If you’re building a home, you’re going to pay a lot of attention to the brick you choose to build it with. Bricks have a big impact on the colour and style of the home, so you wouldn’t just pick out the first brick you see; you’d do your research!
It’s no different when it comes to pizza ovens. You can’t use any old brick to make a wood-fired oven… that would be a recipe for disaster. When building a wood-fired pizza oven, you have to use specially made bricks.
Fire bricks
Fire bricks, or refractory bricks, are what any registered pizza oven manufacturer should use for a pizza oven. These robust, heat-resistant bricks have been used for hundreds of years to make traditional Italian pizza ovens. They’re specially made from clay and have a high alumina content, ensuring that they can withstand hundreds and hundreds of degrees of heat.
What to look for a refractory brick for your pizza oven:
Not all refractory bricks are going to be high quality. Imagine you’re comparing two brands of cereals. Some brands are going to be healthy for you with low sugar and sodium levels. Others are going to be pumped full of crap, taking away from the fibre-rich brekky that is cereal. Anyway, enough about cereal: here’s what to look for in a fire brick!
Quality clay
The clay is one of the most important parts of the brick. If your clay isn’t of a high quality, there’s no way your pizza oven is going to be high quality either. Ask your pizza oven manufacturer about the quality of their clay and where it comes from – this’ll throw a spanner in their works!
Alumina content
You also want to make sure that the refractory bricks have a high alumina content. Alumina is the composite which gives your fire bricks superb heat-resistance qualities. The golden standard for alumina content in a refractory brick is 40%.
High fire rating
Pizza ovens cop a beating from the heat. Pizzas are cooked at a whopping 400 degrees Celsius, so you want to be sure that your bricks can handle the heat. Fire bricks should be able to withstand up to 1500 degrees Celsius.
Australian-made
Don’t go ordering your fire bricks or pizza oven from a dodgy overseas website! Make sure your bricks come from a reputable company that’s based in Australia and make their fire bricks here too.
Know an expert fire brick manufacturer which ticks all these boxes? We do! Sydney Fire Bricks are your go-to team for everything to do with pizza ovens and outdoor cooking. They use the finest refractory bricks that are made quality clay, rated to 1500 degrees Celsius and have an alumina content of 42%. Call up the guys at Sydney Fire Bricks to have your amazing pizza oven, fire pit or outdoor grill delivered Australia-wide.
