Pizza oven anyone?
Discussion
Just wondering if any of you lot have a pizza oven and have used it a lot with great success? I recently bought a house which happens to have a pizza oven in the back garden/patio area. I love it and am excited to be able to learn how to use it properly. Have bought the requisite accoutrements (laser thermometer, large pizza peel, tongs, brush etc etc) but my first attempt at getting the thing going was a dismal failure. I actually think that the wood I used (found in the oven so presumed to be nice and dry) was too damp. I also used bits chopped up for kindling so all in all, it didnt go well (despite half a litre of lighting fluid!). So, man feelings at lowest ebb I am proposing to just keep trying until I get it right.
Having read a book about how the oven is used it is clearly an impressive bit of kit but any advice on getting it going properly will be gratefully received. Just so you know, I kept the oven door open to maintain air flow and did all the stuff man should do when building fire but it just kept going out. Any ideas?
Cheers lads!
Having read a book about how the oven is used it is clearly an impressive bit of kit but any advice on getting it going properly will be gratefully received. Just so you know, I kept the oven door open to maintain air flow and did all the stuff man should do when building fire but it just kept going out. Any ideas?
Cheers lads!
Pizza ovens are great but it took me 2 years to learn how to use it properly.
You are probably right about the wood. It needs to be really dry I season mine for 2 years at least.
Build a smallish fire in the center and let it burn untill its mainly embers then add another load of wood so that the fire covers most of the floor of the oven and then let this burn down.
The oven is up to temperature when the carbon that accumulates on the roof of the oven when you light the fire has all turned white from the top of the oven to the floor. Temperature at this point should be up around the 500- 600 F Mark this takes anywhere from an hour and a half up.
Scrape the fire to the side, its easier to manage than at the back. Give the floor a scrub with a bristle brush soaked in water. I have mine screwed to a long handle for this.
Perfect for pizzas or bread. Cook roasts but put the tray on a trivet to hold it clear of the oven floor or the base will burn, same for roasties.
Enjoy!
You are probably right about the wood. It needs to be really dry I season mine for 2 years at least.
Build a smallish fire in the center and let it burn untill its mainly embers then add another load of wood so that the fire covers most of the floor of the oven and then let this burn down.
The oven is up to temperature when the carbon that accumulates on the roof of the oven when you light the fire has all turned white from the top of the oven to the floor. Temperature at this point should be up around the 500- 600 F Mark this takes anywhere from an hour and a half up.
Scrape the fire to the side, its easier to manage than at the back. Give the floor a scrub with a bristle brush soaked in water. I have mine screwed to a long handle for this.
Perfect for pizzas or bread. Cook roasts but put the tray on a trivet to hold it clear of the oven floor or the base will burn, same for roasties.
Enjoy!
tomash said:
Pizza ovens are great but it took me 2 years to learn how to use it properly.
You are probably right about the wood. It needs to be really dry I season mine for 2 years at least.
Build a smallish fire in the center and let it burn untill its mainly embers then add another load of wood so that the fire covers most of the floor of the oven and then let this burn down.
The oven is up to temperature when the carbon that accumulates on the roof of the oven when you light the fire has all turned white from the top of the oven to the floor. Temperature at this point should be up around the 500- 600 F Mark this takes anywhere from an hour and a half up.
Scrape the fire to the side, its easier to manage than at the back. Give the floor a scrub with a bristle brush soaked in water. I have mine screwed to a long handle for this.
Perfect for pizzas or bread. Cook roasts but put the tray on a trivet to hold it clear of the oven floor or the base will burn, same for roasties.
Enjoy!
Thanks for the advice Tomash. Very useful. Do you think it might be helpful to just keep lighting fires in the oven (so long as they stay alight? I am thinking that this may create some level of 'seasoning' of the oven (it's been unused for the whole of winter to date) in order to get its general structural temperature up? You are probably right about the wood. It needs to be really dry I season mine for 2 years at least.
