My Wood Burning Pizza Oven

Making the Margherita Sbagliato was No Mistake!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Wed, 14 May 2025 18:30:00 +0000

It's I loved the Netflix series "Chef's Table: Pizza." The episode with Franco Pepe, from north of Naples, was outstanding.

What stood out was his Margherita Sbagliato, or "mistaken margherita" -- appropriate for me since I host a podcast and have written a book about making mistakes and learning from them.

Here's a video with Franco:

I decided to make the Margherita Sbagliato the other day, using my Ooni Koda 16 oven that's running on natural gas. I'm not at our home that has the wood-burning oven, but I'll repeat the experiment there.

I'll share some photos, a little bit about the process, and the reactions to this pizza from my family and guests.

I followed the recipe that's found on this page, from "Young and Foodish."

I made my dough pretty much as usual. I made my usual sauce, built on the foundation of a glass jar of Italian tomato puree.

The one special preparation was the basil oil sauce (the green that's seen in the Franco Pepe video).

I doubled the recipe, using 20 g of fresh basil, one ice cube, and 300 g of extra virgin olive oil. This turned out to be a much thinner liquid than the one in the video above. For future experiments, I'd use less oil to thicken it into more of a pesto consistency.

I stretched the dough and covered it with torn slices of mozzarella (other than the edge that's left uncovered for the cornicione (edge) of the pizza. And I drizzled some EVOO on top.

Into the oven (turned down to low):

I didn't have a stopwatch running, but here it is after about a minute:

A video of it:

And out...

I could have had the oven running a little hotter. I say that because of the browning that occurred instead of doing the leopard spotting thing.

Then, it's time to use squeeze bottles to add lines or dots of 1) sauce and 2) the basil oil:

Here's the first one I had done earlier:

And here's the second one (the one pictured in the oven above). I liked Franco's direction to "play with the pizza" so there's a bit of a tic-tac-toe theme I guess:

It's a fun take on the classic Margherita. There's no evidence that it was born from a true "mistake" -- but it looks like one.

Instead of the base of sauce, it's a base of cheese. A true Margherita pizza is made with a more austere amount of cheese compared to a New York pizza that's covered in it over the sauce.

The basil oil had a great flavor. And the addition of room temperature sauce made it seem more concentrated in flavor. And you get the satisfying cheese bread texture and taste.

I would definitely do this again. It's a bit of a party trick. Perhaps a pizza people haven't had before. I could pretend like I made a mistake, LOL.

It was a hit. My mother-in-law said it's her new favorite pizza... enjoying it even more than my traditional Margherita!

Wood-Oven Versions

I also made this in my wood-burning oven in Texas:

Learning from Pizza Making Mistakes: Lessons from Chef Chris Bianco

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 00:11:00 +0000

Here's a photo of me and Chris Bianco at the original Phoenix location in 2012:

This post is an excerpt from my 2023 book The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.

Chris Bianco is a James Beard award-winning chef and owner of Pizzeria Bianco, whose wood-oven pizzas are often named the nation’s best. After enjoying his Phoenix restaurant for years, my wife and I moved to Dallas in 2005, where we couldn’t find a similar pizzeria. I was inspired to start making pizza in our backyard. We even toyed with the idea of building a brick oven like Bianco’s.

Before committing to the investment, it seemed prudent to start cooking pizzas on an inexpensive stone I could put on my gas grill. That doesn’t work as well as a wood oven, but it allowed us to test a few assumptions, such as being able to make and stretch dough properly and not getting bored with making (or eating) pizza. After that small test of change, we went all-in on the pizza oven, and I haven’t regretted it.

After using the backyard wood oven a few times, I had an opportunity to return to Pizzeria Bianco, where I asked Chris for his advice as a new pizza maker. I’ll never forget his answer, in his raspy Brooklyn accent:

“Just keep burnin’ ’em, ’til you get it right!”

As Chris reminded me, we should expect to make mistakes when we’re learning or trying something new. We should also remember that mistakes are possible anytime we try to improve a product or our process. But we can learn from those mistakes and move forward, better.

My Wood Oven Dough Recipe and Process

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 00:05:00 +0000

More photos to come...

I love using Caputo Type 00 flour, easily accessible via Amazon. I've grown to prefer the the "blue bag" pizza flour instead of the red bag (which still works fine if you can find that at a grocery store).

It's important to weigh out the ingredients using a kitchen scale.

To make six dough balls, use these proportions / ratio:

700 g flour
3 g Captuo active dry yeast
21 g kosher salt
490 g water (room temperature)

I use a KitchenAid Artisan mixer with a spiral dough hook.

