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Which BrickWood Pizza Oven Kit Is Right for You

A feature-by-feature guide to four BrickWood oven kits, their build methods, cooking profiles, sizes, and heat retention

BrickWood offers four dedicated pizza oven kits, but they are not four versions of the same build. The Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE are hand-laid firebrick ovens with taller 19 inch ceilings and larger openings. The Cortile Barile and 28-inch Mattone Cupola use castable refractory formed around EPS foam, with lower ceilings and smaller openings designed for efficient pizza and bread cooking. This guide explains the construction, cooking capacity, heat-up behavior, retained heat, base requirements, materials, and daily-use profile of each model.

What Are the Four BrickWood Pizza Oven Kits?

BrickWood designs its oven kits around two decisions: how you want to build the oven and how you plan to use it after it is finished. The Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE are hand-laid firebrick ovens built over a foam form. The Cortile Barile and 28-inch Mattone Cupola use castable refractory formed around expanded polystyrene, commonly called EPS foam.

All four are outdoor, non-commercial wood-fired ovens. Each is designed to be finished with a weather-resistant exterior such as stucco, mortar, brick veneer, stone, tile, or another masonry finish appropriate for the site. Each plan set includes a cooking floor, refractory materials, insulation, a reinforced exterior shell, and an exhaust system or exhaust-kit option. Your exact materials, quantities, and package contents should always come from the current instructions for the model you are building.

These four kits create the same basic kind of outdoor experience: a masonry oven that stores heat in its refractory mass and releases that heat into food. The important differences are the way the shell is built, the size and shape of the cooking chamber, how much refractory mass is present, and how long a typical cooking session is expected to last.

How Do the Two BrickWood Construction Methods Differ?

Hand-laid firebrick construction

The Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE are assembled one firebrick at a time over a shaped foam form. The form provides the oven profile and brick guides while the builder lays the oven walls, arch, and upper courses with high-temperature refractory mortar. The process is tactile and visual: you can see the oven take shape course by course, adjust individual bricks, and learn masonry by doing.

The firebrick plan sets include separate bricks for the oven shell, the cooking surface, and the visible brick frame around the opening. The supplied Mattone Barile plan lists approximately 110 tan oven firebricks and 50 cooking-surface firebricks. The Mattone Barile GRANDE plan lists approximately 140 tan oven firebricks and 50 cooking-surface firebricks. Those are planning quantities from the supplied instructions and should not replace the current materials list for your package.

The cooking floor is laid in a herringbone pattern and is not mortared in place. A level, unbroken cooking surface lets the peel slide smoothly and allows the floor to move independently as it heats and cools. The oven walls and structural firebrick are mortared with the specified high-temperature mortar.

Pour-and-pack castable refractory construction

The Cortile Barile and Mattone Cupola use castable refractory rather than a wall assembled from individual firebricks. Castable refractory is a heat-resistant concrete-like material made for high-temperature service. It is mixed with the exact amount of water required by the manufacturer, packed into the mold, and allowed to cure before the foam form is removed.

This method changes the work from hundreds of brick placements to careful mixing, pouring, packing, curing, foam removal, and final assembly. It is not a shortcut around every construction step. The builder still needs a stable base, a level cooking floor, insulation, reinforcement, a weather-resistant finish, and a correct curing and first-fire schedule. The advantage is that the main oven shell is created in large, accurately shaped refractory sections instead of being laid one brick at a time.

The two methods also feel different. Firebrick construction rewards someone who enjoys masonry and wants the classic brick-building experience. Castable construction suits someone who would rather prepare forms, mix material, and complete the shell in a concentrated pour-and-cure process.

What Is the Mattone Barile Designed to Do?

The Mattone Barile is BrickWood's medium hand-laid firebrick oven and the most direct introduction to the classic backyard brick-oven experience. Its plan set identifies a cooking surface of about 700 square inches, a 19 inch internal ceiling, and a large front opening.

