Getting Started with a Fire in a Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

 

You'll find it difficult to ever return to store-bought pizza after tasting pizzas made in a wood-fired pizza oven. The charred smokey flavour on your crispy-base pizza has a special quality that can only be achieved when cooking in a wood-fired pizza oven.

If you have the correct wood and equipment, it's not too difficult to start a fire in your fireplace or in a wood-fired pizza oven.

 

Here's what you'll need:

1. Natural firelighters
2. Kindling
3. Dry hardwood
4. Matches/ fire lighters
5. Pizza oven brush
6. Pizza oven scraper
7. Long sleeve heat proof gloves

Firelighters- Instead of the white "jiffy" style firelighters that are stuffed full of chemicals, I personally advise using all-natural firelighters produced from compressed cardboard. Keep in mind that you will be cooking your meal in an enclosed oven, your wood-fired pizza oven. Nothing that you don't want to taste shouldn't be put in the oven.

 

 

Kindling - Use dry hardwood kindling if you need to start a fire. Avoid using any treated or recently harvested wet wood from your garden.

Dry Hardwood - I cannot emphasise enough how crucial it is to choose dry hardwood. Never use firewood purchased from the gas station in packed bags. This wood is not dry and won't fire or burn hot enough to reach 450C for cooking temperatures.

Your hardwood should ideally have been stored under cover and dried for at least 6 to 12 months. Use double split redgum or double split ironbark is what I recommend. Both produce a rich smoke flavour and burn extremely hot. The double splits should be around 10 cm thick and 30 cm long.

 

 

Making pizza will be much simpler with the use of pizza oven accessories. The list of my favourite pizza oven tools is provided below.

Wood scraper - You'll need a tool to move the wood in the wood-fired pizza oven. Make sure the handle is long enough to reach the back of your wood-fired oven because the oven will be 450C when you need to transfer the fire else you risk getting burned.

Pizza oven brush-To sweep the pizza stones or bricks, you'll need a long-handled brush made of a non-burning material, such wire or horsehair. By doing this, you can make sure that the wood-fired pizza oven's base is largely free of ash before you put the dough inside to bake.

 

 

Long sleeve heat proof gloves - The majority of individuals frequently forget their gloves the first time they use their wood-fired pizza oven. rWhen your oven reaches 450C, you won't be able to get within roughly half a mete of your oven door opening, even if your pizza oven brush, scraper, and peel are long enough to reach the back of the pizza oven.

 

 

Once you have everything you need, it's time to start the fire.

1. In the middle of the pizza oven, arrange 3 firelighters in a triangular shape, spaced about 2 inches apart.
2. Over the firelighters, spread 6 to 8 pieces of kindling.
3. Over the kindling, arrange 5–6 pieces of hardwood splits in a tee-pee shape.
4. Use matches or a long-handled fire starter to light the firelighters.
5. To increase airflow and aid in the ignition of the fire, leave the door off your wood-fired pizza oven and the flue entirely open.

 

The hardwood splits should be completely burning and any resins on the wood should have burned off after around 15 minutes. Put the door on the wood-fired pizza oven and partially close the chimney, leaving about 5 cm of space open for airflow.

Once it reaches the ideal cooking temperature, keep checking the oven's temperature. I suggest cooking pizzas at a temperature of 400 to 450C. I advise cooking bread and roasts between 200–220°C, which is about the same temperature as your standard kitchen oven.

 

 

The fire should be moved to the back of the oven using a scraper tool after the oven has attained the desired cooking temperature. Use a pizza oven brush to move the ash and little embers to the back of the oven after the flaming splits are there. You'll have a spotlessly clean surface to roll out your pizza dough on as a result.

My preference is to cook my pizzas directly on the brick oven floor since I believe this results in the crispiest crust and most authentic flavour. However, other people prefer to cook in pizza trays since it's simpler to handle the pizzas—just pop them in the oven, turn them around, and take them out when they're done.

 

 

Just make sure your pizza base is very thin if you're one of those people who prefers to cook on trays so you still have a lovely crisp base. As an alternative, bake the pizza in the trays at first, then take it out at the end to crisp up the base.

 

 

Once the wood is in the back of the wood fired pizza oven, you are ready to cook whether you like to cook directly on the bricks or in pizza pans.

Check out our Recipe blogs

Check out our range of Pizza Ovens

Check out our range of Pizza Oven Accessories

 

 

 

by: Michael Wilkie