Add the ingredients into the mixing bowl in the order shown above. I use a spoon to mix the dry ingredients after adding the yeast and then adding the salt.

Add the water. I've found that it's not necessary to "proof" the yeast by mixing some of it with water first.

The amount of water needs to be adjusted based on some "gut feel." If the dough seems too wet (this comes from experience), you can add more flour. If the dough looks too dry, add more water.

Run the mixer in these cycles, on the lowest speed:

5 minutes running
5 minutes off
5 minutes running
5 minutes off
5 minutes running

Take the dough out onto a floured counter. Form a single dough ball with a smooth top.

Then, I place the dough ball into a glass bowl that's been coated with olive oil spray.

Then, spray the top of the dough ball and cover with plastic wrap.

Let the dough proof and rise at room temperature for two to three hours. It should rise up to the plastic wrap.

Place the dough in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, take the dough out about 2 or 2.5 hours before you plan to use it.

Place the dough on a floured countertop and use a dough scraper to cut it into six equal pieces.

Note, in the photo, I didn't do the best job of cutting them evenly.

Form each wedge piece into a ball by folding the triangle corners down into the bottom of the ball. Pinch together and form into a ball:

Place it into a floured proofing tray, dust the dough balls with flour, and cover.

Then, you're ready to go. It takes practice to get the knack of this. Any "mistakes" will still taste delicious!!

Chris Bianco Pizza Lesson

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 21:26:00 +0000

This 11-minute video is amazing, as we get Chris Bianco's tips on dough, sauce, and more:

I also learned that actor and comedian Aziz Ansari has a wood oven in his backyard.

You can buy Bianco's new cookbook:

Bianco: Pizza, Pasta, and Other Food I Like

Pizza Oven, Phase 2

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 18:29:00 +0000

I'm very excited that the backyard pizza oven project... the full design... is almost complete.

In my last post, I wrote about the oven and its base being completed.

It took longer than I liked because my outdoor kitchen contractor was really behind on his projects due to the rainy spring that we had in the DFW area... but the island / counter and extended patio are now complete.

Here's how it looks (click any photo for a larger view).

Here are some of the design concepts from the landscape / kitchen designer:

You can see I had the oven entrance put at a 45 degree angle (135 degrees to the counter, actually), where it was at a right angle in the design concept.

We said no to the fire pit and will be putting the table on that patio flagstone extension.

Here are more photos of the oven, counter, and space.

The front service is a workspace or a place to put food and drinks for guests. The upper / back counter is bar stool height for eating or hanging out.

We decided to put an umbrella stand into the counter top.

This flagstone was a bit wet when this next photo was taken. This gives us room for a 4-seat round table.

Here I am with the oven (the top counter wasn't on yet) and two pizzas:

Firing Up the Oven! First Pizzas!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Thu, 19 May 2016 13:32:00 +0000

Last Friday, I had the chance to fire up the oven for the first time.

Forno Bravo cured the oven before they shipped it (a new service that they have started offering). So, I took their word that I didn't have to go through the usual multi-step curing process of building incrementally larger fires to ramp it up.

Click on any photo to enlarge.

I did first burn just a little newspaper to get started.

I stacked wood and some paper bags to get the first fire going.

Here I am lighting it.

The first pizza:

I'm still relearning all of this. Instead of making my own dough, I bought dough balls at our local Central Market store. I'm not sure what type of flour it was or how long it had risen. The pizza turned out OK... I didn't have the oven quite hot enough and I'm still re-learning the ropes to get proper spotting on the pizza. But it was delicious!

Oven Installation - Placed on the Base

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Tue, 17 May 2016 20:13:00 +0000

Delivery of the Forno Bravo Vesuvio oven was scheduled for Tuesday, May 10. Forno Bravo had quoted 21 days to build the oven and up to a week for shipping and everything was on schedule.

I had my contractor lined up with a forklift rental... unfortunately I had to be out of town that day because of my grandfather's funeral in Ohio. It would have probably been too difficult to push this back, given the freight company not wanting to hold the oven long probably... so my in-laws were here to help supervise the process.

It was quite a process... it's quite an oven. A few tiles were chipped during the installation process (and a bit of grout, as well).

But, Forno Bravo sent some extra tiles and my contractor's going to patch things up when he comes back to build the island that is going to come out to the right of the oven, as part of the bigger project.

This is one of the conceptual drawings, below. I'll have work space and more wood storage and there will be a dine-in counter on the other side. We're just going to have a table instead of a fire pit though. The pizza oven is our fire feature!

More pictures to come from the first two times we fired it up over the weekend!