Cooking features

The taller chamber and larger opening give the Mattone Barile more vertical and front-to-back flexibility than a low-ceiling oven. It handles pizza and bread, but it also accommodates larger cookware and foods such as turkey, roasts, casseroles, and wood-fired barbecue. The chamber does not force you to cook only low-profile foods.

The 19 inch ceiling is an important part of that flexibility. It provides room for a taller pan, a roasting setup, or a larger fire arrangement while still allowing the oven to cook pizza efficiently when the fire is managed correctly. The cooking surface is large enough for family pizza nights and smaller gatherings without requiring the footprint and materials of the GRANDE.

Construction features

The Mattone Barile is built by laying firebrick over the Mattone Barile foam form. The supplied insulated plan calls for a standard 47 x 56 inch base, ceramic fiber blanket insulation, a chicken-wire reinforced stucco or mortar shell, and the high-temperature mortar mix specified by the plan.

The firebrick is commonly available in tan or red. Color is a finish decision, not a performance decision. BrickWood's instructions recommend low-duty or medium-duty firebrick with appropriate alumina and silica content rather than ordinary clay brick, insulating firebrick, or an unverified hardware-store brick.

Build experience

The Mattone Barile requires more individual brick placement, more mortar mixing, more cutting, and more time than the castable models. That work is part of the appeal for many builders: the oven is visibly made by hand, and the finished brick shell can become the architectural center of a backyard.

Best matched use

Choose the Mattone Barile when you want one medium-sized oven that covers everyday pizza and bread while still providing room for turkey, roasting, and barbecue. It is the balanced choice for a household that wants broad cooking capability without stepping up to the GRANDE footprint.

What Changes with the Mattone Barile GRANDE?

The Mattone Barile GRANDE uses the same hand-laid firebrick method as the standard Mattone Barile. The difference is scale. The supplied GRANDE plan identifies approximately 1,050 square inches of cooking surface, compared with about 700 square inches for the standard Barile.

Cooking features

The additional cooking area gives you more room to bake several pizzas in sequence, manage a larger fire, keep separate hot and cooler zones, or cook for a larger gathering. The 19 inch ceiling and larger opening remain part of the Barile family design, so the GRANDE keeps the versatility for pizza, bread, roasting, turkey, and barbecue.

The GRANDE is not a different cooking concept from the Mattone Barile. It is the larger version of the same concept: a hand-laid brick oven with a taller chamber and a broad opening. If you like the Barile cooking profile but regularly host more people, the larger floor gives you more working room without changing the way the oven is built.

Construction features

The GRANDE requires its own 47 x 60 inch insulated base. Do not use the standard 47 x 56 inch base plan simply because the construction method looks similar. The supplied GRANDE materials list also increases the number of oven firebricks and other materials: approximately 140 oven firebricks, 50 cooking-surface firebricks, and 75 standard frame bricks are listed with the plan's overage recommendations.

The larger shell also means more lifting, more mortar, more cuts, and more exterior surface to insulate and finish. Plan the delivery path, work area, and finished enclosure before construction begins.

Build experience

The GRANDE uses the same bricklaying skills as the Mattone Barile. The work is not a different technique, but it is a larger project. The builder should expect more material handling and more time spent maintaining level, alignment, mortar joints, and the final cooking-floor elevation.

Best matched use

Choose the Mattone Barile GRANDE when entertaining capacity is the priority and your site can support the larger base, enclosure, and material quantities. It is the natural fit for frequent gatherings, larger families, event-style pizza nights, and cooks who want more room to work without moving to a different oven shape.

How Is the Cortile Barile Different from the Other Kits?

The Cortile Barile is BrickWood's patented pour-and-pack foam-form oven. It is built from five castable refractory pieces: front, back, left side, right side, and top.

The patented pour-and-pack process

The five-piece Cortile Barile kit uses molds made from expanded polystyrene, commonly called EPS foam. EPS is sometimes called Styrofoam in everyday conversation, but Styrofoam is a trademarked brand name and is not the generic name for every foam product.

