Wood-Fired Pizza Oven Saga: Part 5 - COB!!

As you may remember, in our last episode, our hero was a battered, broken old man - sore and cranky from having to take his stonework apart and rebuild it.

Now, he is considerably less sore, but his feet are much dirtier.

This is the new, improved stone base.

Top view. With any luck, this one won't collapse.

Now that the base was finished, Kerri and I zipped up to Portland, Maine to get 300 pounds of fire clay. Fire clay, as the name implies, will send a burning hot shot of pain through your back, like fire, when you schlep 300 pound of it around.

But don't worry. I know how to fix that.

The next step is to drink away the pain so you have enough bottles to insulate the bottom of the oven. Of course, I am kidding. I enlisted many, many friends to help with this painstaking process, and, after months and months of sensible consumption, I had the small number of glass bottles I needed to proceed.


Now, all I needed was about 600 pounds of screened sand. Fortunately, because of the digging I did earlier, I had the sand. Also, I tore up the kids' old sandbox from the yard. They don't know yet, so please don't tell them.

I used a hunk of old window screen and sifted several hundred pounds of sand into a big, blue bin.

That is a LOT more sand than it looks like. 

Now comes the fun part.*

*Your levels of fun may vary, Results not guaranteed.


I have to build a flat, insulated cap to cover the stone base.

Chicken comes around for the fun parts. Where was she when I was schlepping 300 pounds of clay?

We mixed sand, clay, water, and straw to make a building material called cob. Tori was giddy with excitement at the prospect of helping with this part. But where was she when I was schlepping clay? Probably with the chicken. Hiding in the bushes.

Cob is traditionally mixed by foot. And, I'm not going to lie. This was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun.

Sand and clay. Tori still hasn't figured out that this is her old sandbox. Shhhh.

Add some water.

Mix it on the traditional plastic tarp, just like they did hundreds of years ago.

Tori really, really liked this.

A lot.

After the clay and sand and water are mixed, you incorporate some straw for structural stability.

The chickens were helping.

By spreading the straw all over the lawn when we weren't looking. Our first pizza may be a chicken pizza.

HA! Nice try, chickens. We got the straw back!

The straw gets stomped in by foot, too.

You can turn this into a fun dance party with your daughter. Or, like me, you can tell her it is a fun dance party as you lean on her for support because you are so tired from all this darned stomping.

And you keep stomping. Or, rather, your daughter does. I was watching those sneaky chickens.

After you have a nice pile of cob, you start building the insulated base with a wall.

Tori seriously loved this part. 

And she did a great job helping.

I did a great job micro-managing.

This wall is then filled with insulating material.

See? And you thought they were just for fun? Nope. 

You cover the bottles with pearlite so nobody can see what you drink.

It looks like a fancy cake. Depending on your idea of fancy.

After you add the pearlite, you chase the chickens out of the straw again and make another batch of cob to cap everything off.

Goodbye bottles. You served us well.

I'll never forget you!

Tori is less emotional about the bottles than I am.

Flatten out the cap.

Have your daughter get all weird on you as you work.

And then pose for the obligatory thumbs-up picture when you're done.

Rather than signing it, Tori requested the we press our toes in the wet cob. It was rather satisfying.

Now the cap has to dry for a while. The next step will be to drag my buddy Ben over to build the actual dome of the oven. We'll probably do that in a few weeks.

Stay tuned!