Firewood Oven Pizza

The secret ingredient in all good wood fire pizza is, of course, the “wood fire”. When we mention “wood fire,” we don’t mean just some logs burning on your barbecue, think real wood-burning oven, Firewood Oven Pizza.

Woodfire cooking is a traditional and time-honored Italian technique for cooking pizzas. The natural flavors of the wood fire pierce deep into the dough to enhance its tasteful flavor.

Many pizza lovers believe a firewood oven pizza is the absolute best way to create the most authentic pizza. Wood fired ovens cook by trapping heat. The Pizza is not cooked from the heat of the fire. Instead, we heat up the bricks and walls of the oven, which allows the oven to reach very high temperatures. Pizza ovens are made with layers of insulation and materials that trap the heat inside.

When you learn how to heat a wood fired pizza oven, you appreciate that the oven can get very hot. It can take hours to get heated up, but once it does it can cook a pizza in just minutes. In addition, the interior surfaces can stay hot for days.

A pizza oven releases three types of heat. The first is the heat of the fire. The second is radiated heat. The top of the oven gets white-hot after the fire has been burning for a while, and the heat from the dome radiates downward on your pie. Finally, the convection heat from the ambient heat inside the oven and the tiles on the floor of the oven bake the dough.

When you cook with a firewood pizza oven, you use wood to start the fire and get the heat going. The fire can reach high temperatures that heat the top, tiles and floor. You can then push the wood aside, or the wood may be located in the back of the oven.

Next, place a slice or entire round of dough in the front part of the oven, away from the logs, so the radiant and convection heat can cook it. Keep the fire burning to keep the temperature high, and you can add more logs to feed the fire and increase the temperature.

10 Reasons to Choose a Firewood Pizza

More flavorful:

Due to the source of heat being wood, it lends a unique smoky flavor to the pizza. You cannot have the same taste in electric or propane gas heat.

They are visually more appealing:

With a slightly charred crust and a mushy, bubbly cheese exterior on top, firewood pizzas simply look ravishing and make people want to consume them. The texture of these pizzas is decidedly different and more appealing.

Less heat is consumed and prepared fast:

The heat generated from a firewood oven is vast. It can be anywhere up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Due to this, the pizza cooks much faster.

Firewood pizzas are healthier:

All the ingredients in a pizza cooked on a firewood oven retain their nutritional value. This is on account of wood being organic in itself and also since the pizza cooks relatively faster. There is no need for certain ingredients like tomato sauce to get burnt to a tasteless and nutrient-less goo.

Ingredients retain the freshness:

Try eating a firewood pizza after even after 12 hours, and you will notice the toppings and base are still fresh. On the other hand, the gas and electric-oven baked pizzas soon become leathery and lose their original slightly crisp and soft texture.

Firewood ovens can be used for other purposes too:

Whenever you prepare a firewood pizza, you enable yourself to prepare other stuff in the wood fired oven too. Certainly, there are a lot of options and benefits.

Firewood oven pizzas are more sustainable:

There is no need to rely upon sources for electricity or a gas refill or cylinder when using a wood fired oven. So, you are essentially not reducing any source of natural energy.

Firewood ovens are low maintenance:

Until there’s a lot of wood available at hand, these ovens do not really need much maintenance. While an electric oven will need a source of electricity and light sockets and switches. A propane gas burner will need the stove along with a cylinder and a source for refilling. You don’t have to bother with all these when preparing a firewood pizza.

You can use the heat from afterward elsewhere:

Apart from cooking, simply enjoy the heat from your wood-fired oven on a chilly evening. Later, you can also use the heat for other activities like warming frozen stuff.

Firewood ovens add a unique rustic charm to the kitchen:

Just a mention about a pizza on a firewood oven, and people look forward to consuming it more. Even the look of a wood fired oven adds to the charm of your home or restaurant.