Final Pizza Oven Base Preparation

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Mon, 09 May 2016 13:36:00 +0000

Here is the final prep of the pizza oven base that was done by my contractor. The oven will be set on top of this base and counter top. Note in the first picture that some concrete block is still exposed because our contractor is going to build a long countertop off to that side that will be attached to that base.

The oven dome is going to be delivered tomorrow. If weather holds (if the grass isn't too wet for the forklift), it will get placed on the stand. Or, we might have to wait until Saturday, which means renting the forklift again, but oh well. We want to make sure this gets done properly without tearing up our grass or dropping the oven!

Day 2 of Oven Base Construction, The Oven is Ready to Ship

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Wed, 04 May 2016 14:02:00 +0000

Here's progress from day 2 of the pizza oven base construction and the oven itself is ready to ship from Forno Bravo:

Base Construction Starts for my Pizza Oven

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Tue, 03 May 2016 13:52:00 +0000

My landscape / outdoor kitchen contractor started with the construction for my pizza oven base yesterday. Again, I'm getting the Forno Bravo Vesuvio oven.

We decided on the location and they had to pour a little extra concrete foundation beyond my existing patio.

Then, they started building the base out of cinder blocks.

They're going to be also building a counter to the right (workspace and dining area) and they'll be expanding the patio more for some seating area.

But, since the oven will arrive next week, the focus is on getting the base in place so we can place the oven on top when it arrives (which means renting a forklift just once).

The Oven is Almost Ready to Ship!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Mon, 02 May 2016 00:11:00 +0000

Forno Bravo is going to deliver on their 21 day lead time for producing my custom-tiled oven. That's impressive.

I'm now having to coordinate delivery with my local contractor who is building the stone base and hearth. I wish he had gotten that done earlier... such is life sometimes when working with busy contractors who are good.

Once FB ships the oven, it's going to be about four to seven business days before it arrives.

Here it is with the custom Texas star tile that they did... so beautiful.

Even More Progress on the Tile

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 19:42:00 +0000

Here is yet another photo of my Vesuvio oven being built by Forno Bravo (thanks to them for the pictures!). Click for a larger view of the tile and their progress.... they still need to cut out tile to place my Texas star and they front of the opening area needs done still.

Tile Being Placed on the Oven

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 12:21:00 +0000

Here is another photo of my Vesuvio oven being built by Forno Bravo (thanks to them for the pictures!). Click for a larger view of the tile being placed:

The Oven is Taking Shape!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:46:00 +0000

Here are some more photos of my Vesuvio oven being built by Forno Bravo (thanks to them for the pictures!). Click for a larger view.

The Oven is Taking Shape!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 02:23:00 +0000

Here's the latest in-progress photo from Forno Bravo about the oven they are building for me. The guts of it are taking shape. That looks like wood framing that's used to pour concrete or something for the chimney that curves from the front of the oven back to the top for the center chimney.

This is the cross section design of the oven (via this PDF):

Knowing that the inner dome has to be solid for heat and flame reflection, I always wondered how these ovens have a central vent. This is how... the air goes out the front and gets routed up across the top of the inner dome to the chimney.

Awesome!

First "Baby" Picture of the New Oven

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 16:34:00 +0000

Forno Bravo has started work on our oven.

Here's the first "in progress" photo they shared with me. It's sorta like seeing a baby in the womb?

The four brown pieces are the floor of the oven. The interior dimensions will be 40" x 48" or 1,256 square inches, perfect for cooking a few pizzas at a time.

The round base underneath will support the oven dome.

Thanks to them for sharing the photos. More to come as things progress there in California and, eventually, on site here in Texas.

Tile & Color Options for the New Pizza Oven

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 16:30:00 +0000

Forno Bravo has been very helpful and collaborative in terms of helping me think about oven designs.

They pointed me to a local Daltile store to see the color options we could work with:

It really helps to see the tiles in person rather than online. By the way, the line of tile is called ISIS. Oops.

We wanted to go with a Texas theme... with red, white, and blue colors. But, we didn't want the whole oven to be really bright in color.

We thought we could do a Texas-style star, which the FB tile designer mocked up for us, using different base background colors and different stripe colors:

While FB was working on the detailed view, I had somebody do some photoshop mockups of different color and stripe options:

We decided to go with the bottom design... dark grey tile with red stripes and a blue arch. I've crudely pasted in the Texas star design... it will look better for real.

The Forno Bravo designer suggested removing the one red stripe that would be interrupted by the star, so we took their suggestion.

Real photos to come!

