Sunday, October 21, 2012

Lighting Your Wood Fired Pizza Oven

By Nora Seabolt


While any kind of microwave oven can be used to make pizza, the authentic way of making a pizza tends to bring out the quality of texture and flavor that modern techniques cannot.In the conventional sense, pizzas are supposed to be made in ovens that use wood for fuel and are made up of bricks.This is also the reason why one can see many people constructing a wood fired pizza oven in their homes.

However, not only are such conventional ovens difficult to set up but also difficult to maintain and use.Fortunately, the right kind of knowledge and skill set can offset these flaws.Lighting the oven is one of the most crucial aspects of making pizza the conventional way.This is because it results in the right amount of heat being provided to the batter.The following are some tips pertaining to pre heating.

In order to use the traditional oven appropriately, you need to understand how its heating system works.Traditional ovens are heated through three separate methods.The first is conduction where the heat is transferred through the bricks.The second is radiation wherein the heat is reflected from the dome above onto the batter.Finally, the third is convection i.e. heat travels through the air to the batter.

From this perspective, heating the brick oven well in advance means that the oven's temperature is taken to the maximum and then brought down to the right level.It is also worth mentioning that when the oven's temperature climbs to the maximum level, it tends to cure the oven surfaces.The oven surfaces are cured from the heat that is sterilizing them.Following curing, you would have to only take a metal brush and remove the ashes inside.

The type of wood being used to light the oven is also very important.The wood that is used should be entirely organic in nature.The wood should not be contaminated with paint, glue or any kind of chemicals because these can vaporize and cause harm to a person.

Soft wood is the preferred wood for initiating the lighting process.The reason for this is simply that soft wood is not only easier to light but it also tends to burn with more intensity.Once the oven has reached the right temperatures, you can switch to hard wood to maintain the temperatures.The dimensions of the wood being used need to be focused upon as well.The ideal thickness of the wood being used should be no bigger than your little finger.

As the lighting process requires air to be properly successful, the door to the oven should be left open.You can boost your efforts to pre heat the brick oven by actually ensuring that just the right amount of air is inside it to support the fire without suppressing it.You can start the pre heating process with the help of newspaper or other common fire starters.Hard wood can be added once the intensity of the fire grows.Using a butane torch should make lighting the fire easier compared to using a matchstick.




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