If you plan to make your own homemade fire brick oven, you need to know where you buy bricks for pizza oven so that you can get the best bricks for your wood-fired pizza oven.
There are many types of bricks that you can use to make your wood-fired pizza oven. There are clay bricks, normal bricks, and red clay bricks often used for insulation and heat retention.
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The best fire bricks for pizza oven floors should have a strong build and be slightly malleable to stretch and adapt to the temperature where you will be cooking your pizzas.
This does not mean that you need special bricks for your pizza oven. Yes, there are slight differences but they are not too special that you will not find them in local stores.
It is great that you adapt to what is locally available and if the soil in your area can be used to make red clay or fire bricks, you have a great chance of finding the best bricks.
Just remember that pizza oven bricks and mortar should be durable to withstand both high and low temperatures. So here are what you need and where you can find them.
Table of Contents
What Kind Of Bricks Do I Need For My Wood-fired Pizza Oven?
Some will argue that you need special bricks to make your outdoor oven DIY.
These special bricks are made from slightly stronger materials to withstand high temperatures.
Making your fire brick oven at home is a lot of work. You need to find the right place to buy bricks that will handle the heat from the oven, which is not an easy task.
The best bricks you can use when making your fire brick oven are refractory bricks.
These bricks are made mostly from ceramic which means they reflect heat pretty well.
Refractory bricks are also great at retaining heat.
Once they absorb the heat from the fuel source, they help distribute the heat evenly so your pizza will cook perfectly with no cold spots.
They hardly warp at high temperatures and they also do not break.
Home ovens like your regular oven gas-fired appliance at home cannot reach what clay ovens or outdoor ovens can.
That is why the bricks you need to use should have high resistance to heat. Most home ovens can only reach 500 degrees F but you need to be ready for up to 1000 degrees F.
Can I Use Normal Bricks For My DIY Pizza Oven?
Most of the questions I received are do you need special bricks to make wood-fired pizza ovens? Can I use fire bricks or can I just go with normal bricks? There are a lot and it is understandable.
Most portable wood-fired pizza ovens nowadays do not even use locally-made clay bricks.
They usually are made out of stainless steel or cast-iron steel for better heat retention.
If you are trying to make a DIY brick pizza oven, you need special bricks to get the best results. However, there are times when normal red clay bricks will do for your oven.
Pizza oven bricks and mortar should have the best quality, but your locally-made clay bricks will do if you do not have any other choice. As long as you do not plan on cooking that often.
Clay bricks do tend to break or warp when put under high temperatures.
You can use them for up to 650 degrees Fahrenheit but more than that and the clay bricks might break.
You can buy bricks anywhere from hardware stores or online. If you are only using normal bricks, you will not have a hard time finding them, but they are not the best for your oven.
Can I Use Fire Bricks For My DIY Brick Oven?
If you are one of the people who asked can I use fire bricks for making a fire brick oven? Then you might have done some research and came across fire bricks so you wonder if you can use them.
You most certainly can as they are a better version of the red clay bricks that you can find in most hardware stores. You can use fire bricks for your pizza oven as they are great for high heat.
Fire bricks are usually used in building furnaces, fireplaces, and other brick structures that regularly contact fire. That is why you can use fire bricks for your pizza oven floor.
When used as pizza oven bricks and mortar, fire bricks can result in great pizzas that are cooked in high temperatures and finish quickly within 90 seconds, unlike home ovens.
What makes fire bricks better for your wood-fired pizza oven is made from slightly different compositions, and fire bricks have more silica content than your normal red clay bricks.
When processed, fire bricks come out denser than normal bricks so, in a way, you do need special bricks for your fire brick oven. They are, however, more expensive than normal bricks.
So you need to think of fire bricks as an investment. If you buy bricks made normally, they might break earlier than expected, fire bricks can last for a long time even with frequent cooking.
How Do Fire Bricks Do With High Temperatures?
Fire bricks can withstand temperatures of up to 980 degrees Fahrenheit so they are great for authentic Neapolitan pizzas. This means that you can cook pizzas in just under 90 seconds.
You do not have to worry about your fire brick oven burning off some materials.
Fire bricks can cope with high temperatures without showing damage or deterioration.
This is one of the clear advantages of having a brick or wood oven compared to home ovens.
Pizza needs to be cooked at really high temperatures which your home ovens cannot reach.
