should I go wood?

[nissanneill]

Re: should I go wood?

HI Zeneise,
It looks like you are planning on something like Russell jeavon's Pizza restaurant. Check out the posting I put up at:

https://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f27/russell-jeavon-s-pizza-restaurant-south-1930.html

He cooks over 100 pizzas a night using wood as the fuel and has written a very popular book on how to build your own wood fired pizza oven.

If you like, I could find the answers to your questions if you don't find them in this posting.

Good luck.

Neil

[krosskraft]

Re: should I go wood?

I can only give you a bit of a ballpark for me. When I do a pizza fire-up for several hours (about 5) I have used about 10 fairly large pieces of wood. A lot of times I get by on six. I would think if you are going to fire the oven daily you would wants lots of insulation, but that would take longer to heat it up everyday. Good luck with your plans....I dream about that very thing but have settled for an oven in the back yard.

[Zeneise]

Your site is amazing. It has really inspired meI am very serious about opening a small Lombardi's style pizzeria in my gentrified town (lots of pizza, all suck) I want to do more of a NY type place versus a European/Neapolitan place. Amano, for example is too European and I think that type of place would be over the heads of the residents of my town. A really good Lombardi's type place with atmosphere that does only good pizza, a good antipasti, a few salads, and cannolis will do well. I need help though. I, like you am a pizza purest. I worked at the premeir pizzeria in Ramsey, NJ all through HS and college as a pizzailolo and chef. We had typical Bari gas ovens and made our dough with no sponge or starter just a day in advance using the cold rise method. After having some of the pizzas in Napoli and in NYC, I realized how bad our pizza was. I have been teaching middle school for the past five years now and more than anything want to run a small pizzeria of my own. I am fully aware of the committment and just have a few questions...I want to emulate Lombardis and Patsy's. I know that they both use coal. I am leaning towards using a wood oven from fornobravo, but have considered the modena series that uses gas w/an open flame that is supose to simulate a wood fire. My establishment is going to be 900 square feet. I am planning on doing about 50-75 18'' pizzas a day. We will be open from 11-till we run out of dough. I want to do two sizes, a 10'' (for lunch only) and a 16-18''. I plan on having two helers who will alternate days so there will always be two guys in the kitchen, one pizzaiolo and another who preps in the kitchen. Do you by chance know how much wood I will go through in a week? During lag hours (3-6) can you let your oven cool off a little? I know it depends on the size of the oven, but could you give me a ball park figure? How big of an oven should I get? DO you think the cost of running the wood oven will be comperable with running a gas oven? Could you simulate a Lombardi's pie using a good flame gas oven? I know these are a lot of questions, but any advice you could give would be much appreciated.