Forno Bravo, LLC 2007. All Rights Served. Ver. 1.2 63
Appendix 3. Why the Pompeii
Oven Plans are Free
When I got hooked on brick ovens a number of years ago,
the choices were very limited. There were plans for a
barrel vault bread oven ($100 for a photocopied set of
plans), or you could pay a crazy amount of money for an
imported oven. I built the oven from the plans, and before I
even finished it, decided to build a second one inside
during a kitchen remodel. Unfortunately, I was very
disappointed with the barrel vault oven design -- for more
on that, read our Why Round page.
Then I started traveling, and eventually came to live in
Italy, where I saw the real brick ovens. The attitude toward
wood-fired ovens is completely different here. There are
pizza ovens everywhere -- in homes, courtyards, covered
patio, freestanding enclosures, take-out pizzerias and
fancy restaurants, and they are used all the time. That is
when we decided to start Forno Bravo, and provide both
pre-made pizza ovens (both precast and true brick pizza
ovens), as well as free brick oven plans.
In Italy, pizza ovens are sold by garden centers pretty
much the same way Home Depot sells Weber BBQs. They
line them up, and they disappear. Prefabricated ovens are
displayed right next to the refractory bricks, mortar, oven
floors and insulation that are used for site-built ovens.
Everyone knows how to install a pizza oven and how to
cook in one, and the prefabricated ovens are priced fairly.
The modular pizza oven kits outsell site-built brick ovens
by a large margin, but hobbyists and muratore (stone
masons) still build brick ovens.
My goal is to bring this dynamic to America -- pretty much
the way you see it here in Florence. Our refractory ovens
are priced fairly (a lot less than the alternatives), and with
the Pompeii Oven plans, we transfer the knowledge you
need to build your own oven. Either way, you get a great
oven, and everyone benefits from your photographs,
recipes and everything you learn.
Building a large English-language pizza oven community
is fun, and will help grow awareness through word-of-
mouth, and through great food. At some point in the future,
hopefully, someone will see a Pompeii Oven, and if they
don't have the skill or time to build one, will become a
Forno Bravo customer.
Join the Forno Bravo Forum, tell a friend, take lots of
photos for us to post on www.fornobravo.com, and send
us your recipes.
Finally, we offer complete line of pizza oven tools,
accessories, and pizzas ingredients at the Forno Bravo
Store, so if you build a Pompeii Oven you can always buy
your pizza peels and pizza flour from us.
Welcome to the community.
James Bairey
Forno Bravo, LLC