There’s no doubt that most of us associate the very best pizza with a wood fired pizza oven. Cooking a pizza in a wood fired oven ensures that perfectly crispy crust as well as a quick cooking time.
Some pizza ovens are known as “wood fired with gas assist,” which is a term that is confusing to many people. These ovens strive to make cooking in a wood fired oven a little more convenient.
Essentially, when a wood fired oven has gas assist, you aren’t required to continually feed the fire with wood to keep it going. The fire can be converted to an all gas fire whenever needed. There are two primary reasons to choose a gas assist pizza oven.
The first is if you own a restaurant and need to keep the fire burning hot for a long period of time. Keeping a wood fired pizza oven at high temperature all day is a chore. It becomes nearly a full time job for someone to keep enough wood on the fire to keep the temperature perfect for making pizza.
This is not a problem with home pizza ovens since you don’t need to keep the fire going all day.
The second reason to have a gas assist oven is if you live in an area that will not allow outdoor burning for some or all of the year. If your oven is gas assist, you can use it even when outdoor burning is prohibited due to smog.
A gas assist wood fired pizza oven is significantly more expensive than a traditional wood fired oven. For the home chef, there really are few advantages to spending this extra money. Talk to your dealer about the right wood fired oven for your backyard to ensure you’re making the best pizza ever.
