Cooking Education
It takes time to create the “deep-heat sink” that produces the incredible food that comes out of a Wood Stone Home oven. The stone hearth and dome absorb the heat from whatever fuel source you choose.
To bring an oven from stone cold to pizza-cooking temperature will take between 2-4 hours depending on the oven model. If you’ve used your oven recently, the heat-up time will be much quicker.
Bistro Series ovens are equipped with ignition timers to allow homeowners to have a pre-heated oven awaiting when they arrive.
A Heat Efficiency Door will significantly shorten the heat-up time.
Gas-fired Wood Stone Home ovens offer flexibility and control for the cook. Our recipes will indicate flame height levels as they change for different cooking tasks. These flame heights are represented by the number on the dial around the throttle.
Turn the Flame Height Control Knob all the way up to 5 when heating the oven. A flame height setting of 2.8 will maintain a desired oven temperature. Adjust the temperature up or down from there easily by turning the Control Knob up or down.
Wood Stone Home ovens will be hotter closer to the fuel source and cooler toward the doorway. In our recipes we will indicate 3 different cooking zones by the bolded phrases:
- Inside the doorway
- In the center of the oven
- In front of the flame
Some recipes will call for you to sear food in front of the flame and finish it inside the doorway. Others might begin with a sauté in the center of the oven yet finish in front of the flame as you might broil a dish at the end in conventional oven.
You’ll learn to take advantage of these zones for cooking multiple dishes simultaneously at different temperatures. For example, when your oven is heated to pizza temperature (560-580 F*), the temperature in front of the flame will be around 650-700F, the center around 500F and the doorway will be 375-400F. You could sear a steak in the back (in front of the flame), roast vegetables in the center and bake some cookies for dessert in the doorway all at the same time.
* The temperature readout on your control panel is connected to a thermocouple buried one inch below the surface of the hearth in the center of the oven and represents the temperature of the stone at that point.
When cooking in stone hearth ovens it’s important to understand the concept of directional cooking as it relates to the fuel source. Most recipes will call for you to rotate the pizza or cooking vessel 180 degrees at least once. Think of it as you would when roasting a marshmallow…when the side closest to the flame begins to brown, it’s time to rotate and cook the other side. Aluminum foil “tents” may be helpful if your food is becoming too brown before cooking through.
The specially engineered ceramic stone found in the hearths and domes of Wood Stone Home ovens absorbs and holds an incredible amount of heat. The thermal mass held in the thick floors and domes means that the oven temperature will fall very slowly even after it has been turned off. Many of our recipes take advantage of this stored heat energy to bake breads or slow-roast meats for hours after shutting down the fuel source. For larger roasts we recommend fully saturating the oven with heat by keeping the temperature at 500 F or so for at least an hour before putting the meat in.