Build a smallish fire in the center and let it burn untill its mainly embers then add another load of wood so that the fire covers most of the floor of the oven and then let this burn down.
The oven is up to temperature when the carbon that accumulates on the roof of the oven when you light the fire has all turned white from the top of the oven to the floor. Temperature at this point should be up around the 500- 600 F Mark this takes anywhere from an hour and a half up.
Scrape the fire to the side, its easier to manage than at the back. Give the floor a scrub with a bristle brush soaked in water. I have mine screwed to a long handle for this.
Perfect for pizzas or bread. Cook roasts but put the tray on a trivet to hold it clear of the oven floor or the base will burn, same for roasties.
Enjoy!
J
hahaha! Could be a plan but do you have fire building skills? Are you, for instance, a long term owner of a garden based pizza oven fired only by wood that requires much skill and learning to use properly? If not, then you are the beer provider as we all need to be responsible for something!
Johnniem said:
Thanks for the advice Tomash. Very useful. Do you think it might be helpful to just keep lighting fires in the oven (so long as they stay alight? I am thinking that this may create some level of 'seasoning' of the oven (it's been unused for the whole of winter to date) in order to get its general structural temperature up?
J
Basicaly if its not been used all winter then you will have to have some staged fires. The first one get the internal temp up to about 200-250 F then let it die. Second one get it up to about 400-450 and let it die then you can bring the whole thing up to full tem with the third fire. The idea behind this is that it will drive any moisture out of the oven slowly. If you heat it up too fast and there is considerable moisture in it then the oven can fail spectacularly.J
As far as keeping the fire going so long as the door is open and you have a decent draw thru the chimbley then you should be ok. If the chimbley draw is not good then adding a flue pipe to it will usually improve the draw.
I suspect that your main issue is the wood. I guess the reason it took me 2 years to figure out was it took that long to get decently seasoned wood. Remember it has to be hardwood NO softwood not even for kindling! I'd even go so far as to say no firelighters or firelighting fluid, I use paper and a kitchen blow torch if needed.
The best wood is Ash in terms of Joules/KG energy produced but its pretty flavourless so I augment with oak, cherry or apple. Try seasoning some wood indoors as it will take less than the 2 years outdoors. If you have a friend with some decently seasoned wood go scrounge some. IF you light the fire and you can hear the hissing noise you get as residual moisture is boiling out of the wood then its not seasoned enough.
you can get kilm dried ash which is expensive but well worth the money if you are cooking with it.
You can also get flavoured woods from http://bbqsmokingwood.co.uk/?page_id=11
You can also get flavoured woods from http://bbqsmokingwood.co.uk/?page_id=11
So, update following this weekends excellent weather. Third time of sparking the oven up. Good bonfire going for a couple of hours then chucked in a shallow casserole of chicken legs and thighs (free range obv!) on a bed of the usual (onions, garlick, celery) and finished with Herbes de Provence, seasoning and a smattering of olive oil. Once in the oven I closed the doors and let it do its thing.
The food was cooked in a reasonable amount of time (about an hour) but it appears that the oven needs to get up to a higher heat, or do I leave the door open to maintain oxygen to the embers? I was testing the roasting capacity of the oven and yet it didn't really roast, it merely cooked slowly; so was more appropriate to use it for casseroling something. Quite how one gets it hot enough to properly roast I have no idea. I presume that once you decide to put the roast in the oven, there is little chance of building the fire up to brown the meat off.
Having checked it was ready to eat (it was very moist) we whipped it out of the oven and popped the chicken into the coventional oven to keep warm whilst I prepared the 'gravy'. This was a bad mistake as the gravy just smelt and tasted of smoke. Not pleasant and was thrown summarily down the drain. The chicken also had a really powerful smoky smell. This was probably as it didn't have any sauce coating but it worries me that this may be the way of any vegetable or roast potatoes cooked in this way. I can't imagine smoke tasting potatoes.
