Brick oven

So I've been wanting to make a brick ovrn for a ehile now, but I have an unconventional idea.
Would it be possible to build a double decker brick oven?
Think of it this way, the lower deck would have the fire, the top deck would have the food. I'd assume that I'll need some openings (essentially vents) between them to maintain proper circulation/heat exchange.
The decks will ne seperated by aa layer of bricks (the top layer of the bottom deck.

Does this sound feasible?

I was just reading, I think it was The old foxfire books, the book had plans for an oven made of stone that sounds very similar to what you are describing, I think it's very doable

The biggest problem I see with the double decker is how to support the upper level, yet get the heat to the oven part. I may need to do some investigation on the idea, just for the knowing. Personally, I want a pizza oven, which requires the high heat you get from making the pizza in the firebox.

I heart science.

Thinking in cooking, we want heat but not necessarily open flame. I would probably incorporate aspects of kiln design, since a pizza oven is sort of a round about step child of a grill, a forge and a kiln. How close to a wood burning grill are you aiming? How much wood/ smoke flavor are you going for? Are you looking to cook over coals, or on brick? Do you want/need the ash/char from the fire to be happy with your cooking?

Controlling your air intake and fuel would be how you would change your temps outside of traditionally making fire on stone, placing food on heated stone around the fire. Unfortunately to get the top shelf screaming hot, using brick as a shelf, the bottom is at incineration levels, defeating the purpose of shelves - which maybe is what you're going for, kind of a stone "grill". Perhaps a design with your coals in the middle, and shelves around the walls and back with an open center would work? That would be one big oven to fit multiple pizza width shelves though. I think you would have to heat the whole thing, almost beyond being able to safely put anything on those lower shelves, and then use it as it cooled. Lot of fuel and time for the result.

A forge melts metal, and has some shared aspects, coal, brick and air circulation - bellows forces air through a tube/opening to heat the coals... the contained space keeps heat from escaping... the hearth contains the fire... I think there is a lot of potential for creativity there.

Same with the vents on a charcoal grill...

So, you build your basic shape with bricks, give it a chimney and vents, and then decide how you want to create that air flow, and how often you'll need to speed it up and feed it to keep it where you want it - to get it hot enough to heat a second level. Actually, if you were doing a shelf, this might be ideal, since you could speed up the air flow in the lower chamber without getting ash all over your food.

The simplicity of the pizza oven is in the clean out, you don't have to take it apart to clear your fire. BUT you may be able to cook longer and control your temps better by having the fire in a separate compartment.




So theoretically you could bring the heat up as high as you wanted, given you had fuel to feed it and sufficient oxygen coming in and containment. I would worry more about melting or cracking your oven than not being able to get it hot enough. How much playing with fire can you do? For some internet wandering, using bricks might not be safe, unless they are fire rated. They can explode! Whoops. Especially if we're gonna get nuts and start blowing the temps way up by using something to speed up air flow. I would go with something manual like a bellows. You could burn down the whole farm. Heck, I've almost burned the place down with just the regular BBQ, lol.

Terra cotta tiles on rebar? Anything alloy I'd be afraid of melting - or moreso, interested in melting, lol.


I'd be sort of worried it would explode though.

If you don't want to build one, go with the ceramic Kamado. The Pit Boss or Vision is cheap and you can cook pizza high heat no problem. It works well during winter.

There is an article on Mother Earth news that tells how to build one and it had a couple of levels. I thought about building one but got a Traeger for my birthday and between my big fire pit and my Traeger, I am set!