Pizza oven bricks and mortar made from fire bricks can help make the pizza oven better at conserving fuel. Since they can absorb heat and redistribute it, you do not need much fuel.
Fire bricks are great at even heat distribution while protecting the oven’s overall structure from moisture. That means that you can cook anytime and anywhere with fire bricks.
You will also immediately notice the difference in flavor when you compare pizzas cooked in regular home ovens and brick ovens like the Forno Bravo and trust me, fire bricks do it a lot better.
So yes, you can use fire bricks instead of normal red clay bricks for your pizza oven.
Making your clay oven with fire bricks can give you the best fire pit and shell to cook your pizza in.
Where Can I Buy Bricks For My DIY Outdoor Brick Oven?
There are a lot of hardware shops that you can buy bricks from. As mentioned above, fire bricks are an investment for better backyard pizza ovens that will cook the perfect pizzas.
So no matter where you buy them, you should expect that fire bricks or other refractory bricks should be a bit more expensive than normal bricks used in small DIY oven kits that are not often used.
Homemade pizzas will be easier for you to make with fire bricks. You can even search some videos making fireplace pizzas since most fireplaces are made with high-quality bricks.
My first recommendation is to buy bricks from Amazon.
There, you will find bricks with some kits and packages to give you more oven ideas of how you will make your perfect home oven.
There are also other types of bricks that you can find so in case you were building a brick oven and you wonder whether you need to use special bricks, you can certainly find them on Amazon.
If you also want a gas burner for your patio, you can find the best pizza ovens like the Gas Pizzazz pizza oven on Amazon. This is a great pizza oven to practice in before going to brick ovens.
Fire bricks for pizza oven floors will make your cooking better and you can find them in most hardware stores.
Home Depot also sells the perfect bricks for your pizza oven depending on where you are.
Craigslist and eBay are also great online places to search for brick to buy your pizza oven.
I recommend finding a brand like VITCAS Firebricks and ordering straight from their website.
Again, fire bricks are pretty expensive so finding the manufacturer and ordering straight from them can lower the price compared to ordering from retailers.
You can also find red clays and other pizza oven bricks and mortar from Amazon if you have other things to build.
Can I Use Clay Bricks Instead?
In some cases, people ask if they can use clay bricks for their pizza ovens since maybe they have some locally-made bricks left along with some cinder blocks after some construction works.
The thing is, clay bricks made locally are great as they are cheaper than ordering fire bricks online. However, they cannot stand as much heat as fire bricks can.
Your oven build or design will not be any different but its ability to retain and distribute heat evenly will be changed. Clay bricks can only withstand the heat of up to 650 degrees Fahrenheit.
Clay bricks still have a lot of alumina in them which means that they cannot absorb as much heat as fire bricks. Since they are less metallic, they are cheaper but weaker in structure.
That means that clay bricks can absorb heat but not cook as quickly as fire bricks. Wood-burning pizza ovens can get up to high temperatures, so using clay bricks is risky.
That does not mean that you cannot use clay bricks for your pizza oven. As long as you know proper masonry, you will be able to make amazing pizzas ovens with clay bricks.
Just make sure that the pizza oven made with clay bricks will not often be used. The more frequent you use it, the more likely it will break sooner.
Never Use Concrete!
Now that you know all about the types of bricks that you can use for your pizza oven, I need to remind you that you should never use cinder blocks or anything made out of concrete for your pizza oven.
Cement and concrete are not heated so they are not hard enough to handle high temperatures. That also means they will crack easily under high temperatures and break in just a few uses.
Concrete can also explode so not only will it not cook your pizza, it can be unsafe for you. Make sure to use them only to bind the fire bricks and not as the whole pizza oven build or structure.
Even the cement used for binding the fire bricks for the pizza oven is heated enough to harden. So your leftover cinder blocks will not do any good for your pizza oven.
As I have mentioned above, it takes a lot of work and time to build your homemade brick oven, and that is why there are also some pre-made brick ovens that you can install in your backyard.
Mattone Barile Foam pizza ovens locally source the fire bricks used for the pizza ovens. Great brick ovens can cook pizzas in just 90 seconds for the perfect Neapolitan pizza.
So if you do not have the time nor the resources to make your pizza oven, then you can get the best outdoor brick ovens as an addition to your backyard!
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How to build a wood fired Pizza Oven DIY
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