How to Start a Wood Fired Pizza Oven - Light it up by ilFornino

Now that you have ilFornino wood fired pizza oven the question remains on how to start the fire. Starting the fire is simple but requires the correct wood. You want to start with kiln dried wood and make sure you choose hardwood like oak, apple, cider, cherry, ash wood.

Stacking is Key

To start the fire, you want to commence with the larger wood closer to the front of the oven. The reason behind it is that you want the fire to get as much oxygen as possible. Keep the flute wide open. Then add medium size logs and finish by adding smaller pieces of wood. To light it up you can use crumbled newspapers, or butcher paper. If the weather is windy, you can use the door to protect the fire. You can put the door halfway on but make sure to keep a quarter open for the oxygen to feed the fire.

Few Minutes Later

Once the logs have caught on fire and the flame is high, use the ilFornino rake to push the logs back to the middle of the oven. Then let the fire heat up the oven between 30-45 minutes.

Checking the Temperature

Use your infrared thermometer to read the temperature of the floor. Make sure to add 100F of the floor temperature , that will be your ambient cooking temperature.

After you have achieved the desired temperature, move the wood to one side of the oven, use your brush to clean you floor and you are ready to cook.