How to Use Pizza Oven – Using an Outdoor Pizza Oven As a First Timer

I can perfectly understand; your inner chef blooms whenever you have a delicious and lip-smacking pizza. As it happened to me, I thought it’ll be an easier journey for me to be a Mr. Chef. But I didn’t win that. Eventually, how was my first try? I can’t even show you the pics. I knew it will take some time to understand How to Use Pizza Oven. But i am glad i took my time and this is why i am going to share my journey here for you all to know how to master this oven type.

If you don’t want to sail the same boat, you should definitely know how to use this as a first-timer. I don’t doubt your baking skills, but dealing with different kinds of pizza ovens is as technical as walking on water.

Yet, this article will guide you about using this for the first time, doesn’t matter whether you are dealing with metallic propane mini pizza ovens or full-size outdoor brick/wood-fired ovens. So, smacking your wait, let’s jump onto it;

How to Use Pizza Oven: Using As a First Timer

Remember, choosing the right oven platform is the hardest task one may face. Propane gas or wood-fired oven; I’ll not let you keep hanging between oven choices.

Let’s face it:

Propane gas oven: Less hard work, longer durations to bake perfect pizza stuffing with cheese bubbling over it, in most cases, can’t handle multiple pizzas simultaneously.

Brick Wood fired Oven: Need significant preparation before launch, minimal baking duration, additional pizza flavors through smoke infusion, sometimes expensive due to wood costs, needs extra care and maintenance.

The choice is all yours, but initially, you must identify which pizza platform you need to adopt.  

My Suggestion: Drum bells! Million Dollar advice is going to hit you up. I suggest you go with mini propane gas ovens as a first-timer. The reason is less complexity of using a pizza oven will not exhaust you regarding your hobby. Otherwise, brick ovens are always a classic choice for baking aromatic, delicious pizzas.

However, let’s see what directions are needed for using these ovens.

Tools Needed Before Jumping Into the Arena:

Pick your weapons before you play with the highest degree of temperatures.

Infrared Thermometer: Factually, you learn with time how to map oven temperatures without any gadgets. But considering your stage of an Ultra greenhorn to use this at home, it’ll definitely guide you in your pizza-making phases.

Long Handle Cleaning Tools: Sounds expensive? Not at all! You’ll only need some long-handle scraper tool to peel dried chunks of oil and cheese and the brass wire brush tool to clean the debris. Remember, Cleaning is the oxygen of any oven. That’s why I wrote a thorough guide on how to clean pizza ovens (place link here)

Peeling Tool: Don’t fail at transferring your recipe from your counter to the oven. Peeling tool helps you transfer your raw and flexible dough to get in the oven without hiccups or sticking. So, you don’t lose your motivation here.

Heat-resistant gloves: Please have some pity on your hands. Temperatures are extreme, don’t let your hands scream. Whether you are using a pizza stone (place link here), or a nonstick pan, a proper heat-resistant glove that should cover your hands, wrist, and half of your forearms save you from potential burns, skin burns, or rashes.

All Set, let’s jump for a final battle.

How to Use an Outdoor Propane Gas Pizza Oven:

These are “Ready-to-go” pizza ovens, adding no complexity in using these pizza ovens. Most of the time, manufacturers give complete details about the particular model of pizza ovens, so you can follow those instructions, and that will be an easy win for you.  

But if you don’t want to go into tiny-tiny details about how to use a pizza oven through the user manual, here is a summary of using a pizza oven for the first time.

After the unboxing has been done, assemble the pizza oven.

• Light up the pizza oven with the fuel type the pizza oven requires.
• Preheat the pizza oven to the mentioned temperatures given in the manufacturer’s pizza oven directions.
• Measure the temperatures; it should be between 450-500F at least, depending on which pizza type you are going to bake. Some Pizza styles require temperatures above 700-900F degrees.
• Prepare your pizza stones/ nonstick pan.
• Transfer your raw pizza to the oven

Rest is the chef’s mastery, and you know it very well.

How to Use an Outdoor Pizza Oven –Brick Stone/wood fired:

Whether you get a premade portable woodfired oven, or you make a fixed brick woodfired one, these both demand blood and tears. There is a lot of preparation and pampering required before you get the final product at your table.

First of all, you can’t straightaway fire it up and start cooking pizza. You need to cure your it to avoid the effects of thermal shocks that could be cracking and tearing materials.

So,

• Cure your newly inducted pizza oven with a three-5 day fireproofing.
• Fire up your oven with kindling woods; the choice is all yours, which wood type you use – it’s the whole psychology. Raise the quantity of kindling woods as per the processing speed you want.
• The Day 1 activity includes temperature and timing, which should be 150-300F and 4-6 hours, respectively.
• Bring the temperature and timings above 500F and 7-8 hours on the final or last day.
• Judge the right temperatures while pointing out the infrared thermometer to the outside of the dome, or you can manually judge if the dome color turns greyish.
• This whole process comes as initials in preparing an outdoor pizza oven. Furthermore, you can’t skip this step because it’s carpeting the road for your journey.

Moving on,

• To use a pizza oven, you have to again preheat it first on the day of baking.
• Which wood is best for baking pizza (place link here), you must have good knowledge about the wood category in terms of getting the right flavor, perfect baking, and saving fuel and time.
• Put your pizza in the oven and keep its door open or close; it all depends on you. I would suggest keeping the door open for suitable airflow.  
• Again, do baking as per your preferences.

Who is the right audience for this Oven – Why should Go for this?

If you are taste and quality conscious, all other down points shouldn’t pinch you. Woodfired pizza ovens are mostly the first choice of pizza enthusiasts who often hold family events, BBQ and pizza parties, or weekend sitting with family and friends.

Moreover, if you have suitable space to store wood and save the oven from different weather circumstances, there is nothing better than this.

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People Also Ask – FAQs

How do you use a portable pizza oven?

Portable pizza oven doesn’t need a hell of a lot of preparation. You bring it, assemble the oven as per the guidelines, preheat it, and you are done.

What fuel do you use in a pizza oven?

Depending on the pizza type, gas, coal or firewood can be used as the fuel. Beginners mostly prefer propane gas as fuel type where chefs like the wood or coal as they add flavors to the pizza.

Can you use wood pellets in a pizza oven?

It also depends on the oven type. If your manufacturer has made the oven compatible for wood pellets, you can definitely use it.

The Bottom Line – What’s the Crux:

So, how to use pizza oven for the first time? Using a pizza oven as a first-timer is not difficult if you follow the right pizza oven directions. But as a crux, using an outdoor propane pizza oven is a much easier choice to start with as it doesn’t need multiple prerequisites to bake a pizza.

On the other hand, wood-fired pizza ovens are for Hardcore Pizza Enthusiasts. But using an outdoor woodfired pizza oven definitely gives a quality experience if you know how to pick the right fuel.