The builder mixes and packs castable refractory into the foam molds. The main pour-and-pack process takes about 90 minutes when the materials, mixer, helpers, and work area are ready. The pieces then cure for seven days. After the refractory is fully cured, the foam is removed, the five pieces are cleaned, and the pieces are bonded together to form the oven shell.

The result is a durable refractory oven made with a process that is more concentrated and straightforward than laying the entire shell from individual firebrick. The construction still requires careful water measurement, full packing, accurate curing, safe foam removal, high-temperature mortar at the specified joints, insulation, reinforcement, and a final exterior finish.

Cooking features

The Cortile Barile has a smaller opening and lower ceiling than the Mattone Barile series. That reduced internal volume helps the oven heat efficiently and makes it well matched to pizza, bread, casseroles, skillet dinners, and other low-profile foods.

The Cortile Barile is designed for quick heating and a wood-fired cooking session lasting approximately four to five hours. That makes it a natural fit for a family pizza night, a party, a weekend event, or a gathering where the oven needs to become productive without spending all day heating a large refractory mass.

Firebrick inside the castable system

The Cortile Barile still uses firebrick for the cooking surface and the brick frame around the opening. The supplied plan lists about 60 full-size firebricks for the cooking surface and about 80 standard bricks for the frame, along with castable refractory for the oven shell. The cooking surface is laid level in the required herringbone pattern and is not mortared.

How it compares with the Mattone Barile series

The Cortile Barile requires less individual wall bricklaying than the Mattone Barile series because the main shell is poured and packed in molds. It also has a smaller opening and lower ceiling, so it is less focused on large vertical foods such as whole turkeys or taller barbecue arrangements. Its strength is efficient, low-profile cooking and a faster, more concentrated shell-building process.

Best matched use

Choose the Cortile Barile when you want an authentic wood-fired oven, prefer the castable refractory method, and expect most cooking sessions to last one evening or one event. It is designed to deliver pizza and bread performance without requiring the longer firebrick-by-firebrick process of the Barile series.

What Makes the 28-Inch Mattone Cupola Different?

The 28-inch Mattone Cupola is a dome-shaped castable refractory oven built around an EPS foam mold. Like the Cortile Barile, it uses a pour-and-pack method and the same general base family. The key distinction is refractory mass: the round hearth and extra-thick walls require approximately 260 pounds more castable refractory than the Cortile Barile.

Cooking features

The Cupola has a smaller opening and a low, heat-retaining ceiling. That geometry is especially effective for pizza, bread, casseroles, skillet meals, and other low-profile foods. Less internal volume means less space to heat, while the thick refractory walls provide substantial stored heat once the oven is fully saturated.

The Cupola is designed for extended baking sessions. It takes longer to heat than the Cortile Barile because there is more refractory mass, but that mass allows it to hold heat through an all-day cook or across a weekend of baking and roasting. The tradeoff is deliberate: the Cupola is built for retained heat rather than the fastest route to a single evening's first pizza.

Construction features

The supplied 28-inch Cupola plan calls for a minimum of approximately 715 pounds of castable refractory, dry stucco for the exterior shell, ceramic fiber blanket, high-temperature mortar, and an exhaust system. The plan family also describes larger 36-, 40-, and 46-inch dome variants; this article focuses on the 28-inch model supplied for comparison.

The castable must be mixed with the manufacturer's exact water requirement. Too much or too little water can reduce strength. After curing, the foam is removed, the refractory surface is brushed clean, and the shell is insulated and finished. Hairline cracking from thermal expansion can occur and should be managed with correct mixing, a complete cure, and gradual first fires.

How it compares with the Cortile Barile

The Cortile Barile and 28-inch Mattone Cupola share the same general construction idea and base family, but they are tuned to different cooking schedules. The Cortile uses a more moderate refractory mass for quick heating and four- to five-hour sessions. The Cupola adds about 260 pounds of refractory through its round hearth and thicker walls, so it heats more slowly and retains heat longer.

