3 Shopping Tips for Pizza Ovens
An outdoor pizza oven can be such a nice addition to any home. It is a great way to enjoy family time and togetherness, but it is also a wonderful opportunity to spend some time with good friends and even neighbours. If you are the kind of person who likes hosting parties and get-togethers, you simply must own one of these beauties!
During these get-togethers, an outdoor pizza oven makes such a great conversational piece. They may decide to get one because of you! Let’s take a look at some tips on choosing one that will be right for you and your family.
1. The Fuel Source
As you probably know, outdoor pizza ovens are portable and a lot of them are wood burning. This allows the oven to attain really high temperatures (as high as 800 degrees). This helps to cook the pizzas much faster, but it also makes the crust nice and crispy, which is something a lot of people love! Here’s the nice part; depending on the wood you use, it can give a different flavour to the pizza.
This is not something you can do with a conventional or indoor oven. You can get a lovely smoky flavour that is truly unique. Here’s a tip – choose heavier woods instead of softer ones. Examples of these are cherry, maple, birch and ash. These give it a nice and unique sweet, smoky taste. These woods also burn much longer and maintain a higher temperature.
2. The Right Size
The size of the pizza oven you want to get really depends on the size of your back yard. There are pizza ovens that can cook only one pizza at a time while there are those that can handle up to four. If the baking chamber is large, then the oven will also be a lot heavier.
You need to think about how many guests you wish to invite, where you want to set down your pizza oven and if you need to move it. However, the larger, heavier ones can weigh well over 200 kilograms, so make sure to get one with wheels. The smaller ovens are easier to move. All you have to do is remove it from the base. (You want the bigger one, don’t you?)
3. Using The Oven
Make sure to pre-heat the outdoor pizza oven for at least an hour. This way, the internal temperature will reach around 800 degrees, which is ideally what you want. These ovens are built with heat retention in mind and this allows you to cook at high temperatures. This is what allows you to cook perfect thin crust pizzas in less than a couple of minutes and it will be perfect when you take it out! If you want a thicker crust, the secret is to use less wood. You can cook it for about 5 minutes at around 500 degrees.
Remember, these ovens reach high temperatures, so keep safety in mind. You don’t want to cause any burns, but you do want it to maintain its high temperature. You can cook many other things in it, not just pizzas. Just make sure to keep an eye on things because the foods will cook really quickly!