New Forno Bravo Primavera Oven! Modular Refractory Oven Installation Discuss New Forno Bravo Primavera Oven! in the Pizza Oven Design and Installation forums; I am so excited to be telling everyone about this. I have been working on a small, assembled wood oven ...

[james]

I am so excited to be telling everyone about this.

I have been working on a small, assembled wood oven for quite a while. The requirements were that it was a real Italian wood oven, with a round cooking floor, dome, vent and chimney -- and that it would be as easy to set up and use as a charcoal BBQ. We've decided to call it the Primavera Oven.

We've spent a lot of time on design, refractory materials, insulators, etc. and we have built the first prototypes. The oven has a 24" round cooking floor, a 5" landing, vent and chimney, and a 16"w x 11" oven opening. The enclosure is a 36" igloo that sits on a nice-looking metal stand.

We placed the oven on the stand and cured the dome late last week, and then really brought it up to heat today.

What a thrill. This little oven is just great. It shot to 800ºF in the floor and dome and it had no trouble holding pizza heat for multiple pizza bakings. We got the insulation right, and the enclosure and the bottom of the base are barely above room temperature -- while the oven is cranking away at 900ºF.

It just shot through a series of 90 second pizzas, without a hitch.

The 24" cooking floor is just enough for the fire and a single 11" pizza (280 gram dough ball).

You are going to hear a lot more about this in the months to come. My goal is to make a real wood oven as easy as a kettle BBQ -- and maybe we can make it as popular as a Weber. :-) Still, we were not prepared to compromise to where this is not a real Italian oven; and I think we have struck a nice balance.

More to come, including photos and videos, but I wanted to tell everyone how well it cooked today!

We should be in production soon.

Wahoo!
James

[dbhansen]

Congrats, James! Sounds like a winner! Can't wait to see the pictures.

[GOman]

If an oven like that is going to be installed on a wood deck, approx. how much will the fully finished oven weigh? I would have an engineer design the support structure underneath.

[dmun]

Ovens on wood decks are a bad idea. They can spit out embers, just like a fireplace. For those building next to wood decks, a masonry heath has to be built next to the deck for just that reason.

[Fred Schroeder]

Do you have a suggestion of how big a non-wood base would be safe if it were on or near a wood or Trex deck. I was hoping to put a Primavera on a Trex deck and my wife told me we would have to build a brick, tile or stone slab. I should have known that sparks would be dangerous.

Fred

[Les]

Fred,

I may have had embers pop out about 4 feet from the entry. That was burning pine and it's is pretty rare to see that happen. A bigger concern (not that a deck on fire isn't), is the trex supporting the weight. Were you planning on going underneath so support it?

Les...

[Fred Schroeder]

Thanks for the response. I am going to explore putting some tiles down in the area I wish to place the oven. Our deck seems to be very stout, but I have a contractor starting work on my kitchen next week and I will see what he has to say. The weight of the smaller Primavera would not seem to suggest the deck could not easily support it, but it would be wise to make sure.

Fred