Best matched use

Choose the 28-inch Mattone Cupola when you want a castable refractory build and plan to use the oven for long, retained-heat cooking sessions. It is the stronger match for bread after pizza, roasting after the active fire is gone, all-day baking, or a weekend schedule where the oven needs to remain useful after the first meal.

How Do the Four Kits Compare Feature by Feature?

The table is a starting point, not a substitute for the plan set. The current instructions control the exact dimensions, reinforcement, materials, exhaust, insulation, cure, and finish details for the package you purchase.

Which Ovens Have the Taller Cooking Chamber?

The Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE have the taller 19 inch ceiling and larger front opening. That design gives the builder more vertical clearance for roasting pans, taller cookware, turkey, ribs, and wood-fired barbecue while still working beautifully for pizza and bread.

The Cortile Barile and 28-inch Mattone Cupola have smaller openings and lower ceilings. They are designed around the food that benefits from a compact, heat-efficient chamber: pizza, flatbreads, bread, casseroles, skillet dinners, and other low-profile dishes. A lower ceiling is not a defect. It is a deliberate choice that reduces the volume that must be heated and keeps the heat concentrated around the food.

If you want an oven that can move between pizza night and larger roasting projects, the Barile family provides more clearance. If pizza and bread represent most of your cooking, the lower castable ovens concentrate their strengths around those foods.

Which Ovens Heat Faster and Which Hold Heat Longer?

Heat-up time and heat retention are connected to oven mass, wall thickness, chamber volume, insulation, firewood, and firing technique. No kit can be judged by wall material alone.

The Cortile Barile is the quick-session castable option. Its standard-thickness refractory shell and compact chamber are designed to reach cooking temperature efficiently for a four- to five-hour event or a casual family night.

The 28-inch Mattone Cupola is the extended-session castable option. Its extra-thick walls and round hearth add roughly 260 pounds of refractory compared with the Cortile Barile. That mass requires more energy and time during heat-up, but it becomes stored heat that remains available for baking and roasting after the active fire is reduced.

The Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE can also retain heat for long cooking sessions because they combine refractory firebrick, insulation, and a finished exterior shell. Their larger openings and taller chambers make them more versatile, while the GRANDE's larger floor can support more food and larger fires. The final performance depends heavily on insulation thickness, dry construction, proper curing, and the builder's firing technique.

Which Build Is More Hands-On?

The Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE are the most hands-on masonry builds. The builder lays courses of firebrick, manages mortar joints, cuts pieces around curves and transitions, maintains the opening and arch geometry, and creates the cooking floor. The reward is a traditional brick oven built visibly one piece at a time.

The Cortile Barile and 28-inch Mattone Cupola concentrate the major shell work into castable refractory. You still need to measure water, mix thoroughly, pack the material without voids, protect the mold during cure, remove foam, clean the sections, bond the pieces, install the floor, insulate, reinforce, and finish the exterior. The process is simpler in the sense that it replaces many individual wall-brick placements with a small number of molded refractory sections.

The best choice is not a question of skill level alone. It is a question of the kind of work you want to do. If bricklaying is part of the experience you are looking for, choose a Barile. If you would rather complete a concentrated refractory pour and cure, choose Cortile Barile or Mattone Cupola.

What Materials Are Shared and What Materials Change?

All four kits require a suitable base, high-temperature refractory materials, insulation, a weather-resistant exterior system, an exhaust path, and a gradual cure and first-fire process. The exact quantities vary by model and package.

The Mattone Barile series requires more firebrick and high-temperature mortar because the main oven shell is built from brick. The plan lists silica sand, fireclay, lime, and Portland cement for the high-temperature mortar blend, along with firebrick, stucco or mortar mix, ceramic fiber blanket, chicken wire, rebar wire, and optional exhaust and door components.

The Cortile Barile plan uses castable refractory for the five-piece oven shell, firebrick for the cooking floor and frame, wet high-temperature mortar, stucco, ceramic fiber blanket, chicken wire, and rebar wire. Its supplied materials list identifies nine 50-pound bags of castable refractory as a planning quantity.

