The wood pizza oven you may already have

A regular kitchen oven can do a good job on a pizza if you turn it all the way up to 500 F, but there's nothing like pizza baked in a much hotter wood-fired oven - one of the reasons to go to a real pizzeria. 

I don't have a wood pizza oven but I've used them while travelling so I appreciate how great they work. They're common in southern Europe where they're the focal point of pizza parties. The disadvantages are that they have to be preheated for a few hours, they require a lot of firewood, and they're expensive. Fortunately, some of the desirable qualities of baking pizza in a wood oven can be achieved by other means. The simplest is re-heating leftover pizza over a campfire or wood coals. 

Reheating focaccia and pizza on a campfire

A few years after I discovered this, I realized that I could bake pizza indoors in a wood heating stove.

The wood-fired pizza oven you might already have in your house

Baking pizza in a wood heating stove

During the heating season when the wood heating stove is going, I bake pizza and other flatbreads as shown in the photo. I put the dough on an uncoated stainless steel pan sprinkled with cornmeal, add the toppings, place the pan on a pizza pan support (described below) and hold it in the back of the stove over hot coals. I pull the pizza out frequently to check the progress and rotate the pan as needed. It's done when the top starts to scorch. It doesn't take more than a few minutes and comes out as in the photo below. Of course, the baking has to be done with the stove door open but there's so much uniform heat coming from the stove that baking is very fast.  

If you're making more than one pizza, be sure to close the stove door (for safety of course) and leave it for a few minutes so the interior can re-heat.  

Wood stove pizza with corn, chopped beet tops, fresh mozzarella balls, and Parmigiano Reggiano

Based on my experience, there's not much difference between pizza baked this way and pizza baked in a real wood oven. The high temperature results in similarly charred edges and flavour. In theory, you might expect a proper wood-fired pizza oven to bake the bottom crust faster because the dough is in contact with preheated stone. However, if your pizza pan support is thin and perforated, the heat flow into the bottom of the pizza pan is sufficient to bake the bottom crust rapidly.

There are advantages and disadvantages to a real wood pizza oven and my wood stove method. You can't beat an outdoor wood oven as a focal point of gatherings but they're expensive, require lots of firewood, and hours to preheat. If you already have a wood heating stove with a sufficiently large interior, all you need is a way to support a steel pizza pan over the coals. 

The pizza pan support

I started with a folding campfire griddle made of perforated steel to which I had attached a four-foot wooden handle. The griddle originally had a non-stick coating which burned off after several seasons of use over a campfire. What was left of the griddle worked great for supporting a 12 inch stainless steel pizza pan as shown here. 

Perforated campfire griddle, attachment of extension handle, and stainless steel pizza pan 

Cookware Canada has a perforated stainless steel griddle for sale online (Premium Pizza Pan, Item 420122C) and an extension handle could be attached to the one displayed there. If you use something like that, I strongly recommend placing your pizza on a non-perforated stainless steel pizza pan and then placing the pizza pan on the griddle. 

Later, I made a new pizza pan holder out of one-eighth inch by three-quarter inch steel, three-quarter inch plumber’s strapping, some one-quarter by 20 nuts and bolts, baling wire, and a wooden pole as shown below. Do not use aluminum because it might soften in the high temperature. Also make sure that the steel parts extend at least a foot back in the direction of the handle so that the wooden handle can be kept out of the stove interior.   

My improved pizza pan support. This supports a stainless steel pizza pan, not the pizza itself. 

Tips for baking pizza in a wood heating stove

• Build a large, hot fire in your stove, let the flames die down and spread the coals out evenly. I've baked 6 ten-inch pizzas on a load of Douglas fir.
• Do not use an aluminum pizza pan or aluminum in the pizza pan support. 
• Do not use any items with non-stick coating. Use a stainless steel pizza pan and steel for the pizza pan support.  
• Sprinkle cornmeal or flour on the pizza pan before placing the dough. It's OK if the cornmeal smokes or catches fire in the wood stove. It will burn off. 
• My stainless steel pizza pan got slightly warped by the high heat but is not otherwise damaged. 

"Wood stove pizzas" with tomatoes, black grapes, peaches, cranberries, onions, blue cheese, and mozzarella cheese