Sleepless in Houston

[pulsarxp]

I just joined the group and plan to finally build an outdoor pizza oven. Studying all the info at night keeps me up late evenings lately. I got heavily interested in building an oven around 8 years ago when I started building a lake house myself around an hour and a half drive North of Houston. I hope to get the place semi finished sometime this year. This will give me time to build the oven. The house took tenfold more time then expected.

The lake house is a great "party spot". Big covered deck, commercial margarita machine and commercial popcorn machine plus homemade sausage making equipment and grain beer brewing system and dispensing kegerator. It's missing an outdoor pizza oven and outdoor movie theater system at this point in time.

Sure would like to meet others in and around Houston who have taken the BIG STEP before me or others willing to steer me in the right direction when needing help. I plan to build the oven from scratch and local info on suppliers would be wonderful.

Lee, age 72 (retired but busier then ever)

[KraemerBAC]

Lee,

You have come to the right place...there are alot of guys in Houston so you should have no problems getting information on sources. Have fun

Peter

[texassourdough]

Don't limit yourself to Houston, Lee. There are pizza folk in San Antonio and Austin too!

Sounds like you will do well. Read up and hang in there!
Jay

[pulsarxp]

Peter and Jay:

Thanks for responding. One thing is certain, I have decided on a dome oven and not a barrel one. I have found one "friend" in the Woodlands which is about a half hours drive from me. (Gary Dest) Hope to get together with him on a weekend when he is home. His is not complete, but he is working on it. "I agreed to give him a hand'. This should be a good learning experience. I think Gary is close to building or is boulding the dome right now with limited build time available.

Lee
Houston (Kingwood), TX

[texassourdough]

Hi Lee!

I originally planned my oven as a bread oven and planned to go barrel vault (and in fact my base is done Scott style). My oven is an FB Casa 1 meter with an extra one inch of refractory which gives it just a little extra mass. It is a fine oven. Building it yourself from scratch certainly has some appeal but...the kit greatly accelerates the dome process.

I will be glad to answer any questions where I have specific knowledge but this group has tons of construction knowledge and experience that goes far beyond my knowledge.

Good Luck!
Jay

[czaunb2]

That does sound like one heck of a party spot!! You will learn everything you need to know to build one yourself on this website, but yes, it will take a lot of time perusing. I "stalked," as my husband says, the site for nearly a month before I felt comfortable moving forward.

Good luck and keep us posted! PS--post pics of the house too--what an accomplishment!!!

[mustbecrazy]

Lee, funny that is the first thing I decided too after reading in this forum. Definitely a dome. I am probably a year from building an oven as I have several other projects in front of an oven. Please include pictures as you can. Sound like you need to consider building a grain mill for pizza dough too! Good luck Gene.

[Cypress]

hope the build goes ok if you have questions let me know What lake?

[pulsarxp]

Cyress:

Lake Livingston, 5 min out of Coldspring, TX.