The 28-inch Mattone Cupola plan identifies a minimum of approximately 715 pounds of castable refractory, dry stucco, ceramic fiber blanket, high-temperature mortar, and exhaust components. Larger Cupola sizes require more refractory and more insulation.

Do not combine material schedules between models. The Barile, GRANDE, Cortile, and Cupola instructions are not interchangeable simply because the finished ovens look related. Use the plan assigned to your exact oven and verify the current manufacturer's data sheet for castable refractory, mortar, insulation, and stucco.

How Do the Base Requirements Compare?

The oven base is part of the oven system, not an afterthought. It must carry concrete, block, hearth materials, insulation, firebrick, refractory, finish materials, doors, chimney components, and the oven shell itself.

The Mattone Barile uses BrickWood's 47 x 56 inch insulated base. The Mattone Barile GRANDE uses the larger 47 x 60 inch insulated base. The Cortile Barile and 28-inch Mattone Cupola use the standard base family shown in their plan sets. Confirm the base plan before ordering lumber, cutting forms, laying out block, or placing reinforcement.

BrickWood's base method forms the hearth slab upside down in sections on the ground. A glued-in EPS foam form leaves the insulation cavity inside the finished slab. While the slab sections cure, the builder can excavate, pour the foundation, build the block stand, and prepare the site. When the block stand is ready, the cured hearth pieces are moved into place instead of beginning another multi-day form-and-pour cycle.

Foundation depth, frost-line protection, drainage, reinforcement, permits, setbacks, and soil conditions are site-specific. The oven model determines the base footprint, but local code and site conditions determine the foundation that supports it.

How Long Does Each Build Take?

There is no single honest number of days for every build because the base, weather, material delivery, curing, finish, and builder schedule all matter. The construction method does create clear differences in where the time goes.

The Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE spread the work across many firebrick placements and mortar stages. The GRANDE adds material handling and more surface area, so it generally requires more total bricklaying than the standard Barile.

The Cortile Barile concentrates the main shell pour into roughly 90 minutes when the team and materials are ready, followed by a seven-day cure before foam removal. The rest of the base, brick floor, insulation, exterior shell, finish, and curing still require time.

The 28-inch Mattone Cupola also uses a castable refractory cure, but its larger refractory mass and thick dome require careful mixing, packing, curing, and gradual firing. It is a simpler shell-building method than laying the full dome from individual brick, but it is not a disposable or instant oven.

The fastest way to finish any model is to read the base and oven instructions before starting, stage all materials, rent or borrow specialized tools, protect fresh work from weather, and let every refractory and concrete material cure for the time specified by the plan and data sheet.

Which BrickWood Kit Fits Your Cooking Style?

Choose the Mattone Barile when

You want a medium-sized firebrick oven with a 19 inch ceiling, a large opening, and broad cooking capability. It is well matched to a household that wants pizza and bread most often but also wants room for turkey, roasts, and wood-fired barbecue.

Choose the Mattone Barile GRANDE when

You want the Barile cooking profile but need approximately 1,050 square inches of cooking surface. It is designed for bigger gatherings, larger families, more simultaneous food, and cooks who prefer extra working room.

Choose the Cortile Barile when

You want the most concentrated castable-refractory build and a compact oven that can heat efficiently for a party or family evening. Its five-piece pour-and-pack construction reduces the amount of wall bricklaying, while its smaller opening and lower ceiling focus the oven on pizza, bread, casseroles, and other low-profile food.

Choose the 28-inch Mattone Cupola when

You want a castable refractory dome with thicker walls and longer retained heat. It is the strongest match for all-day baking, bread after pizza, roasting after the active fire, or weekend cooking where the oven must remain useful for many hours.

What Should You Ask Before Ordering?