Getting Started with My Second Oven!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 16:07:00 +0000

My last post here was almost four years ago... about leaving my oven behind, as my wife got transferred to San Antonio. We've now moved back to the DFW area and we're again in a house where we can do another wood burning pizza oven.

In San Antonio, we were in a high-rise condo building, which was great, except that we couldn't put in another oven. Thankfully, we enjoyed two great VPN-style pizzerias: Dough and Braza Brava to get our pizza fix.

But now, we have a back yard... and control over that yard. I'm fortunate that I'm not having to fight to do an oven. My wife is totally on board with the idea... she'd be upset if I did NOT do an oven, so again, I'm lucky.

Last time, we did a Forno Bravo Artigiano oven and we loved it. It was hand-built in Italy before being brought to California by FB. I had chosen FB at the recommendation of Jay Jerrier, who had an FB oven in his backyard -- and this was before he had the Cane Rosso pizza truck that led to his growing pizzeria empire.

My original oven - see the beautiful brick dome interior:

This time, we are still going with Forno Bravo, but in a different direction. With the Artiagiano, we basically got a dome, four floor pieces, some metal chimney and cap, and a door. The whole upper structure needed to be insulated and built around the core oven. This took time and my contractors screwed up a number of things that required rework. You can scroll through older blog posts to see those stories.

Here are posts about the first try, which got stopped before they were done.

Here are posts about the second attempt, which ended badly when the wood framing used the contractors (against the instructions of FB) caught fire. The third time was the charm...

We decided to go with the Forno Bravo Vesuvio oven.

Pros:

It ships as a single piece, fully assembled
It installs easily on top of a hearth/base that we're going to have a contractor build
Slightly less to buy the fully assembled oven than it would have been to pay the contractor more to insulate and build the upper structure

Cons:

Lacks the romance of having been hand-built in Italy

All things considered, the pros outweigh the cons. It should perform as well as the Artigiano and it's about the same size -- great for having large pizza parties.

Here is a standard picture of a Vesuvio from FB:

This shows the metal stand option. We're going to have a stone base built for it.

See more pictures here that show some of the variety of tiles and colors they can do.

In future posts, I'm going to give sort of the play-by-play of how this goes.

I placed the order with FB on Monday. They quote a 21-day lead time, plus shipping (about another week).

I hope you enjoy following the progress.

I've Had to Move and Leave my Oven Behind

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:41:00 +0000

After more than five years of wood-oven pizza making in our backyard - and 50,000 blog visitors - it was with mixed emotions that my wife and I moved to a new opportunity in San Antonio.

Since our beautiful oven was encased in stone... anchored to a six-foot deep foundation... it's certainly not something portable that we could take with us.

Luckily, we have an outstanding VPN-certified pizzeria, Dough, near us in San Antonio. We are becoming regular customers there.

Part of the reason we built an oven was that the wood-oven pizza trend had not yet come to the Dallas / Fort Worth area (or at least not close enough to our old home). After getting hooked on the world-famous Pizzeria Bianco before moving from Phoenix, we felt like we built the oven out of necessity. In the past seven years, a lot of amazing "real" pizzerias have opened in the DFW metroplex, including:

We hope that trend continues.

Living now in a condo in San Antonio, we don't really have the option of building a new oven... but someday, I'm sure we will again.

Some pictures from the last pizza party:

I'll miss our pizza oven... it brought us a lot of joy - and a lot of pizza!

Guest Post: How to Create a Stone Pizza Oven in Your Own Home

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:07:00 +0000

Guest post by ClayOvens.com

While you can make a perfectly acceptable pizza in a domestic oven, they pale in comparison to those cooked in one of the massive clay pizza ovens you see in pizzerias. One reason for this is the sheer amount of heat these ovens generate, which your own oven can’t quite stretch to, making it hard to create those crispy, doughy, delicious pizzas they make all across Italy, from Napoli to Turin.

Hard, but not impossible. There is a way to make pizza the authentic Italian way with a makeshift stone pizza oven in your very own kitchen. Follow these easy steps and you’ll be making pizzas that may even turn a few heads in Sicily.

Pizza Stones

Pizza stones are exactly what they sound like, unless you imagined them to be the stones found in the centre of a pizza that produces more pizzas when you plant it. That would be awesome. But no, they are actually stone slates that pizza is placed on in the oven. The slates spread heat evenly to the pizza base and give it that authentic, stone-baked quality we love so much.

Now, before you rush out and buy some, you need to know the following:

They vary significantly in price.
Do your research, more expensive does not necessarily mean higher quality.
Don’t go for the very cheapest ones. They probably won’t work as well and there is a good chance they will crack.
They will make a more authentic pizza but your oven is still a regular, if modified oven. A real stone oven produces much better results that you will be lucky to completely replicate. That will cost a lot more.

