There is nothing better than the taste of a freshly baked pizza cooked in a wood-fired oven.
You don’t have to be a chef to make restaurant quality pizzas for your family and friends, but you do need the right equipment to do so. Read on to learn some tips to ensure you get the perfect pizza, every time.
What should I use to heat my oven?
The type of wood you use is important for the consistency and taste of your finished pizza. For authentic pizza experience, we recommend using hard woods like Redgum.
Redgum wood burns hotter and longer with very minimal smoke, speeding up cooking time and helping you get nice, charred areas on the crust. Although it doesn’t exude a lot of smoke, it nevertheless provides a unique flavour to anything, and everything cooked with it. It gives the subtle aroma with a hint of sweetness that will compliment any type of food including pizza. The size of the wood is also important, so make sure your wood is cut to the size of your pizza oven.
How long should I preheat the oven?
Traditional wood-fired pizza ovens can take several hours to pre-heat, but smaller, portable ovens can get up to temperature in less time. How fast your fire will heat up its highly depend on the several factors like the type of wood you are using, weather, moisture and oxygen levels inside the oven.
We recommend building the fire in the center of the oven and push it back about 20 minutes before adding your dough.
What temperature should I cook my pizza at?
In order to cook the perfect wood-fired pizza, the oven temperature needs to be at its highest temperature which is between 400 to 450°C. This way your pizza is cooked from the bottom up by the oven floor and from the top down, by the oven’s internal temperature, making your dough go crispy whilst your toppings get nicely charred.
Hope these tips get you well on your way to making delicious wood-fired pizzas at home.