From almost the very beginnings of TOG, our monthly Saturday evening Open Social has been a constant fixture in our calendar. At our Open Social in January 2015, a quick hack over the previous few weeks at making a brick pizza oven from a stack of red bricks and some bits of angle iron turned out to be an unexpected instant hit. Our Open Social was changed forever, and has become as much of an outdoor event as an indoor one, irrespective of the season.

We were blessed in TOG 2.0 (Chancery Lane) to have our own private yard where we could leave the oven permanently. Fast forward to TOG 3.0 (Blackpitts) where there was a large outdoor car park, but we couldn’t leave stuff out there permanently. The solution was to create a mobile pizza oven that we could wheel in and out as required. Using a gym ball as a mould, we made our current mobile pizza oven.

After 7 years of hard use, it was time for a bit of well deserved maintenance. The top was removed and the base refilled and leveled with fresh perlite. New dedicated fire bricks instead of red bricks were laid out for the base. Unlike the previous red bricks, these fire bricks are all identical in dimensions and have now made a super flat cooking surface. The inside of the dome got some re-pointing with new red pottery clay.

At our combined Open Social and 16th birthday party last week, the newly refurbished oven was put to the test. The pizzas were fabulous. Thanks to Conor for making the dough! Being a maker space, you get to prepare and cook your own pizza. We even have peels that we made ourselves. We are a maker space after all! To see the oven in action and to have a go yourself, drop into any of our Open Socials.