Thanks Mark.
John K- what kind of oven do you have? When I first caught the fever, I was think of an Alan Scott barrel. Then I found Rado. From there I went to the Forno Bravo free plans and building my own oven with tweaks from other designs on their forum. Just to have one, I've already made a version of their Indispensable Tool - in case I have to start the build tomorrow, I wanted to be prepared. Recently, I've been leaning towards buying a Forno Bravo finished oven or kit because I'm not sure I'm going to be able to devote the time to a build. In my short time at pizzamaking.com, I've learned of the Four Grand Mere ovens and have started looking into those. We visit some friends outside Baltimore every so often and I'll have to plan a visit to Bread Stone Ovens while I'm down there.
Jon,
About 2 years ago I was going mad. I had modified the crap out of my grill, and had been cooking on it for a couple of years and I was "ready" for a WFO. I had the FB plans, ready to build it myself, so on and so forth. Then I was about 12 hours away from getting a guy to ship an oven via ebay and then he got squirelly, so that fell through. And the then the cost for shipping of materials from FB was just so high that I kept on hemming and hawing. (I live in NC and FB is in CA, as you know),
So long and short of it, I just came across this guy selling on ebay and he was super cheap, and minimal shipping cost from NJ. That was about a year and a half ago. Original configuration was on our wooden back porch. Subsequently did a backyard remodel and made a "proper"exterior for the oven. Since it is refractory/modular I was able to construct it in its "temporary" home, then take it apart and store it in pieces in my garage while the backyard was being done. Then when its new home was done, I just put it back together again. Was expecting a thermally fractured mess but this did not prove to be the case!
Bootom line is that there is "good" and "not perfect" with the oven. I cannot say that there is anything "bad" at all about it --- simply that it is not an Acunto or SF, or Bread Stone, or Grand Mere. My "next"oven will be one of those first two.
I can only speak to the oven that I have, which is: [url]http://www.grillsnovens.com/products/wood-fired-pizza-ovens/wood-burning-oven.html/[url]
Eugene Briskin (?sp) is a very good guy to deal with. He is the owner I think. And don't forget that on top of that $2200, you need: insulation, a heavy duty stand for the oven (my first was made of 4 x 4's), chimney material, and some sort of way to finish the oven.
Personally I would not want a smaller oven, but that's just me. We will have 10-15 people over at a time without blinking, and a smaller oven would be tough.
John K
