An Ultimate Guide to Wood Fire Pizza Ovens

Wood-fired ovens or commonly known as wood ovens are rapidly taking the Australian culinary market by storm. The excellent flavour and taste of Italian Neapolitan pizzas spearheaded this new pizza revolution. These pizza ovens aren’t engineered just for making mouth-watering freshly cooked pizzas but they also allow you to heat, cook and bake a range of quality meals.

Planning to install a wood fire pizza oven over your yard or outdoor area? We at Fornieri-Wood Fired Ovens have prepared a detailed wood fire oven guide for you:

What Is An Outdoor Pizza Oven?

Ovens usually of a large dome shape that use wood fuel to heat, giving these ovens an authentic wood-fired flavour. These are specialized ovens that are designed to make meals, roast, or bake foods at very high temperatures. Pizza ovens are available in different kinds, styles, and sizes. One of the most outstanding features about the outdoor pizza oven is you can prepare bread, meals and get pizza prepared in the confines of your home. You can showcase your expert inner-chef within you while you are entertaining your family guests.

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Are wood-fired pizza ovens worth it?

Assembling an outdoor wood fire pizza oven is totally worth investment. If you are already tired of frozen pizza and eating a cold and not so flattering pizza from food delivery services, it’s time to upgrade. Whether you are a foodie or own a pizzeria, having a beautiful fire pizza oven is a decision that you’ll not regret.

These wood fire ovens aren’t designed to be just all about pizza! Wood Fire pizza ovens are ideal for baking bread, roasting meat, pork & fish or veggies, and other appetizers and preparing many other meals. So if you are asking if it’s worthy, it’s a big YES!

Wood-fired Pizza Ovens Are More Powerful Than Standard Home Ovens

Electric stoves or gas ovens at home have limitations of high-intensity heat. With these standard ovens, you can only reach a maximum temperature of 250 degrees celsius. As a result, you’ll have to wait for half an hour for the process or even hours to taste that crispy hot pizza. Just put down those pots and pans and viola - cook a tasty pizza and other recipes that everyone will love!

A wood-fire oven can reach as high as 540 degrees celsius. This will cut down an enormous amount of time in getting a pizza prepared. You can expect that your pizza, sourdough, and other DIY cuisines to be cooked in the oven in just minutes.

Benefits of A Wood Fired Pizza Oven

Can Cook Pizza Quickly

Pizza is one of the top DIY convenience foods for people with hectic schedules. Many individuals prefer to drop by at their favourite pizza parlours to grab one, entertain and eat or order an online sourdough. Others also rely on pre-made or frozen pizza with canned sauces and packaged crust.

With your beautiful wood-fired pizza oven, you can achieve high temperatures and cut the pizza cooking time. In just minutes, you can have your most wanted pizza to entertain your family and at times, guests too. This experience is a fantastic way for you to cook pizza like a pro.

Boost the Flavours

A pizza that is cooked over the Masonry oven offers a distinct taste. It helps in enhancing the flavour more due to the equal heat transfer distribution. Pizza ingredients will perfectly blend with the process.

The wood that you’ll use is the one that enhances the flavour as well as the taste. The taste of the pizza also depends on the type of wood fuel you’ll be using. It would be best to select the right wood materials while making a quality pizza.

Retains Nutrients

If you are a health-conscious person, you’ll surely love to top your pizza with veggies and fruits. With a fire oven, since the making time is fast, the moisture of the flour dough heats and evaporates quickly due to extreme heat of wood and charcoal and it retains the essential nutrients and natural ingredient flavourings.

You can’t achieve this beautiful experience of recipes with your traditional stove as it requires a longer time to prepare. The longer the foods, meat or sourdough is on fire, the higher the chances that they will lose their nutritional value. With a wood-fired oven, you can achieve the best-tasting pizza, in your life.

Fire Ovens Save Energy

Do you want to conserve energy while saving on your utility bills? With this kind of fire oven, it can surely trim your energy bills tremendously. There’s no need to use household gas or electricity to power your oven anymore. This is the answer if you want to maintain a green lifestyle. The only issue with the wood-fired range is the smoke and ash of the charcoal that is produced. It is best to consult your local council office if they have wood-burning regulations.

Can Cook Different Foods

Wood-fired ovens aren’t just exclusive for cooking a pizza. Whether you want to bake your favourite bread, roast delicious meats or fish materials, and stir-fry veggies along with different cuisines, it is the best option. You can make great foods and sourdough with a fire oven.

