#35 How we build a pizza oven from clay (no cement)

Hey, welcome to a new Project Camp update. So we bought this big piece of land and are prototyping a more sustainable way of living. Not sure how it's going to go, let's see. And in the previous video you could see us doing a lot of practical things, like installing electricity or the shower with water. And in today's video we're going to make something less practical. Something that maybe doesn't really make that much sense to make at this point, but also seems kind of crucial in this place where it's very raw. In the evening we don't really have something to do, not really a social place. Yeah, something that would give us some fun in the evenings. So today we're going to build... So the pizza oven is going to be made from clay and this sand right here. And for this project we have Malte from Germany coming to help us out. And he made several pizza ovens like this before, so it should be easy. However, we do have some new twist to it this time, which is we want to make sure we can still move it around. Because we're not 100% sure yet what is going to be the final location of this pizza oven. So we're going to build it on a metal frame so we can lift it up later. Alright, so it's time to start building. And the first step we're going to do is to make sure we have the right mixture of clay. I did some sample mixtures with the clay and the sand to get the proportions right, because it's important to have the right ratio between clay and sand. So we always want to have one part of pure clay and two parts of sand. And because the clay is always different and you have different particle sizes of the sand that you have available on site, you do some different ratios and test out how do they behave when they're dry. So that's the reason I did a sample with no sand. I did a sample with one to one. And the optimal ratio that you're always aiming for is two parts of sand and one part of clay. A little bit more. Dry a little bit. Yeah, so this is the second step once we got the clay. We started mixing it together with the sand and the right ratio. And the mixed clay, we turn a part of it in tiles now. The tiles will be used for the inside part of the oven. And yeah, we make them ourselves. So we produce roughly about three to four hundred pieces. Maybe a little bit more than we need. You can also make them round shape. I did that with the last 15 ovens and it looks cool. But this time we try it in a rectangular shape. Because it will have a nice effect in the interior room. So we're making a frame for the pizza oven. And we're making it out of metal so that we can easily move it around if we need it. And yeah, and we're making it so it's very strong. Okay, so now the frame is welded. Now we have the legs so we can put it in the oven. We're going to add some beams here. Also some here to be able to hold the wood. Then all the clay is going to rest on it. And yeah, that's kind of the work for today. Reinforcing the frame. This is the frame. This is the pizza oven. It still doesn't look like a pizza oven but it is. The welding is done. The grinding is done. We made it in this way so we can transport it. We put these edges to hold the wood and the clay afterwards. Here is going to be a thick layer of clay to insulate the oven. We made this nice way to open. This is going to be our door. The pizza. Cook it. Close. Wait. Yeah, no more noise today. So today we decided to pick this location. And what we want to do is we are leveling the ground. And we prepare some outposts in the ground. To have a level and stable platform for the metal construction to stand on. The sun is fantastic here. So we moved the structure to the final location. And we secured some stones as outposts. So the whole structure would be lifted a little bit from the ground. And be protected from water. And now we build the wooden surface on the structure itself. To support the clay. And once we are done with that. We will start building a thick layer of clay insulation. And then the oven itself. I can do it from here. We just leveled the whole oven tile surface here. And we put some clay in the spaces in between. And cleaned everything off. And now we are creating an even leveled surface around the whole area. To carry the tiles that we made before. And the next step actually is to create a sand mold. So we use wet sand to create a negative mold on top of this. We have our tiles that we made before and that are sun dried. They changed the color. To have them as a layer around this sand shape. But in order to avoid the sand sticking on the tiles. We will cover the whole negative mold with newspaper. We are still working on layer A. Which is the bricks that we layer in here. According to our pattern. And because three people are enough to work on this layer. And we have two more people that want to participate. They already started with layer B. Which is the mix of straw and clay. And to apply that they take a handful of it. And start positioning it on the outside of layer A. So that evening we kept on working until we ran out of clay. Good moment to take a rest and go to sleep. So the first thing in the morning, mix new clay. Using some advanced tools and some more simple techniques. The next and final step is that we open the oven door. And take out the negative sand mold. And we will celebrate that together. Because we are all very keen to see the pattern of the interior. Everyone ready? Shall I pull you out Julie? Yes. You got the sand? Julie is like a shovel. The oven is now finally drying. It took a bit longer because it has been raining quite a lot. But now it's the perfect stage to lit a fire. We will start with a small fire. And ideally it will last 24 hours fire. And increasingly so we make sure it's fully fully dried inside. Fire time. It's now 3 am Dave. You are still in the fire. No, but it's later. Fire is still going on. We are making some chestnuts as well. Just kidding. So we have been heating up the oven for a long time now. Now we are doing a last boost of fire. Which became a bit too hot. So we are closing it again. And then the oven should be ready to make pizza. With too hot you mean the pipe is glowing and there is fire out there. Yes, I would say quite too hot. And let's see if it's going to survive. The oven is getting at the right temperature. We have a shovel as a tool to get the pizzas out. And we are now making the first pizzas. We have a sourdough one and a normal yeast. We are going to make pizza funghi. Because it's just a fast pizza. It's not worth it. Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's super super hot guys. Yeah? You should have learned from them. But it's super tasty. It's super tasty. You cannot feel the taste. Taste the taste. We are eating pizza at home. Not from the supermarket. Is it good Julie? Yes. Alright, so that was it. We now have a functional pizza oven that makes delicious pizzas. However, it's not really ready yet. We still need to clean it up. Connect the chimney. We need the roof above for the rain. And then we can also bake pizzas when it's actually raining. And also we have this wooden board that we put there. A bit of a placeholder because we didn't find a good material. But this thing starts to bend a lot because of the moisture in the clay. And also with the fire and the heat this thing is probably going to wear out. Yeah, the wood is a bit warped and worn out already. So we need to find a good material to replace this one with. But that's all for another video. So yeah, that was it. If you like what we do, make sure to visit support.projectcamp.com Thanks for watching. See you in the next video.