What Is Wood Fired Pizza?
With more than 90 percent of people in the United States having consumed pizza in the last month and 36 percent believing pizza makes the “perfect” breakfast, there’s little doubt that Americans love their pizza. Humanity's love affair with pizza isn’t limited to the U.S., however. Believe it or not, 83 percent of consumers across the globe eat pizza at least once every month.
Global pizza sales reached $144.68 billion in 2018, according to “The 2019 Pizza Power Report.” While sales of frozen pizza remain considerable, many consumers now demand pizzas made with fresh and healthy ingredients, the perfect dough, and artisan sauces which is a trend typically spearheaded by younger pizza eaters.
Depending on where you’re located, you may have different types of pizza to choose from, such as stuffed pizza, NY-style pizza, Chicago-style pizza or thin crust pizza. If you crave a pizza that boasts a perfect crust while highlighting the delightful flavors of fresh ingredients when you visit Rehoboth Beach, a wood fired oven pizza is for you.
Explanation of Wood Fired Pizza and Brick Oven Pizza
If you’re not familiar with wood fired pizza, you might wonder, “What is brick oven pizza? Is it the same as wood fired pizza?” As you learn about wood fired pizza, you’ll quickly realize that it’s the same as brick oven pizza and that “wood fired” and “brick oven” refer to the same type of pie.
Wood fired or brick oven pizza is exactly what its names imply. It’s a type of pizza that’s cooked in a brick oven. Instead of being heated by electricity or gas, a brick pizza oven employs burning wood to cook pizza. Compared to most home ovens, brick ovens can reach higher temperatures, which allows the pizzas to cook differently than they would in a conventional oven.
How Does a Wood Fired Pizza Oven Work?
Many pizza enthusiasts believe a wood fired oven is the absolute best way to create the most authentic pizza. Wood fired ovens cook by trapping heat. You do not cook your pizza from the heat of the fire. Instead, you heat up the bricks and walls of the oven, which allows the oven to reach very high temperatures. Pizza ovens are made with layers of insulation and materials that trap the heat inside.
When you learn how to heat a wood fired pizza oven, you appreciate that the oven can get very hot. It can take hours to get heated up, but once it does it can cook a pizza in just minutes. In addition, the interior surfaces can stay hot for days.
A pizza oven emits three types of heat. The first is the heat of the fire. The second is radiated heat. The dome of the oven gets white-hot after the fire has been burning for a while, and the heat from the dome radiates downward on your pie. Finally, the convection heat from the ambient heat inside the oven and the tiles on the floor of the oven bake the dough.
When you cook with a wood fired pizza oven, you use wood to start the fire and get the heat going. The fire can reach high temperatures that heat the dome, tiles and floor. You can then push the wood aside, or the wood may be located in the back of the oven.
Next, place a slice or entire round of dough in the front part of the oven, away from the logs, so the radiant and convection heat can cook it. Keep the fire burning to keep the temperature high, and you can add more logs to feed the fire and increase the temperature.
How is Wood Fired Different From Gas or Electric?
Wood fired ovens are different than gas or electric ovens in a few specific ways:
They char and flavor the pizza differently: Gas and electric ovens cook with direct heat. The elements heat up and heat your food. A pizza oven fueled by wood traps heat and heats indirectly at high temperatures, which creates a charred crust and a rustic, smoky flavor you simply cannot achieve any other way.
They allow for flexibility of flavor: Since a pizza oven will work with different kinds of wood, you can introduce new flavors by changing the type of logs you use. Cherry will create a different flavor than apple wood or other varieties.
They are more authentic: The AVPN (True Neapolitan Pizza Association or Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana) publishes rules about what constitutes an authentic Neapolitan pizza. Wood fired pizza ovens are a requirement for authentic Italian pizza made to these regulations.
They result in even heat and a faster cooking time: In a wood fired oven, the pizza takes only minutes to cook and the heat is even because it radiates from the dome, walls and tiles of the oven. The dough is cooked to the perfect texture — crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.
How is Brick Oven Pizza Prepared and Cooked?
When you visit our wood fired pizza shop in Rehoboth Beach, DE, you’ll see that, for the most part, we prepare brick oven pizza in a fashion similar to how others prepare their pies. We stretch the dough, add the perfect amount of delicious sauce and top that with cheese and the mouth-watering toppings of your choice.
One way the preparation of wood fired pizza usually differs from preparing other kinds of pies involves the use of olive oil. The high temperatures attained in a brick oven will normally burn off any olive oil used in the dough or sauce. Whereas other types of pizza typically include olive oil as an ingredient in their dough, sauce or both, a high-quality olive oil is usually drizzled on top of a wood fired pizza after it’s cooked.
Fresh, healthy ingredients, chef-inspired menu options and an unbelievable dining experience aren’t the only things that make Crust & Craft stand out from other area pizza joints. The way we cook our pizzas also distinguishes our fare.
By using a brick oven, we’re able to fully cook our pizzas in just two to five minutes. In a brick oven, the heat generated by the burning wood radiates throughout the oven and is absorbed by the surrounding brick. While the heat in a wood fired oven can reach 570 to 660 degrees Fahrenheit or even more, the cooking surface remains a bit cooler.
Cooked in the environment just described, wood fired pizzas cook quickly. Moisture from the sauce, cheese and toppings “burns off” fast, preventing the crust from becoming soggy. The extreme temperatures in a brick oven often yield eye-catching black marks on the crust, which have become a signature of wood fired pizzas and help make them distinct from other types of pies.
Benefits of CHoosing Wood Fired Pizza
Even though you now know some of the things that separate brick oven pizza from other kinds of 'zas, you might still be curious about why so many people prefer wood fired pizza over competing alternatives. The answer is simple: Brick oven pizza is just better than other pizza variations! Hands down. Game over. The “fat” lady has sung. The verdict is in.
While we don’t believe there’s such a thing as a bad pizza, we can assure you that there are some things that make wood fired pizza better. Here are a few of them:
Perfect crust: We touched upon this point earlier when we told you that the moisture from toppings and cheese cooks off quickly in a brick oven to keep the crust from getting soggy. Because brick ovens crisp pies so fast, they seal moisture in the dough, which also prevents the underlying crust from becoming mushy and being unable to adequately support its toppings.
Smoky flavor: With brick oven pizza cooked quickly using heat generated by burning wood, this type of pie has a smoky flavor that gas or electric ovens simply can’t replicate because they cook pies so differently.
Crispier, healthier toppings: A brick oven’s extreme heat cooks toppings evenly and quickly, allowing them to stay crispier than they would in a different kind of oven. With the toppings cooked so fast, the vegetables retain more of their vitamins, antioxidants and nutrients, making them healthier than they would be otherwise.
Visit Crust & Craft for the Best Hand-Crafted Pizza in Rehoboth Beach
If you want wood fired pizza that’s widely considered the best hand-crafted pizza in Rehoboth Beach, DE, you should set your GPS to Crust & Craft. Conveniently located on Coastal Highway, our eatery is where you can enjoy all the things that make brick oven pizza such a sought-after choice among pizza lovers.
While our chef-inspired, wood fired pizzas will make your mouth water, the experience you’ll have when you visit our restaurant will make you want to come back over and over again. Our highly trained staff will make you feel like the star of the show from the moment you walk through our doors.
The verdict is in yet again. Crust & Craft should be your destination whenever you want the very best of the best pizza in the Rehoboth area. Head over to our location today to enjoy wood fired pizza you won’t be able to get enough of!
