Wood-Fired Pizza Ovens

Why wood rather than gas

Wood is what produces the leoparded, blistered crust people associate with a proper pizzeria, because the flame licks across the roof of the chamber and cooks the top of the base as fast as the floor cooks the bottom. It also gives you the smoke flavour. The cost is time: you are lighting a fire and waiting 20 to 40 minutes for the stone to come up to temperature, not turning a dial.

Sizing it to how you cook

A small oven takes one 12 inch pizza at a time and comes up to heat fastest, which suits a family cooking a handful of pizzas. Larger chambers hold two or more at once and hold their heat longer once loaded, which is what you want when you are feeding a party and the door is opening constantly.

It is not only for pizza

Once the fire dies back, the retained heat in the stone and the dome roasts meat, bakes bread, and finishes vegetables over a couple of hours. The oven is at its most useful on the day after a pizza night, not during it.

Siting, curing and covers

A wood-fired oven needs a stable, non-combustible surface at working height and open air above the flue. New ovens need curing with a series of small fires before the first proper cook, which drives moisture out of the refractory and stops the stone cracking. A cover is not optional in a British winter.

Honest trade-offs

Wood-fired ovens take longer to reach temperature than gas, need seasoned kiln-dried hardwood you have to store somewhere dry, and produce ash to clear. If you want pizza on a weeknight with 15 minutes' notice, see gas and dual fuel pizza ovens instead. If you want the crust, this is the collection.