Top tips to get the best out of your wood-fired pizza oven!

Do you have a wood-fired pizza oven or are you planning to buy or build one? Here are some tips that could go a long way in making your experience with it a great one at all times.

Wood-fired pizza ovens are your way to enjoy the outdoors once in a while, to enjoy great food, and to bring people together in a fun and involved way.

To ensure you get the best out of your oven every time, here are some tips you can follow:

1. The first is more of a recommendation and not advice. You should first check with your insurance to find out how they feel about having outdoor wood-fired pizza ovens on the property. It may not seem like a big deal, especially if you’ve taken the proper precautions, but it could increase your homeowner’s premiums just because of that.

2. When building it, avoid placing it under protruding tree branches. In dry weather, it is a fire hazard. If a tree grows on it over the years, be sure to regularly prune it.

3. Always light your fire using wood and not just any kind of accelerant. They leave behind a smell that will end up on your pizza or whatever else you bake there.

4. You need to research the best type of wood to use for your pizza oven. There are some types of wood that are too smoky and you will have trouble even getting close to the oven. There are others whose smoke is so pungent that it will leave a not-so-good taste in your food. Some stores stock the right kind of lumber, so go to a store near you and see if they carry it. If you identify a tree growing nearby that is good, you can collect some dry wood from there and save it for when you need to use it.

5. Wood-fired pizza ovens are a good place for small animals and insects to hide if you haven’t used them in a long time. If you have been left for more than a month without starting a fire, make sure to check it first: there could be rodents and things hiding there. You can smoke them out by lighting a small fire and letting them escape back to where they came from. After that, clean it for dead bugs.

6. Give your wood oven time to heat up before you start using it, and this can take up to 4 hours depending on the wood you use and the type of material it is made of. Turn on the heat and then go back and start making your food preparations so that when you’re done, your pizza oven is hot.

7. You don’t have to do this, but wood-fired pizza ovens are very hot once they’re on and for a long time. It’s time to get out there with anything you think you might want to bake in there. Get out your vegetables, make little empanadas for the kids for lunch tomorrow or whatever comes to mind, but it’s not worth firing up your wood-fired pizza oven and then making just one pizza.

Of course, you’ll discover more and more about how to make your wood-fired pizza oven work better for you the more you use it, so get going!