How much wood does a commercial oven use?

[nikkilad]

Greetings to all,
A good friend of mine has been in the pizza business for 20 years. His lpg prices have been going through the roof in the last couple of years. I've been trying to talk him into going wood fired but he worries he will spend as much on wood as he does on lpg.
Does anyone have any figures on how many cords a month/year one might expect to burn?

Many thanks,
Douglas

[james]

Re: How much wood does a commercial oven use?

Here is a general rule of thumb:

James

[nikkilad]

Re: How much wood does a commercial oven use?

Here is a general rule of thumb:

James

Thank you James that will be very helpful.
One other question? About how long does it take to
get the oven up to pizza making temp?

Douglas

[nissanneill]

Re: How much wood does a commercial oven use?

Hi nikkilad,
I have a 40" Pompeii and I use around a full builders barrow or split redgum to fir my oven. The other day, I fired it for 3 hours and it reached over 500˚C so had to let it cool a little before cooking the pizzas. The first one I put onto the hearth cooked in around a minute. My guests couldn't believe it so I cut it into pieces for tasting and then it was all going for broke to get their pizzas built and cooked.
With a reasonable fire still going inside, I can cook pizzas foe several hours but as the heat slowly escapes through the openning, the cooking time increases slightly.
You will need to let it cool considerably to cook bread and ideally scrape out the fire and coals. I tried to cook some spicey fruit buns at around 300˚C and they were done (well cooked through but scorched on the tops) in around 4 minutes. I was lucky that they had collapsed a little whilst waiting for the pizzas to be cooked, eaten and settled before I hit them with fresh buns.
I can normally get the oven up to pizzas temperature in around 1.5 to 2 hours but need to leave longer if you need a good soak (heat to penetrate well into the brick to extend your cooking times),
Neill