#pizzaoven

In August of this year I made the decision that I was going to buy a wood fire oven for my backyard.  After doing a massive amount of research I decided the Strada oven from Forno Bravo was the one for me. There are options for purchasing kits to build your own, or just starting from scratch and taking on your own construction project, but as stated in an earlier post where I reviewed the book Build Your Own Barrel Oven my skills in that area are not up to that level without assistance. I don’t like to back down from a challenge but taking on a project like that would require a huge learning curve and time investment.

The decision on which oven to purchase was based on cost, size, and portability. The Stada is the smallest oven that Forno Bravo (or anyone else that I’m aware of) makes and even though I would have preferred a larger model I like that it is small enough to take with me in the event I move.  If one has unlimited resources any size wood fire oven can be moved but in my opinion this is the only one that would be practical to move without a huge effort focused solely on transporting the oven. 

On the Road Again – North to Salinas.

The Strada model also fits into the back of my Ford Escape so I had the option of going to the factory to pick it up vs. spending 100′s of dollars in shipping. The factory is in Salinas, Ca, which is roughly 300 miles (one way) from where I live in Ventura Co. After checking in with Forno Bravo to make sure I understood the dimensions correctly and that it would definitely fit in my Escape I made the purchase and set a time/date to pick it up. Six hundred miles of driving in one day is a lot but I’ve driven to Seattle and back a couple of times the past few years and I’ve learned to like the long drives. Plus Firestone Walker is along the way as is one of my favorite stops for Mexican food (Zorro’s) in Pismo Beach. So, after checking out a Stephen King audiobook (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon) from the library I was off to Salinas.

Upon arrival at Forno Bravo one of the workers said, “I don’t know if it’s going to fit in your SUV.”  I reminded him that there is a picture on their web site of the Strada in the back of a small SUV like mine. He pointed to a SUV parked on the street and said, “That’s the one in the picture, I think it’s a little bigger than yours.” Fortunately, after a few stressful minutes of watching the forklift approach the Escape with the Strada aboard, I was very happy to see that it did fit, barely.

While talking to the oven builders I mentioned the web site shows two guys carrying the oven from the back of the car and I asked if they thought that was sufficient. The young bucks in the crowd said, “Two people can carry it, well, maybe for guys your age you should have three.” Ha Ha.

After driving home I asked two friends to come over and help me move it from the car to the backyard (they get free pizza for life). They were a little skeptical that it was a three-person job and suggested we get a fourth. I told them what the factory guys said so we decided to man up and give it a try. We got the job done but if you are ever in this situation I recommend you have four people on hand to transport the oven.

Blazing away at sunset.

Next step: the curing process. In order to create an environment in which the oven can handle high heat it has to be cured. The process involves lighting increasingly hotter fires every day over a one-week period. Forno Bravo gives very specific guidelines on how this is to be done and it was emphasized at the factory that the oven must be cured properly. I followed the instructions closely and learned that the curing process creates a lot of smoke. My wife was not thrilled with the clouds of smoke blowing across the back yard every night and I don’t think my neighbors were thrilled about it either but once the curing process is done there is a lot less smoke. It is wood fire though, so there is going to be some smoke but in my opinion it’s not excessive and shouldn’t be a deterrent.

Contemplating the dough.

Once the oven was cured I was ready to bake but first I had to contemplate the flour. For traditional wood fire Pizza Napoletana one uses Type 00 Flour.  I’d tried the 00 in my kitchen oven on several occasions and never had good results.  In that environment I had much better luck with Sir Lancelot from King Arthur Flour. I decided I needed to revisit the 00 as it can handle the higher heat and it’s the standard for wood fire ovens.  If you check out My Pie Monday at Slice.seriouseats.com you will see some magnificent examples of wood fire pizza baked with 00 flour from TXCraig and others.

My first attempts were a little disappointing but not related to the flour.  There is a process of getting to know the oven and the only way to do that is to keep baking, so every time I fire up the oven the pizza comes out a little better.  I still have a ways to go but there is always improvement with a lesson learned and even the first pizzas were edible. It’s not like they were so bad I had to throw them away, they just had some flaws, such as being too charred or they had baked unevenly.  They didn’t make pretty pictures but they still tasted good (for the most part).

Baking bread has had a steeper learning curve but I’m slowing making progress with that process also. One area where I’ve had success right of the bat is roasting meat. Putting a pork butt in the oven overnight for pulled pork the next day has produced great results!

Just a note on pizza toppings: I’m open minded about toppings but I don’t have an anything goes attitude.  I can’t imagine that a time will ever come when there aren’t Margherita Pizzas coming out of the oven on a regular basis so I do have a bit of a fundamentalist streak.  However, my favorite pizza that I’ve made in the Starda (or in the kitchen oven) is what I call my Spanish pizza: sun dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, Spanish Chorizo, and Drunken Goat cheese.

Not quite there yet but getting closer.