Jayjay - did you let the fire die down prior to trying to bake the pizza? To develop the heat needed for pizza it is cooked in an oven with a simultaneous large fire. It sounds like you constructed a barrel arch oven - you may have a little more challenge getting a large enough fire to make pizza while still having room for the pizza with the dimensions you describe. It also sounds like you made a high mass oven (8 inches thick) without any real insulation, so the heat is drawn into the walls of the oven. It likely will take much longer to bring this style of oven to heat compared to your friend's thin walled oven. |