When it comes to safety advice for cooking with wood-fired pizza ovens, there’s one golden rule: don’t be a nonce! Other than that primary, golden rule for cooking with pizza ovens, there are a couple of other ones you should always adhere to. Cooking with a pizza oven isn’t like cooking with a regular oven: you’re cooking with actual fire, so of course, it’s going to be slightly more dangerous. However, if you follow these essential safety tips when using your wood-fired oven, everything will be just fine.
1) Clean it when it has cooled down
Whatever you do, don’t clean the pizza oven straight after using it. Pizza ovens remain extremely hot after use which, if you attempt to clean it, can result in serious bodily harm. Not only this, but it can also cause cracking in the bricks as the water and high heat do not mix well. Leave your pizza oven to cool down overnight before giving it a good clean out.
2) Monitor the temperature
Pizza ovens are supposed to be hot. But how hot is too hot? The optimum temperature for cooking pizza is between 370 and 400 degrees Celsius. This means you shouldn’t need to increase the temperature of your pizza oven much higher than this. Exceedingly high temperatures can also cause cracking in your pizza oven bricks, so make sure you’re constantly monitoring the temperature to avoid ruining your pizza oven.
3) Don’t leave it unattended
Just like a barbecue, don’t leave your wood-fired pizza oven unattended when in use. Kids tend to curiously touch things that aren’t familiar to them, and active pizza ovens aren’t ideal objects for this situation. Unless you want to spend the rest of your day nursing your child’s very nasty blister, make sure you keep pets and kids away from the wood-fired oven.
4) Use it outdoors
Using your wood-fired pizza oven outdoors is another super important piece of safety advice. When we say outdoors, we mean outdoors. People have tried to cook with them in the garage and even in the back of a truck – not a smart move. This is a serious fire safety hazard.
5) Don’t use them to try and heat your home
It may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised that this has happened multiple times. Just… don’t… do it!
If you think you can stick to these simple pieces of safety advice when cooking with wood-fired pizza ovens, then you’ll enjoy years of hassle-free pizza oven use. If you’re in the market for a world-class pizza oven, contact the team at Sydney Fire Bricks. They’re Australia’s leading team in commercial and domestic pizza ovens, fireplace cookers and more. For the best quality Australian-made ovens, contact the team at Sydney Fire Bricks today.