3 Alternative Uses of Your Wood-Fired Oven

When deciding to buy a wood-fired oven, many people focus on its use for cooking great pizza. Then once they have enjoyed this experience, they want more. They may now start thinking about some alternatives for their pizza oven. You will find the ones we are showcasing here to be exciting and easy to master.

You don’t need a full-sized oven to use this type of cooking unit for pizza or other alternatives. There are some great portable or mobile wood-burning ovens. Any one of these models will make a great patio oven.

3 Alternative Ways To Use Your Oven

1) Pizza Oven For Homemade Bread

 One of the oven uses that is exciting is for baking bread. Some who make baking bread their priority wonder if they should buy an actual bread oven. Or will their pizza oven do as good? The answer is yes as these two types of ovens are similar.

A Bread Oven:
1. You build a fire inside the oven until the oven comes up to temperature.
2. Remove the fire.
3. Clean the oven floor so the bread can bake on it.

A Pizza Oven:
1. Build the fire and let it burn to bring the oven up to temperature.
2. Push the fire to the back or the side.
3. The bread is usually placed in the oven and baked on the pizza peel.

You will see some variations when cooking with these two methods.The bread oven bakes at a much lower temperature than the pizza oven. The bread oven-baked bread does not pick up any flavors from the wood as the pizza oven does.

2) Pizza Oven Grill Or A Barbecue

 Another decision that some may have to make is whether to use their wood-fired oven to grill. Or invest in a barbecue. To make a choice means knowing the difference.

The BBQ

 BBQ’s operate at a lower temperature, and the fuel source can be wood, charcoal, or gas. They hold the heat for short periods.

Pizza Oven Grill

The Pizza oven grill, which is the wood-fired oven used as a grill, cooks much hotter. It remains hotter for a much more extended period. There are different makes and models. These allow for different types of fuel sources.  The wood-burning pizza oven relies on wood for its fuel source.

A simple addition to the wood-burning pizza oven to turn it into a grill is to buy a Tuscan grill. Or any similar type of grill will work. Anything that you can cook on your BBQ grill, you can cook on a grill in a wood-fired pizza oven.

Grilling in the Pizza Oven

1. To BBQ on the grill in the pizza oven, bring it up to its average temperature.
2. The fire should burn down to where it becomes embers.
3. The grill rests on top of the embers, but there should not be any flame.
4. Let the grill get hot, then bring it out to the front of the oven.Brush some olive oil onto the food being cooked. Then it shouldn't stick on the grill when cooking. Using a twig of rosemary to spread the oil is ideal. It won’t burn quickly, and it adds a little extra flavor.
5. Also, give the food a light coating of the oil.
6. Once the food goes into the oven, it will need turning over regularly to prevent it from burning on one side.

 3) Pizza Oven As A Smoker

Another cooking vessel that can be fun to cook with is a smoker. There are some exciting benefits to turning the pizza oven into a smoker.

The Smoker Oven 

The smoker oven works on low heat, usually around 180F to 220F. Different types of smokers rely on different fuel sources to create smoke. Food cooked in these units cook slowly for several hours.

The smoke does the cooking and infuses the food with a smoked flavor.

The Pizza Oven

 Works on high heat and cooks fast. The wood-burning ovens use wood as their fuel source.

Smoking In The Pizza Oven

 The pizza oven can create the same flavors found in the smoke of a smoker oven.

1. Start the fire in the pizza oven using seasoned wood.
2. The wood needs to burn down to where it is now coals. When the temp of the oven is between 250 to 300.
3. There is an option here to add a few pieces of soaked fruitwood chips to the embers. It will create extra smoke to infuse the meat with that particular flavor.
4. Push the coals to the back or side of the oven.
5. Put the meat into the oven.
6. Close the oven door to allow the unit to start smoking.

 Periodically open the oven door to fuel the coals. Leave the door off until the coals catch fire again. Then once this happens, close the door once again.Most likely you will need to do this two times per hour. You do not want to create a lot of flames, but you don’t want the temp to drop below 180 degrees.

Watch the temperature of the meats using a meat thermometer.

The Best Pizza Ever 

The first thing you want to do is master cooking pizza in this amazing cooking unit. You should do this before attempting alternative oven uses.

 At first, you may think that the cooking process is the same as any other cooking method. If you want your dishes to be successful, then there are some changes in cooking that you are going to need to make.

Use a pizza dough recipe that is not too wet. Otherwise, it can stick to the peel.

 Follow the time it takes to bring your oven up to the temperature required for cooking the pizza.

Check the temperature of the deck of your oven. Your oven probably has a built-in thermometer. It is ideal to have a laser thermometer as well. This will allow you to see the temperatures of the different areas within the pizza oven

You want to place your pizza near the fire but not so close that it will burn.

Bread recipes create different dough types. You will need to test these to see which ones work the best.Some doughs will cook well at higher temperatures. Others will need to cook at lower temperatures.

The big difference with cooking your pizza this way is that you need to turn it to get it brown on all sides.

If you want the top of the pizza to be a little crispier, you can lift it towards the dome of the oven. Much like you would do if you were using the broiler on your kitchen oven.

 Use two pizza peels. Use one for preparing your pizza and for sliding it into the oven. Use the other for turning it and removing it when ready. You want to keep the prep peel at room temperature. If it is too hot, it will cause the dough to stick. You will want to coat this with extra flour to prevent sticking

Check to be sure the pizza is not sticking to the prep peel. Give it a slight shake to make sure it's going to slide off easily. Do this before adding the toppings. If it's sticking, then lift the pizza's edge, which will give you room to add some more flour.

Have a light hand when adding your pizza toppings. You don’t want it to be too heavy as it will be difficult to remove from the oven. Don’t let any sauce get onto the peel.

Alternative Wood Burning Cooking Comes With Experience

 Experience and experimenting will give you the best alternative wood cooking experiences. This is going to allow you to enjoy the many benefits of a wood fired oven.

It means you may have to adapt your recipes for the different oven uses  to be compatible with the cooking method you will use. Also, you will want to know how to use yourwood-fired oven in the most efficient ways.Your experimenting should begin with perfecting your pizza cooking.