how to light a pizza oven

[findtim]

HI, well i needed some comic releif so here it is, i built a pizza oven and have struggeld to find the best way to light it without ending up smelling light smokey the bear so her is my 3 youtube vids that ends in the best Lamb ever,

YES, ther is more to a pizza oven then pizzas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G4uHIwMN00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjfksM_xfBQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl0JxvhErFI&feature=relmfu

my inlaws are greek, so tommorrow we are doing the WHOLE lamb on the spit for "greek easter"

tim

 

[soj]

i built a pizza oven and have struggeld to find the best way to light it without ending up smelling light smokey the bear so her is my 3 youtube vids that ends in the best Lamb ever,

Tim, you rock. Love that "looftlighter".

 

[ScottNugent]

Me and my Father built a pizza oven about three years ago. A very fun project, tricky to work it out for the first few months but now it's great!

 

[findtim]

SO, now hows the best way to monetrise the constant " bunnings" pitch i purposely put into the vids ?

tim

 

[ScottNugent]

Just watched the videos, very nice! The only problem I see with your oven (we made the exact same mistake), is that the roof is so high, meaning you don't get as much reflective heat back down onto the pizza/whatever.

 

[findtim]

interesting point and i do see logic in it but i can do a fantastic pizza every 2-3 mins.... nice base and nice top. and we get 3 in at a time so theres 1 coming out every minute.

i chose this design because of its versatility because we wanted to do bread etc so i watched 100'ssssssssss of youtube videos on the subject. the classic domed "pompeii" oven didn't suit our needs even though if you JUST wanted to do pizza's that would be the best design to use.

 

[ScottNugent]

Very interesting. I lit a Pizza oven yesterday and we cooked a few pizza's; I think I figured out something very interesting! We normally push our coals to the back while cooking, but I think that is pulling the cold oxygen-rich air in from outside over the pizzas! Hence why we have some trouble cooking. We moved the coals to the side, and HEY PRESTO! Great pizzas!

 

[findtim]

I have a few method, as mine is a "tunnel" i always push the coals to one side, this way i can add a piece of wood and get some flame back and the flame " scopes" over the cooking area as seen in my video of the lamb.

another trick i have is i have a 40cm piece of railway track ( my cousin works on the railways but if you take a drive you will always find a piece somewhere) and i put that to one side ( say 15cm from the right hand wall, leaving me 55cm of cooking space ) before i light the oven the track is @ 10cm + high and it gathers heat as i burn the oven, then i toss the all the coals over it and clean the oven floor before doing the pizzas.

this makes sure no fine coal dust falls into the pizzas and placing a new piece of wood makes it easy to control, nothign worse then a rolling flaming piece of wood into your pizza. the railway line has a nice radiant heat without scourching the pizza base from direct flame/heat.

another trick is to lift the pizza to the top of the oven shorly before bringing it out, the intense heat makes it bubble and really finishes it off nicely

nice to chat about something other then work !

tim

 

[ScottNugent]

another trick is to lift the pizza to the top of the oven shorly before bringing it out, the intense heat makes it bubble and really finishes it off nicely

nice to chat about something other then work !

Fantastic idea! I will definitely have to try that one some time. And yes, it's very good stuff!