Great Resale Value

Whether you will buy a larger wood pizza oven or move to a new property or don’t need them anymore, the resale value of a fire oven is very high. Who doesn’t want to have a magnificent pizza oven at home, right? It is a common addition to a renovation with sale price boosting in mind.

Qualities that Make a Good Wood Fired Pizza Oven

Now that we already discussed why a wood-fired pizza oven is a smart choice, it is now about time to select the right one you need.

Here are the top characteristics that make an excellent outdoor oven:

Oven for All Seasons

A good oven isn’t just exclusive for cooking a pizza. They should be versatile enough to bake bread and meats or veggies. These ovens are even perfect for popping a casserole to prepare a sumptuous meal instantly.

Ability to Achieve High Temperatures

You don’t need a degree to figure this out. Of course, the main reason you prefer to have an oven is its ability to heat right away. Reaching that temperature is the best way to cook a perfect pizza for the whole family in a short period of time.

Excellent Heating Capabilities

Having a good wood fire oven means it couldn’t just heat quickly and retain the heat longer. Generally, the oven could retain heat from two to twenty-four hours, depending on the insulation thickness. With a wood-fired pizza oven, you can ensure that the heat will not wane off right away, it will allow you to enjoy your cooking experience with such excellent ranges.

Designed for Safety

With such a very high temperature, the risk of getting your fingers burned is very high. You must know the significance of proper handling or controlling the temperature. It should have the right insulation and vents as well.

A perfectly designed wood-fired oven must have the right proportions to ensure that it will perform efficiently. If your outdoor oven is well-ventilated, it increases the oven’s natural convection and supports pulling the air out of the fire chamber.

Can Cook Food Evenly

No one wants to have undercooked or burned food. A good pizza oven should be able to balance the radiation and thermal conduction simultaneously. With this, you can guarantee that your cuisine will be cooked evenly.

Made of Resilient Materials

The best thing about fire bricks is they are made of refractory material. These ingredients make them very tough in withstanding too high temperatures. They can also absorb and retain heat effectively. Refractories are ceramic materials designed to endure temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It also can resist thermal shock when the temperature is shifting too fast.

Can Save Energy

One of the top characteristics of a wood-fired oven is they are environmentally friendly. All you have to do is to select the best wood for your pizza oven, and then you’re good to go. After all, firewood is inexpensive and renewable.

Why Are Pizza Ovens Expensive?

Wondering why the pizza oven is so expensive? This extraordinary oven is very expensive because of its capability to replicate authentic restaurant pizzas. Imagine the opportunity to recreate a sumptuous pizza that you can only find in Italy or New York. Whether it is Italian Neapolitan or Sicilian pizza, it is possible to recreate them if you have a great oven pizza.

Unmatched Flavour

There’s nothing that can beat a pizza that has been cooked in a wood oven. Its smokey flavour and aroma are the distinct flavour that you can achieve with your standard gas range. High-quality hardwoods are the preferred ones since they are cleaner. Hardwoods can also last as compared to softwoods.

You can experiment and play around with the taste of your pizza depending on the types of wood you pick. Since it only requires a small amount of time when cooking, the nutrients will be retained. Overall, it’s a healthy choice of cooking.

Convenient Cooking Equipment

You might think that pizza ovens are large, heavy, and bulky appliances just like the ones we often saw in big bakeries or pizzerias. The good news is there are already a lot of portable options as well. Since they come in different shapes and sizes. It means that you can cook and bake foods anywhere or anytime you want.

Can Reach High Temperatures

With your conventional pizza oven, it’s hard to achieve that finely charred crust. Outdoor oven pizzas can achieve higher oven temperatures than your traditional ones. They could reach temperatures as high as 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. You can bake or bake your favourite goodies as low as two minutes.

This experience of cooking in an oven pizza is more fantastic when you add some insulating materials. Adding vermiculture, ceramic fibre blankets, and silicate boards will surely add more power to your pizza oven. Of course, you need to invest if you want to achieve the magical taste of a pizza cooked in a fire oven.

The above-mentioned reasons are enough to justify why most wood-fired ovens are expensive as compared to a standard oven. If you want to taste that outstanding pizza, of course, you will need to invest first.

What is the best shape for a wood-fired pizza oven?

In recent years fire pizza ovens have seen great acceptance and are at the top of the lot. This is not only because these ovens provide the exceptional taste and the mouth-watering flavour of Italian Neapolitan pizzas but these fire pizza ovens also bake, roast, grill, and cook different types of foods for you. It gains a very high heat, dispenses heat consistently and the firewood induces pizza the extra kick that entertains your folks and friends.

