pizza oven

[ferguson_tom]

We have one and although great it is a load of hard work so ours very rarely gets used unless we are having a party or something. Got to make the dough, sauce, cut all ingredients up, fire the oven, also to make decent thin pizzas takes quite some practice so you will find yourself doing pretty much all the work as the cook.

Our oven is an insulated dome job, takes about 3-4 hours to get up to pizza temperature. When cooking pizzas you always keep a fire in it. Size wise you want about 80-100cm ID, these 60cm jamie oliver jobs are too small and put the fire too close to the pizza.

Pizzas are second to none though and cook very quickly, also a cheap way of feeding a lot of people.

[grrclark]

20 minutes ago, islandgun said:

Cheers everyone, another question, How long does the oven stay hot ? and do you have to re-fire it to keep up the temp

Depends on how well insulated the oven is.  With mine after i've finished the pizza (500'c) and let the fire go back to embers and cool a little, or even clearing the embers out into a steel bucket, it will stay hot enough to bake bread for 6-8 hours, if doing a low roast type meat dish if I close the door it is good for 8-12 hours.

That relies on getting the base and dome properly hot throughout and not just surface hot.

As for keeping flaming, defo when cooking pizzas you want to keep a good flame, that gives the leopard spot appearance on the base and cooks the topping.  The heat of the base of the oven cooks the base of the pizza.

To keep a flame i have a stack of nice dry hardwood about 1" square that i can pop onto the embers and it ignites quickly and cleanly.  For building up the heat in the oven i am using bigger bits of wood 2" or 3" square.

There are good community groups on facebook to get loads of hints and tips about making the best dough and how to prove, etc.

https://www.thestonebakeovencompany.co.uk/category/recipes/ this will give you a good idea of the versatility of the oven.