How a wood-fired oven works?

In order to understand how a wood-fired oven works, and to make the most of all the potential it has to offer, it’s useful to know its basic parts.

Wood-fired ovens essentially consist of five elements:

1. Dome: this enables the wood-fired oven to reach high temperatures and maintain them during the cooking process
2. Cooking floor: usually made of refractory material, it can withstand high temperatures and wear and tear and enables even Neapolitan pizza to be cooked perfectly
3. Door: controls combustion and prevents heat from unnecessarily escaping to the outside
4. Flue: positioned above the dome, it allows the smoke to escape, channeling it in a direction that does not disturb diners
5. Pyrometer: a thermometer usually located on the side wall of the oven, used to measure the temperature of the air in the cooking chamber

Knowing your oven and learning how to use it lets you bring new recipes to the table with unrivalled flavor.

Before we look at how to use a wood-fired oven, we need to understand how they work.

Wood-fired ovens work in three different ways:

1. By conduction: when the food to be cooked comes into direct contact with the hot surface of the oven, such as pizza
2. By convection: thanks to the hot air that is created inside the oven once it has been turned on
3. By radiation: when the heat generated by the cooking chamber is transmitted directly to the food to be cooked

While it’s true that the materials with which ovens are made have improved over the centuries, the operation of wood-fired ovens and their shape have remained virtually unchanged.

The special shape of the dome allows for optimal air movement, which is perfect for distributing the heat within the oven’s cooking chamber.

Not to mention that advanced construction techniques in recent years have made it possible to make ever more performing wood-fired ovens, but also lighter.

Simply consider to improving the performance of its steel and refractory wood-fired ovens in terms of cooking, greatly reduces their weight and consumption.

In fact, Ovens need only a small amount of fuel to reach the desired temperature, as the time required to reach high temperatures is very minimal.

It is not uncommon for beginners to wonder how long it takes to light a fire in the oven. This time is much shorter today: Ovens take only 15 to 30 minutes depending on the size of the model purchased.