Just What Are Brick Pizza Ovens?

Brick oven pizza is the hottest trend in the pizza industry and it’s catching on with homeowners, not just commercial restaurants. Cooking in brick ovens dates back at least 3,000 years and it was the method to bake bread. The popularity of home delivered pizzas has turned this traditional Italian dish into a favorite of the masses in only a few decades.
A wood burning pizza/bread oven is an oven made out of clay adobe, refractory fire bricks or refractory concrete (heat resistant mix made from ingredients that can withstand prolonged high heat conditions). Traditionally, ovens were made using material that wasn't costly and was easy to obtain in nature. Nowadays, we have everything we need to build a wood oven readily available in most refractory and building store yards.



During the firing, the oven door is open and the flue at the chimney, if there is a chimney, is also left open. When we stop the fire and the embers are swept out of the oven, the door and/or the chimney are closed. The wood oven is then let to rest for a few minutes to allow the heat in the dome to even out, and for the temperature from the fire to drop down a bit.

At first, the oven is around 800°F or 425°C perfect for making fast in 90 seconds thin and crispy pizzas, however very nice pizzas are being done also in 300°C - 572°F temp, but it's still too hot for bread. When the temperature has dropped to around 450°F or 230°C, then it is time to put big roasts and other large meals in. Bread goes in last so it doesn't bake too fast on the outside.

What makes brick pizza oven so special?

High Heat- You can fire up any good modern brick pizza oven to 100 degrees, this is great because it does not dry out your brick oven pizza.

Wood Fired. Thousands of years ago and still today the best and purest form of cooking anything, especially brick oven pizza is with wood. I love to use fruit wood like apple, maple, pecan and hard woods like red oak. Cooking brick oven pizza with wood gives your pizza pie the authentic smell, taste and texture sought after by pizza purists!

Brick Floor- This gives your best brick oven pizza the texture, it can create a almost cracker like yet chewy crust that is simply delicious.

The brick oven was certainly used for the cooking of pizza, and perhaps primarily so, but these well-casted ovens were staples in the ancient Italian homes and were used for all manner of food, including bread, cakes, sausages, meat, and cookies. The ovens heat quickly and retain that heat for many hours, allowing for a consistent temperature and faster cooking time.

Several modern versions allow pizzeria owners the industrial strength of baking one perfect pizza nonstop every minute! These modern high-quality ovens, transformed by technology and years of expertise, have literally revolutionized the way the world bakes pizza.