The wood fire brick pizza oven is with different shapes and advantages but normally the ideal shape of the pizza oven is round or slightly oval in shape, with a low or the Neapolitan igloo dome. This shape with a dome enables the best heat distribution, and it has also spacious enough to score over the rectangular or square oven shapes.

While the wood-fired pizza oven with dome is a great fit to offer a unique experience to cook pizza and a variety of recipes, these ovens allow you the ultimate experience to use and entertain your family and friends. Fire burning pizza oven with a dome are of different sizes, the standard dimension of a wood-burning oven is 1,5 m of internal diameter (60'').

These ovens with igloo domes, in general, are built with a lower vault ceiling but have the same oven floor diameter to encourage the circulation of air inside it. The ceiling is built flatter and closer to the hearth that allows the maximum radiated heat onto the pizza or any other cuisine that you prepare in it. while you start cooking the heat radiates from the bottom to the top of the oven dome thereby getting released down evenly to ensure pizza is cooked in quickly within a few minutes.

How to Choose the Right Wood-fired Pizza Oven

Choosing the right wood-burning oven for your home or pizzeria (if you are planning to put up a business) depends on several variables. Determining these factors will make it easier for you to select the best-fired pizza ovens.

Available Space

The size of the oven you need also depends on the available floor space you have, whether it is for your home or commercial area. Since sizes and types differ, it is very significant to select the right one that is just suitable for your needs. Meaning, there’s no use in having a large wood burning fire oven if you have limited floor space.

Production Volume

Not all homes require the same size of ovens, which means it still depends on the amount of food you wish to cook into your oven. If you have a small family, there’s no need to purchase large ones. Since pizza ovens are a long-term investment, it is best to consider this first before you buy.

Your Pizzaiolo Skills

Are you an apprentice or a pro pizza maker? As you see, different stone ovens have different accessories, features, or styles, so it is best to select the appropriate one. There’s no point in buying an oven that has advanced features if you are just a beginner.

Types of Oven Pizza

Oven pizza isn’t just available in one kind. There are Igloo ovens, barrel vault ovens, and others. Each one of these does have its own pros and cons, so it is ideal if you will take your time to research first. This will give you enough time to decide, which one is the best for you. You need to be able to select the best pizza oven that is applicable for your

Your Budget

No matter what type or size of wood-fired pizza oven you need, your budget will still seal the deal. The prices of outdoor pizza ovens depend on the features, accessories, quality, and performance. It is about selecting which is the most appropriate one for you. When in doubt, it is always ideal to consult experts who are more experienced with pizza ovens.

Why Use Our Services

Whether you prefer assembled or kit, big or small, sleep or rustic, integrated or rustic, we at Fornieri-Wood Fired Ovens will be there to guide you every step of the way. We will make sure that your outdoor oven pizza is made to last. Our specialist is here to provide you with the perfect oven so that you can make pizza like a pro.

What can you cook in a wood-fired pizza oven?

The incredible aspect of the wood-fired pizza oven is the flexibility they offer. A pizza oven allows you to cook anything you need choosing the right method, temperature, and tools to be employed. Foods such as Roasted vegetables, Smoked and barbecued meats, Baked or grilled fish, Hot desserts, freshly baked bread loaves, and many more recipes can be cooked adjusting the precise temperatures and the process.

The different temperatures to be adjusted differently is only because a pizza needs a very high temperature to achieve a crispy base whereas a lower heat is needed for baking and roasting. Have a proper feel of the cooking with a brick pizza oven and never mind experimenting with the cooking times and the positioning, the only thing you need to ensure is, before eating your food gets cooked properly.

The tools you use while cooking different foods and recipes can have an impact on the outcomes. A cast iron grill pan will result in charred scorch marks but for absorbing the taste of the smoke you may use a wire rack. If you are really looking for diversified foods that can be cooked in a brick fire oven, try recipes such as sourdough, roast delicious meats or fish, and stir-fry veggies along with different cuisines, it is the best option. You can prepare different amazing foods with a fire brick oven apart from cooking pizza.

Conclusion

Wood-fired pizza ovens are undeniably a significant investment. The quality flavour of an authentic wood-fired pizza cannot be imitated, and after all, you only live once, so there is a strong case that says, go for it, and if your a business or starting a business, a wood-fired oven makes a wonderful business idea, on a trailer or something like that. Whether you are a newbie or a pro, it is the best choice to get rich flavoured pizzas in town. It is best to consider the following factors:

Your lifestyle and budget
Select the best pizza oven that suits you
Purchase the one that you need.

You have to pick the right one to enjoy its features thoroughly. Want some help? Our experts will be there to help you build or purchase your own pizza oven. Call us now to get more information.