Wood Size for pizza ovens

[Chach]

What is the ideal size log to use for a 36" pizza oven.

[Chach]

Just read in another post that 3" diameter logs by 12"-18" long are good....Anybody do anything different?

[david s]

Just read in another post that 3" diameter logs by 12"-18" long are good....Anybody do anything different?

Generally the rule is nothing thicker than your wrist. Although obviously smaller size to start, then after around 1/2 hr something bigger. I then go back to smaller stuff, preheated in the entry, to keep feeding the fire on the side when cooking pizzas. The length can vary, but the shorter the pieces are the easier they are to split.

[Chach]

Thanks for the info. This forum is a plethora of knowledge and I'm very appreciative.

[rwiegand]

I don't have a hydraulic splitter, and hand splitting now hurts too much the next day to be done routinely, so I use the wood as it comes from my tree guy, which is generally more in the 4-5" range. Having it thoroughly dry (3+ years old in our part of the world) seems much more important than the size. A rule of thumb is one year of drying time for each inch of thickness.

[Chach]

How many logs do you put in when you start your fire?

[rwiegand]

I've been building a stack with 5-6 good sized chunks of wood, a few fatwood sticks for starter, and some scraps out of my shop when they're available (this is in a 42" oven). After about a half hour I feed the fire another two pieces every 15-20 minutes. As the oven gets hotter the wood burns much faster. I look to have flames fully across the dome for the second hour of the heat-up phase. Then push the fire to the side about 10-15 minutes before starting cooking. While i'm cooking I like to have flames licking across the top of the dome, but not all the way, and not going up the chimney. I shoot for a floor temperature of 800-900 degrees. It takes about two hours for my oven to fully heat up and the dome to completely clear. I'm using wood a lot faster than I planned, I've just built more storage area for drying split wood. I'd like to reach the point where I have about three cords at all times, using about one cord per year.

It might be possible to pre-heat faster, but I figure it takes time to saturate the floor and dome and 2 hours before dinner is an easy time to remember to start the fire.

[Chach]

Sounds logical....very excited to start this spring but this weather is depressing....tomorrow is -22 and -50 with the wind chill

[Gulf]

No diameter wood is too small imo. The small stuff can be bundled. I use natural hay string with a modified "trucker's hitch" to sinch them up. These are dry wind falls. They had to be picked up anyway. Might as well use them. For starting a "top down" fire, they are priceless.

[david s]

No diameter wood is too small imo. The small stuff can be bundled. I use natural hay string with a modified "trucker's hitch" to sinch them up. These are dry wind falls. They had to be picked up anyway. Might as well use them. For starting a "top down" fire, they are priceless.

Those bundles of twigs have traditionally been used in Europe as oven fuel, probably dried fruit tree or vine prunings. They used to be called faggots.

[Chach]

This year I have to prune the pear tree so hope i can get some nice sized branches to use in the future. I have to start picking up all the twigs and small branches around the house I guess...Nice job for the kids to do this year...