The Best Wood for Your Pizza Oven: A Guide to Kiln-Dried Hardwoods

Can you use kiln-dried wood in a pizza oven? Absolutely. But not all wood is created equal. The species you choose makes a real difference to how your pizza cooks, and how it tastes. If you're here, there's a good chance you also burn firewood to heat your home in the colder months - read on to find out whether your log store could fuel a whole summer of fresh, fire-cooked pizza!

Can any wood be used to cook pizza?

Although you could fire up your oven with just about anything combustible, we recommend using the right kind of wood. Kiln-dried wood is perfect for cooking pizza, but it mustn't have any kind of treatment or chemicals that might be absorbed onto your food.

For this reason, any treated wood (offcuts from your last DIY project for example) is a big no. Typically, even untreated softwoods aren't great for cooking due to the amount of creosote they create while burning.

Kiln-dried wood is the perfect pizza fuel.

The best pizza cooks in seconds and for this you need some serious heat. Domestic pizza ovens typically operate within the range of 450 to 550 degrees Celsius - a high moisture content would make this difficult to achieve. Ready-to-burn kiln-dried wood has a guaranteed moisture content of < 20%, but it's often lower than this - perfect for creating the heat required. In addition to the capacity for heat, kiln-dried hardwoods produce less creosote than unseasoned or even air-seasoned logs when burned.

The best species to use for a gourmet result

There are many speciality woods that are used for cooking around the world - cherry and apple are popular choices for pizza. However, if you're tapping your wood store, you'll most likely have one of the following species:

Oak - The benchmark. Dense, long-burning, steady intense heat, mild clean flavour. The "if in doubt, buy this" wood.

Ash - Arguably oak's equal. Burns very hot and clean, splits easily, a favourite across European wood-fired kitchens.

Beech - Traditional in Italy and Germany, clean burn, subtle sweet aroma. A lovely all-rounder.

Birch - Lights easily and burns hot, but goes through faster than the others. Great for getting the oven up to temp quickly, just expect to feed it more.

Alder - Cooler-burning and aromatic (the classic salmon-smoking wood). Best blended with a hotter wood, or used when you want a gentler, sweeter smoke.

Do you have a hardwood mix in your store? You can try experimenting with combinations to find your own perfect pizza fire. A base of oak or ash with a log of alder thrown in for aroma is a good place to start.

A note on log size

Many pizza ovens are smaller than log burners, and they like smaller fuel to match. If the logs in your store are sized for a stove or open fire, you may need to split them down. An axe, a saw, and ten minutes should do the trick - just do it in advance so you're not wrestling with firewood when you're meant to be stretching dough.

Fire it up

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