What Is The Best Wood For Your Pizza Oven?

The wood you use to cook in your wood-fired pizza oven will have a HUGE impact on the taste of your food.  Here are 3 Rules you can use to find the Best Firewood For Your Pizza Oven:

• Rule #1 - Only Use Hardwoods

Softwoods do not burn hot enough to get your oven to pizza-cooking temperature, so save yourself a headache and be intentional about your cooking wood selection.

Here are some great hardwoods you can use to give your food unique flavors with mouth-watering aromas:

• Oak & Maple – These are very hard and dense woods that burn hot for a long time. Think of these like the “premium” fuel you would use in a sports car - they’re high-performance and high-efficiency in terms of maintaining pizza-cooking temperatures (over 700 degrees Fahrenheit). These are the best wood types to use for cooking pizzas.
  
  
• Birch, Maple, & Alder - These woods are slightly softer than Oak & Maple, but they’re still great for cooking in your wood-fired oven.  These medium-hardness woods are best for cooking pork and seafood where you do not need super high temperatures.
  
  
• Almond, Pecan, Apple, & Cherry - These nut or fruit woods are perfect when you are cooking foods where you want a sweet wood smell to infuse into whatever you’re cooking.  It is best to use these for beef or fish, but you can use these for any food type.
  
  
• Mesquite, Hickory, & Ash – These woods are what you want to use when you want that very distinctive “wood-fired” taste. This is often what’s used by pitmasters who are really trying to force a “smoked” taste into the food. This type of wood is perfect for poultry and bbq-type foods (think smoked ribs and corn on the cob).

• Rule #2 - Never Use Softwoods

Never use Pine, Fir, Spruce, or other lightweight softwoods. These produce sap and when burned will leave residue on the oven floor and deposit excessive soot on the interior dome of your oven.  With a lot of use, these can coat the oven and chimney flue with creosote which is a black tar-like substance that may be harmful to your health when inhaled or ingested.

Also never use construction lumber, laminated woods, plywood, or anything painted/treated.  All those chemicals from the invisible glue and paint in the wood gets deposited inside your oven and on your food.  These woods will make your food taste nasty and threaten your health.

• Rule #3 - Always Use Dry Firewood
  

This one might seem like common sense, but  you would be surprised.  “Greenwood” is usually from a recently-cut tree that still contains water.  Greenwood should not be used to cook in your oven because the moisture keeps the wood from burning at a cooking temperature.  If it’s very green, the wood might not even burn at all.  Most hardwoods need at least 6 months after being cut from a tree to be “seasoned”.  This just means enough time has passed that most of the moisture has evaporated from the wood.