Firing a brick oven.

[system]

I have a Mt. Adams gas/wood oven and will be opening my new restaurant soon. How long and at what temperature should the oven be fired? Thank you.

 

[roller24]

http://www.woodstone-corp.com/cooking_b … nitial.htm

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

I’ve seen pizzas baked at everything from 450F to as high as 800F and a bit more in some wood burning and multi-fuel ovens. For the most part though, 500 to 525 seems to work pretty well for me. I’m not a fan of fast baking a pizza.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[system]

The whole point of a wood-fired or gas combo oven is to bake at high temperatures You want to be cranking that baby up to at least 750 degrees (measured on the floor of the oven). I don’t think that manufacturers recommend that gas combos or all gas-fired stone ovens can get fired beyond 750. You should check with Wood Stone. In any event, a straight wood-fired oven can be cranked upwards to 900 degrees. I have an Earthstone oven that I regularly maintain at 850 to 900 degrees. We fire it up to 900 before service and it maintains at about 800-850 depending upon the volume. The temperature at the dome of the oven is around 1000 degrees. The floor peaks at around 850 close to the embers and radiates out to 450 the farthest from the fire. Since we cook most of our menu in the oven as well as pizza, we have a lot of maneuvering room with different temperatures.

Since you didn’t tell me what kind of pizza you are doing, I’m going to assume you are making a thin crust pizza. I make a 12 inch pizza out of 9 ounces of dough (pretty thin) and the pies take about 3 1/2 to 4 minutes. Again, all wood-fired heat is drier than gas or gas-assisted and gives it a 25% faster cooking time.

I have worked with Wood Stones ovens very carefully and did experiments in their factory with side by side wood-fired and gas-fired and those findings were consistent–all wood does have a slight cooking advantage. However, in this day and age of having to train someone to operate the wood-fired oven and to have the storage space for the wood–and to get around the many restrictions on wood-fired ovens is not for everyone. Their gas-fired ovens really produce and excellent product within about a 4 minutes–when fully cranked.

Certain pizzas like authentic New York Style, Vera Pizza Napoletana and Artisan pizza require very high temperatures for that quick oven spring that produces a well puffed collar and light crisp crust. These types of pizza can be fully cooked this quickly because the dough is formulated (high hydration) to perform at high, very dry heat and these pizzas are very thin with smaller amounts of topping than is generally piled on.

Your oven should take about 45 minutes to an hour to crank up

You did not mention what kind of pizza you are producing out of the oven.
If you are going to use a thin crust pizza.

 

[system]

The whole point of a wood-fired or gas combo oven is to bake at high temperatures You want to be cranking that baby up to at least 750 degrees (measured on the floor of the oven). I don’t think that manufacturers recommend that gas combos or all gas-fired stone ovens can get fired beyond 750. You should check with Wood Stone. In any event, a straight wood-fired oven can be cranked upwards to 900 degrees. I have an Earthstone oven that I regularly maintain at 850 to 900 degrees. We fire it up to 900 before service and it maintains at about 800-850 depending upon the volume. The temperature at the dome of the oven is around 1000 degrees. The floor peaks at around 850 close to the embers and radiates out to 450 the farthest from the fire. Since we cook most of our menu in the oven as well as pizza, we have a lot of maneuvering room with different temperatures.

Thank you for the reponses on firing my Woodstone Oven. We will in fact be making pizza in the Neapolitan fashion. One additional question…Do any of you use just gas or use a few pieces of wood only as flavor enhancers? If I can accomplish what I want without the wood, it would make things much easier.

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

In working with the Woodstone ovens I have used the gas to keep the oven warm (300F) overnight and then fired it up to 600F with gas in the morning and then operated using nothing but wood during the day. I have also operated the oven using just gas to heat the oven while putting a log on the deck just to provide the flavor and appearance I’m looking for.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor