TikTok Takes Your Kitchen To The Backyard With This Simple Brick Oven DIY
Outdoor cooking takes preparing and cooking food to a whole new level. You experience something more exciting than when you're cooking in the kitchen. Most folks will barbecue outside on a grill, perfect for hosting larger parties. Even though you can grill for a smaller party, sometimes, it's nice to cook something different, like pizza. Homemade pizzas always turn out better than buying a frozen one or spending too much on delivery. While you can use your kitchen oven to cook them, brick ovens give them a better taste. Even though they're part of the hottest outdoor cooking trends, they can be expensive if you purchase one brand new, but TikTok user @theoldrustycoop showed followers how they built their own with a few materials from Home Depot.
This simple brick oven project is suitable for beginners, intermediate, and expert DIYers. You don't have to use cement to glue the bricks together; all it takes is stacking them correctly. Plus, it's a budget-friendly project. Most detailed brick ovens can cost over $1,000, especially if you have a professional install it, but this DIY will cost you less than $50 to build. All you need is 47 solid clay bricks, which cost $0.90 at Home Depot, and two 12 x 12-inch pavers, which are $1.98 each at Home Depot. The TikToker used an 18 x 18-inch paver as the base for the brick oven, but it's currently out of stock on the Home Depot website.
Building your brick oven
Before building your brick oven, choose a spot in your backyard on concrete flooring where you want it set up. When you start using it, the wood will start smoking until it burns down, so pick an area that isn't too close to the house to avoid smoke potentially entering the home.
After you choose your spot, it's time to start assembling. First, create the base by laying out three bricks horizontally, which will be the backside of the oven, as shown by TikTok user @theoldrustycoop. Then, lay two bricks vertically on the sides, connecting them to the back bricks to create a U-shape. Next, stack two bricks horizontally in the middle of the backside and stack three bricks vertically on each side. The front two bricks will hang slightly over the base. Repeat both stacks, starting with the base and then the overlapping stack.
Once the fourth stack is made, add one paver on top of the bricks and lay two bricks horizontally behind the paver to close it off. Then, stack two bricks on each side of the paver to get a total of eight bricks and three bricks on the backside for a total of six bricks. Leave a bit of space between the paver and the back two bricks to allow airflow. Finally, add the second paver on top and stack three bricks behind it, with the middle brick lying on its longer, thinner side.
Things to keep in mind when building your brick oven
Building your brick oven on a solid concrete floor is ideal, but you can set it up on anything as long as the surface is level. For instance, if you have a grassy and gravely lawn, you can add a thick layer of gravel and use it as the foundation of your oven. However, you want to ensure the ground is level by smoothing out the area where the bricks will sit. Once you lay down the first layer of bricks, use a level to make sure every part is even. The bricks will sit lopsided when the base isn't leveled, making it unstable. In addition, always stack the bricks snugly so there isn't any space between them. You could add cement to each brick, but it's time-consuming.
On the other hand, a safety tip to consider before installing a brick oven is ventilation. A pizza will only get fully cooked if heat touches it from all angles, so you have to ensure the heat is distributed throughout the entire oven for the perfect pizza. So, when you stack the first paver and cover the back with bricks, always leave a little bit of space between the paver and the brick to allow airflow. The smoke from the fire will move from the bottom of the oven through the vent on the backside and out through the front after the final bricks and paver are set.