Summer may have been ravaged by extremely high temperatures, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the ambiance of a fire. Sitting around the roaring flames is a great way to relax and enjoy the evening as it starts to cool down, and an easy-to-use smokeless fire pit makes it even more relaxing.
While I could make a frozen pizza delicious on my grill, there’s just something special about cooking over an open fire. Hot dogs on a stick are fine and definitely a staple for outdoor cooking, but sometimes I want more. In our quest to find more ways to use our smokeless fires, we’ve come across some really useful accessories from top fire pit brands. In addition to great grilling accessories, my favorite might be turning your wood stove into a pizza oven.
Wood-fired pizza from the backyard
It makes sense to use the heat of smokeless fire pits and the lack of smoke to make delicious pizzas.
I have been able to prepare meals on two of the best fire pits on the market, the Solo stove Yukon 2.0 with his Pi Fire Pizza Oven and the Breeo Luxe using the Pizza oven with open fire. At 27 and 24 inches in diameter, both fire pits can hold enough wood. This ensures that you have enough heat to get pizza stones hot enough to bake pizzeria-quality pizzas.
I’ve always been a fan of wood-fired pizza; the lightly charred, bubbly crust and flavor imparted by the wood smoke are everything summer should be. Making these authentic pizzas at home is even better — and a lot cheaper than a flight to Naples. There is a learning curve to using these tools, however, and I’m still working on perfecting them.
Smokeless fire pits like the Breeo above generate a lot of heat as they burn off the particles that create the smoke.
It all starts with getting a fire going to cook on, which is harder than it sounds. It’s not necessarily the starting point of the fire, but getting the right amount of fire so that it’s not too hot. Ideally, you want your pizza stone to be between 500 and 750 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the thickness of the crust and the toppings you’re using. So something like thermometer gun It is useful to check the temperature of the stone before placing your pizza on it.
This is especially true for Pi Fire Pizza by Solo Stove oven, as it does not have any temperature gauge on the unit, unlike the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven. However, I still recommend using a temperature gun to check the pizza stone in the Breeo option. Besides the included temperature gauge on the Breeo, I also find the pizza oven to be more durable and I worry less about it tipping over when I move the pizza in it.
It is useful to have a thermometer in the pizza oven so you can check the temperature at a glance.
It takes practice, but making pizza on a fire pit is fun
Besides getting the temperature right, there are many other factors to consider when making pizza over an open fire. First, the dough you use and how to keep it from sticking. I tried both canned pizza crusts, such as canned cookies, and a pre-made pizza crust. I liked the flavor of the canned crust much better, but the pre-made was much easier to work with.
Read more: The secret to instant pizza dough is hidden in your cooler
I used cornmeal to prevent the crust from sticking because I like the texture and crunch it adds to the crust. However, my first attempt at baking pizza over wood didn’t go so well because I didn’t use enough cornmeal, which caused the canned crust to stick. This resulted in an uneven bake and an ugly looking pizza, but it tasted delicious. I used the Solo Stove option for this bake.
Smokeless fire pits are ideal for pizza ovens, thanks to the high heat output and lack of smoke.
I had far fewer problems with the pre-made bases than I did with my first attempt at pizza. The pizza still came out of the wood fire crispy and with great flavor. But the freshness I got from the canned base was lacking. Breeo’s pizza oven held the temperature very well, almost too well, because it took a while for the heat to come down to a point where I could cook without burning. But of course I got a little impatient and put the pie on too early, and it got a little too crispy.
My family and I are all looking forward to making pizza with the fire pit ovens. They make perfect sense for a smokeless fire pit, due to their high heat output and smoke-free environment. I do think the Solo Stove Pi Fire allows more heat to escape from around the oven, which can be nice if you’re sitting around it in colder weather. However, the cooking experience on the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven was better overall.
The Luxeve Smokeless Fire Pit and Live-Fire Pizza Oven from Breeo are a true culinary match made in heaven.
If you don’t have the need or desire for a fire pit, there are a number of freestanding pizza ovens that allow you to cook fresh pizza at home. But there are also a number of new pellet grill accessories that give you a similar experience to the fire pit options. I haven’t tested one yet, but the Stanbroil Wood Fired Pizza Oven Mount looks very interesting and works with many of the top brands of pellet grills.
