Lighting Carawela’s wood fired ovens is easy. You’ll achieve temperature suitable to cook pizzas, meat, fish, vegetables or bread within minutes.
From that moment on you will only need to feed the fire in order to maintain the desired temperature.
The secret to achieve fast temperature rise is to organize the wood inside the oven so that it burns fully fired. The more area of the wood pieces burns in fire the faster the temperature will rise.
This way smoke will be less, as it develops when wood burns without fire, once converted to embers no more smoke will be generated.
Ideal temperature
The ideal temperature depends on the food to be cooked and the desired result. Slow cooking is achieved with lower temperature, on the other hand roasting implies higher temperature.
To bake pizzas the ideal temperature is around 350°C / 662°F. Nevertheless you’ll need to have fire so the toppings can roast without overbaking the base.
Material needed
- newspaper (do not use colored or coated paper), natural firelighter or small kindling (the remnants from splitting logs – our choice);
- a handful of finely split, dry kindling in a variety of sizes;
- seasoned firewood split into a range of piece sizes.
WARNING: Do not use any form of accelerants such as petrol, kerosene or paraffin as it is extremely dangerous.
Process
Lighting Carawela’s wood fired ovens starts by creating a woodpile with kindling in the middle of the oven’s floor, this way heat will spread evenly. The larger the wood pieces, the bigger the energy they will need to be ignited.
You should have small pieces of wood that ignite easily (with tinder or paper), which should ignite larger pieces, which in turn should ignite the biggest.
Allow for the fire to develop, adding wood as needed, until you get a nice bed of embers.
Once you have a bed of embers you may move them to the side, keeping them in place with the burning wood rack.
You are now ready to cook!
Keep adding wood as needed in order to maintain temperature and/or being able to roast food.
Carawela Wood Fired Cooking Evolution: Lighting Carawela’s wood fired ovens.