Should I perhaps have not closed the door?
Should one always have a lid on things being roasted?
How does one actually roast something so that the skin goes all crisp and tasty without keeping the fire going?
Tomasz, your views would be welcomed sir as you appear to know a lot about this stuff and I am just learning. The fire was going really well and the centre section of the roof of the oven was white (mostly) but not the sides (I think it would take for ever for the sides to go white but perhaps you lot will enlighten me?
Many thanks for any feedback or advice.
JohnnieM
The food was cooked in a reasonable amount of time (about an hour) but it appears that the oven needs to get up to a higher heat, or do I leave the door open to maintain oxygen to the embers? I was testing the roasting capacity of the oven and yet it didn't really roast, it merely cooked slowly; so was more appropriate to use it for casseroling something. Quite how one gets it hot enough to properly roast I have no idea. I presume that once you decide to put the roast in the oven, there is little chance of building the fire up to brown the meat off.
Having checked it was ready to eat (it was very moist) we whipped it out of the oven and popped the chicken into the coventional oven to keep warm whilst I prepared the 'gravy'. This was a bad mistake as the gravy just smelt and tasted of smoke. Not pleasant and was thrown summarily down the drain. The chicken also had a really powerful smoky smell. This was probably as it didn't have any sauce coating but it worries me that this may be the way of any vegetable or roast potatoes cooked in this way. I can't imagine smoke tasting potatoes.
Should I perhaps have not closed the door?
Should one always have a lid on things being roasted?
How does one actually roast something so that the skin goes all crisp and tasty without keeping the fire going?
Tomasz, your views would be welcomed sir as you appear to know a lot about this stuff and I am just learning. The fire was going really well and the centre section of the roof of the oven was white (mostly) but not the sides (I think it would take for ever for the sides to go white but perhaps you lot will enlighten me?
Many thanks for any feedback or advice.
JohnnieM
Fair comment Calib but I believe it is the generic name for ovens built outside and fired by wood. I guess I could call it a wood burning oven but most will know what is meant by Pizza oven. There is no real distinction between something you bake pizza's in or roast yer spuds in so far as I am aware.
Johnniem said:
Fair comment Calib but I believe it is the generic name for ovens built outside and fired by wood. I guess I could call it a wood burning oven but most will know what is meant by Pizza oven. There is no real distinction between something you bake pizza's in or roast yer spuds in so far as I am aware.
I get that, and I can understand doing a roast or similar in one, but I just think something like a casserole will put a hell of a lot of moisture back into the oven, undoing all the good work. I would have thought it would only be used for dry cooking.Well, perhaps you are right but it has been suggested that once the main cooking of the day is done then chuck in casserole style dish, or pork joint etc (also in a casserole dish), get it out of the oven the following morning and Robert et ton oncle! ie, use it as a slow cooker. It makes perfect sense to me and I can assure you that there is plenty of heat left in the oven the following day.
Next days lunch/dinner done.
There shouldn't be too much moisture from the casserole and (I presume that everyone does this) it has a lid. The lid would only be removed at the end for the purposes of browning the meat a little.
Next days lunch/dinner done.
There shouldn't be too much moisture from the casserole and (I presume that everyone does this) it has a lid. The lid would only be removed at the end for the purposes of browning the meat a little.
Definitely cook in a dish rather than attempting to 'open roast'.
If you think about medieval cooking methods (of which this is one) meat was always either roasted on an open spit, or slow cooked in a pot.
An oven would have been a communal affair, the hot bits used by the village baker for bread, the cooler bits rented out to the villagers for cassoulet, etc.
If you think about medieval cooking methods (of which this is one) meat was always either roasted on an open spit, or slow cooked in a pot.
An oven would have been a communal affair, the hot bits used by the village baker for bread, the cooler bits rented out to the villagers for cassoulet, etc.
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