Helpful wood fired oven cooking tips
What is the difference between cooking pizza and bread?
Pizza is cooked at approximately 350ºC and bread at 200ºC approximately.
Directly after firing your oven is the best time to cook pizza, but if you want to continue cooking many pizzas, you will have to maintain the fire in the back or side(s) of the oven to keep the desired temperature. This is not too difficult, as most pizzas take between 2 or 3 minutes to cook.
If you wish to cook bread, the best thing to do after firing is to sweep out the embers once the oven has reached maximum temperature (the walls of the oven will be almost white hot) and then wait for the temperature to drop from 350º to around the 200ºC required for most bread baking. This is where many people will cook a few pizzas while they wait for this temperature drop to occur.
As mentioned, generally cook on a falling heat – when the desired temperature is reached, place the foodin the oven and cook. This principal remains the same even down to very low temperatures desired for drying fruit and herbs.