Can you Use Charcoal in a Pizza Oven?

There’s something so special about a charcoal-cooked feed. The smoky, distinct flavour; the slightly charred texture which melts in your mouth; the aromatic heaven that wafts throughout your home and backyard. Humans have been cooking with charcoal for thousands of years, and there’s absolutely no stopping us now. If you’re thinking about investing in a pizza oven, you’ve probably posed a deal-breaking question: can you use charcoal in it?

Yes!

It’s super common to use charcoal in a pizza oven. It’s the best way to achieve that unique flavour for meats, veggies, fish and a range of other dishes. However, not every pizza oven is designed for charcoal.

Always check with your manufacturer

Always make sure to check with your manufacturer first, before loading up your pizza oven with charcoal and cooking up a feed. You could actually damage your pizza oven if it’s not capable of handling charcoal, because the coals burn a fair bit hotter than regular wood. This could cause structural cracking in your pizza oven which would be an absolute travesty for everyone.

Wood Fired Co. Pizza Ovens

Thankfully, you won’t have this problem when you purchase a Wood Fired Co. pizza oven. Their ovens are built to the highest standards, able to withstand the high heat of charcoal fires. You’ll be cooking meal after meal in your pizza oven, using charcoal to enhance the flavour of a bunch of your different foods!

Best foods to cook using charcoal in your pizza oven

Now, we come to the fun part: the best foods to cook using charcoal. Here are just a few of our favourites:

• Lamb and chicken skewers

  A classic Greek-style dish that can only truly be accomplished with a charcoal fire – lamb and chicken souvlaki! Load up your pizza oven with hot charcoals and take your barbecue skewers to the next level. Season them to perfection using salt, rosemary, garlic and plenty of lemon.

• Whole chicken

  Getting a little bored of the old roast chicken routine? Charcoal chicken is a completely different ball game. There are so many different styles of charcoal chicken to experiment with: from spicy Portuguese, to slightly sweet American, to a bunch of Middle Eastern and North African flavours.

• Charcoal veggies

  Charcoal veggies = the bomb. Try grilling capsicum, eggplant, onion, zucchini, asparagus – basically anything you like! These veggies are the perfect, healthy side-dish for your chargrilled meats.

So, now that you’re probably drooling over your phone or keyboard, it’s time to take the next step and invest in a proper outdoor pizza oven! Talk to the guys at the Wood Fired Co. They make the best domestic pizza ovens on the market and can ship them Australia- and New Zealand-wide. Take your cooking to the next level and invest in a Wood Fired Co. oven today.