How to modify your oven

Adapting your oven is the easiest, most affordable way to create a stone oven, although if you have the time and money, you could always build a real one from scratch but that’s a whole different story.

These modifications will not be permanent so you will still be able to use your oven normally when you’re not in the mood for pizza. To pull this off you might need to buy a pizza stone to act as your base.

Follow these simple steps and before you know it you’ll be enjoy the best home-cooked you’ve ever had:

Measure the dimensions of your oven, otherwise your stones won’t fit and that’s no good.
Buy enough fire bricks to build an enclosure within your oven.
It is vital that the fire bricks are unglazed as the glazed ones contain lead that will really ruin the flavour of your pizza. Also, it’s poisonous. That’s important.
Also, make sure they are actually fire bricks, they also go by the name of refractory bricks.
A far as the base of your pizza oven is concerned you have two choices. Either create a floor of bricks on the bottom rack of your oven, or simply cover the rack with foil and lay down one brick on top of it.
Another layer of bricks on the top oven rack will provide a roof.
Prop more bricks on their side on the base to create the walls. Thicker bricks will stand up more easily, you don’t want them falling into the pizza. If you do, you’re weird.
Pre-heat your oven to its maximum temperature and leave the stones to absorb the heat for 30 minutes to an hour. As the stones get hotter they centre the heat more intensely within the pizza oven, providing all the degrees you need for an authentic pizza experience.
• This pizza oven is going to be a lot hotter than what you’re used to so open with caution and make sure your hands are suitably protected. If you think a regular oven burn hurts you could be in for an unpleasant surprise.
Put the pizza in and give it a good 10 minutes. It is best to keep an eye on it to make sure you don’t burn it. But get it right and you’ll soon be enjoying the best home-cooked pizza you could ever hope for.
Give the bricks time to cool before attempting to remove them. Or just simply leave them in and only eat pizza. Either way, the pizza oven is quick and easy to assemble and disassemble so you can enjoy a decent home-cooked pizza whenever you want.

Nice article from a New Jersey paper:

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:40:00 +0000

Building a wood-fired oven to bake pizza is a natural delight

"I am dead against these gourmet pizzas"

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:15:00 +0000

Interesting controversy in Naples about branching out into gourmet pizza toppings:

Naples chefs take sides in the 'ultra pizza' wars

Naples gave birth to the margherita, but now passions run high over the addition of stilton, port or even liquorice

The Art and Science of Wood-Fired Cooking

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:39:00 +0000

Here's a great article about Andrea Mugnaini and her wood oven company, Mugnaini Imports, Inc. in Watsonville, CA.

ARTICLE LINK

There are some great pictures in the article, as well.

What sets the wood-fired oven apart from other stoves? According to Mugnaini, they have great flexibility and versatility, but each chef adds a personal touch through decisions made in heating and banking the fire, choice of hardwood for burning, and preparation of food. The ovens are not limited to pizzas.

“You can cook meat, eggs, pasta, rice…everything, even dessert,” Mugnaini said.

World class chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Alice Waters, Mario Batali and Guy Fieri have purchased Mugnaini ovens.

Forno Bravo Pizza Making Video

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:56:00 +0000

This video shows the whole process, using one of their Primavera series home wood-burning pizza ovens.

Thanks to Forno Bravo for producing this video! I have their Artigiano oven in my backyard.

Pizzas I Made Today

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Graban) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 02:10:00 +0000

Here are pictures of two pizzas I made today for a brunch gathering.

The first is a bit of a "breakfast pizza" in that it has olive oil, a bit of Swiss chard (which going going to be mainly used on the second pizza pictured below), some uncured applewood smoked bacon, mozzarella, a few dollops of tomato sauce and two eggs.

I was afraid the eggs were going to overcook, so I put them on after the pizza had been in the oven for a minute or so. I used egg rings to try to keep them in place (see the second photo, inside the oven). The eggs were still very runny when the pizza was done, so I wish I had put them on from the get go. The eggs continued cooking after taking the pizza out of the oven... the one was pretty runny, but it actually turned out OK. The runny yoke was something to mop up with the crust - yum! This was a hit.

The second pizza comes from this recipe for a Swiss chard and bacon pizza. This is a white pizza, with olive oil, chard, bacon, and fontina cheese (I added some mozz for the second one I made, pictured below). The chard was really piled up high, but then cooked down nicely in the oven (the chard was raw before the oven).