Practical Tips for Cooking Wood-Fired Pizza
If there is one device responsible for taking the passion and skills of pizza making to new heights, it must be a wood-fired oven. Ordinarily, a wood-fired pizza gets its name from a wood-fired oven, which is different from a standard pizza cooked in a gas or an electric oven. Wood-fired pizza tastes better, allows flexibility of flavour and toppings, and cooks faster. However, cooking pizza in a brick or wood oven does not necessarily guarantee the desired outcome. You must consider particular elements to ensure that your wood-fired pizza comes out perfect.
Choose the Right Wood
The firewood you use gives a wood-fired pizza its distinct flavour. Notably, you can use hardwood or softwood for cooking pizza, but the former is arguably the best choice. The reason is that hardwood is heavier than softwoods and gives off more heat. Thus, it allows a pizza to cook faster without destroying nutrients in the toppings. If you want a unique flavour in your pizza, you can use fruitwoods, such as applewood and pecan wood. The former is a particularly popular choice for pizzerias since it burns hot and infuses a great smell and taste to a pizza. The best part is that you can use different woods to achieve varying tastes in your pizzas.
Start the Oven Early
Cooking a pizza in a conventional oven is easy because it has an 'ON' switch that gets the chamber hot quite fast. However, you do not have the same luxury with a wood-fired oven; hence, it is essential to start cooking early enough. Some experienced chefs believe the sweet spot for starting a wood-fired oven is 2 hours early. Notably, it allows an oven to heat to the desired temperature for a pizza to cook fast and evenly. If you place dough when an oven is not hot enough, it takes a long time to bake, destroying nutrients in the toppings. Additionally, starting an oven early gives the dome time to heat, providing a nice light char and crisp edge when you raise a pizza close to an oven's roof.
Rotate Pizza While Baking
When preparing pizza in a conventional oven, you do not have to worry about all sides cooking evenly. The reason is that conventional ovens have hot air blowing from all directions inside the oven, ensuring that the pizza cooks evenly. However, you must rotate the pizza when using a wood-fired oven for even baking since it has a single heat source. Therefore, turning a pizza prevents one side from burning and leaving the other uncooked. Additionally, rotating a pizza infuses the firewood flavour into the dough evenly.