Ask which plan set applies to the exact model, which base footprint it requires, and whether the package is a foam form, molds, or a more complete materials package. Confirm the required firebrick, castable refractory, high-temperature mortar, ceramic fiber blanket, stucco, chicken wire, exhaust, door, and base materials before construction.

Ask the local masonry or refractory supplier whether the exact castable and mortar products are available, what water ratio the manufacturer requires, and how the material should be stored. A refractory product that looks similar to the one in a photograph may have a different temperature rating, cure schedule, or water requirement.

Ask how the finished oven will be protected from rain, snow, freeze-thaw cycles, and standing water. The stucco, veneer, roof, cap, flashing, and chimney transitions are part of the weather system. Ceramic fiber blanket and castable refractory are not substitutes for a weather-resistant exterior.

Finally, ask yourself how you will use the oven six months after the first pizza. If you picture a family meal and a few friends, the standard Barile or Cortile Barile may fit. If you picture large groups, choose more cooking surface with the GRANDE. If you picture bread, roasting, and retained-heat cooking all weekend, the Cupola's extra refractory mass may be the more appropriate match.

BrickWood Pizza Oven Kit FAQ

Which BrickWood kit is easiest to build?

The Cortile Barile and 28-inch Mattone Cupola use the pour-and-pack castable refractory method, which replaces most wall-by-wall firebrick construction with molded refractory sections. The Mattone Barile and GRANDE are more hands-on because the main oven shell is laid from individual firebrick.

Are the Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE built the same way?

Yes. Both use the hand-laid firebrick method over a foam form and share the taller 19 inch ceiling and larger front opening. The GRANDE is larger, with approximately 1,050 square inches of cooking surface compared with about 700 square inches for the standard Mattone Barile.

Is the Cortile Barile a firebrick oven?

It uses firebrick for the cooking surface and brick frame, but the main oven shell is castable refractory poured and packed into five EPS foam molds. After a seven-day cure, the foam is removed and the five refractory pieces are assembled.

Is the Mattone Cupola the same as the Cortile Barile?

They share a castable refractory construction approach and the same general base family, but the Cupola has a round hearth and thicker walls. The 28-inch Cupola uses approximately 260 pounds more refractory, so it heats more slowly and retains heat longer than the Cortile Barile.

Which kit is best for cooking more than pizza?

The Mattone Barile and Mattone Barile GRANDE provide the taller 19 inch ceiling and larger opening needed for larger roasting and barbecue setups while still cooking pizza and bread. The Cortile Barile and Cupola are especially efficient for low-profile foods such as pizza, bread, casseroles, and skillet dinners.

Do all four kits use ceramic fiber insulation?

The supplied plan sets for all four models include ceramic fiber blanket as part of the insulated oven system or materials list. Follow the exact thickness, coverage, shell, and exterior-finish instructions for the model you build.

Can I use the 47 x 56 base for the Mattone Barile GRANDE?

No. The Mattone Barile GRANDE uses the 47 x 60 inch insulated base, while the standard Mattone Barile uses 47 x 56 inches. Use the exact base and oven plan together so the hearth, block stand, insulation, and oven shell align correctly.

Does castable refractory eliminate the need for curing?

No. Castable refractory still contains water and must cure according to the manufacturer's instructions and the BrickWood plan. The Cortile Barile plan calls for a seven-day cure before foam removal, and every castable oven needs a gradual curing and first-fire process before normal cooking.

Which oven should I choose for a single pizza party?

The Cortile Barile is designed around quick heating and a strong four- to five-hour session, making it a natural fit for a party or casual family night. The Mattone Barile is also an excellent party oven when you want a taller chamber and more cooking versatility.

Which oven should I choose for all-day or weekend baking?

The 28-inch Mattone Cupola is designed for longer retained-heat sessions because its thicker walls and round hearth add substantial refractory mass. The Barile and GRANDE can also support extended cooking when insulated and fired correctly, but the Cupola is the model specifically tuned around long heat retention.

More questions? See our Expanded FAQ Page or visit the BrickWood Forum