Paul Boldt

In the third photo you can see a spatula looking device with a wood handle on top of the back chimney. To regulate the temperature to the pizza cooking area, you put the "spatula" into the slot you mentioned, as a damper. When it is damping, the heat goes out the back chimney. When you put it on top of the back chimney all the heat goes to the pizza cooking area.

(The spatula was the cheaper option, a double wall heat riser and a double wall back chimney with rotating handle dampers, would be nicer, but this was still a prototype).

The nice thing about this oven, it only takes a half hour to be ready to cook pizza (pizzas cook in 3 or 4 minutes!) , I've heard the big built in ovens take two hours to be ready.
It is also portable, good for a tiny house! Inside the oven portion, I've cooked a picanha (like a trip-tip) and would like to try some bread one day. Underneath the pizza stone, is an iron griddle (that the flame makes contact with first). Remove the pizza stone, and you can cook burgers or what you would like on the griddle. Remove the iron griddle and you can have a direct flame to sear tuna, or boil water, make coffee. (also great for marshmallows). You can also put a wok there as well.

If you try something like this, make it more of a dome on top (my next project) so the smoke rolls over the pizza higher and doesn't roll across the pizza so close and get it too smokey. If you like it even less smokey, try charcoal. I've covered the pizza with a aluminum pan as well, for smokeless as well.

Enjoy.

Yes, can regulate it. There is a spatula looking round thing in the third picture. It can slip in and out of the direct flame area under the pizza. When it slips in, the flame diverts to the back chimney. (I could've bought a lever one to open and close, but this was just a prototype. When it is placed on the back chimney (like in the picture) the flames all go under the pizza.

Oh sorry results pictures.

Stewart, The pizza oven went through quite a few changes as I progressed. Still working on the latest to bring down production costs and better heat control.
I'll try to post the picks:
The first I tried to make out of refractory bricks, but the unit wasn't rigid enough after construction.
The second pic shows the rocket stove prototypes I was experimenting with to see which would work best, no of them got hot enough for fast pizza baking.
3.0 Moved the fire into the cylinder and hot a top cook area (heat going around pizza) or as a iron skillet cooking area.

Hi Stewart,

I'm not going to be constructing a mobile humble abode anytime soon, but I've been looking at radiant flooring for another project. But your post got me thinking. What if you combined a rocket mass heater, but the mass being a closed (looped) system water tank for the mass instead of coble/stones?

Closed system as it would need to be separated from potable water, (as it would need to be antifreezed for when the rocket stove isn't on if you live in a cold climate). One loop could supply the warm radiant flooring, another loop could go into a hot water tank, for showers and hot water for dishes. Depending how large and insulated your water tank, should be able to retain heat between firings.

I'd try to incorporate stove top cooking inside from the rocket stove heat, with an option for the flame shooting to a cooking grill station outside for bbq style cooking.

You'd probably want a door on the outside to throw the stick bundles into a closet that cold be accessed from the inside. Maybe cedar lined for insects from the sticks?

Ps, keep the air intake for the rocket stove air outside so you're not drawing in cold air from draft areas. I did a rocket stove pizza oven, that wasn't successful as the heat wasn't hot enough for cooking a pizza a short time that I was looking for. So maybe a small wood burning stove would work better.