Cooking with cast iron in a wood-fired pizza oven can be a great way to expand your cooking options and add some versatility to your outdoor cooking experience.
Granted, only a very high temperature could physically damage this durable tool. Lodge, a popular brand that makes cast iron products, says its pans can safely heat up to 650 degrees Fahrenheit, while some Staub-brand cast iron skills can handle up to 900 degrees Fahrenheit.
We prefer carbon steel, which, in addition to being highly conductive, is also fairly lightweight, making it easier to transfer pies into and out of the oven. Cast iron works similarly well for firing up crispy pies—though it's considerably heavier, and doesn't heat as quickly or evenly as carbon steel.
Like the baking sheet, a large cast iron skillet preheated upside down can pretty much exactly replicate a pizza stone in the oven. Set it on a sheet pan for safety and ease.
Even Heat Distribution: Cast iron's ability to retain and distribute heat evenly makes it ideal for cooking in high-temperature environments like a wood-fired pizza oven. This ensures that your food cooks uniformly, with no hot spots or uneven browning.
You can use a cast iron pan. It's just a matter of sliding the pizza onto the smaller surface. There are also literal pizza steels. Basically polished cast iron in the same dimensions as the ceramic stuff.
Suitable for sweet and savory dishes, vegetables, or meat, cast iron is the workhorse of the kitchen and one of the only materials that can go from the stovetop to a 950 °F (500 °C) oven.
Oven floor as a cooking surface
Food placed directly on the hot floor gets even, efficient conduction. Heat from the floor is conducted into the item being cooked without any intermediating barriers. Think of artisan loaves baking to perfection on the oven floor, and perfect wood-fired pizza.
Pizza screens are the best pizza pan for crispy crust since their mesh design allows the air and heat to circulate and come in contact with the dough as it bakes. Pizza stones are also great for achieving a traditional crispy crust but will take much longer to cook than using a pizza screen.
Baking pizza in a cast iron skillet ensures the crust is ultra crispy and browned but still nice and pillowy when you bite into it. It's a thick-crusted cheese pizza that's perfect as-is but can also handle tasty toppings like pepperoni and mushrooms (my favorites).
Core one apple per person and fill with dried fruits and honey or golden syrup. Wrap in tin foil and place them into the Ooni in a skillet on a lower temperature - you can even do this as you turn the oven off and let the residual heat cook the apples for an energy saving dessert.
I do know, however, that a cast iron pan can warp or crack when exposed to very high heat; especially when the heat is suddenly applied. The thermal shock to the pan can cause it to crack. We know that cast iron can melt, of course. Casting itself involves pouring molten – melted – iron into a mold.
Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Ovens
Use it to broil, braise, bake, or roast in the oven up to 500° F, and sauté, simmer, or fry on any stovetop.
Oak (Quercus spp.)
A dense wood with a very high heat value, Roverella oak is highly sought after. Oak is different from beech because the flame is not as lively or intense. However, it has a consistent heat, creating the ideal number of hot embers for a pizza oven. The Italians use oak to warm up their pizza ovens.
Your cooking floor can be made from either individual firebricks, set in an offset (graphic 1) or herringbone pattern, where the oven walls rest directly on the cooking surface, or from a round refractory floor provided by Forno Bravo. Either works.
OUTDOOR USE ONLY:
ALWAYS OPERATE THE WOOD-FIRED PIZZA OVEN OUTDOORS IN A WELL-VENTILATED AREA. NEVER ATTEMPT TO USE IT INDOORS OR IN ENCLOSED SPACES, AS THIS POSES A SERIOUS FIRE HAZARD AND RISKS CARBON MONOXIDE POISONING.
You can use any cast iron skillet that fits your Ooni or the Ooni Cast Iron Grizzler Pan.
The reddish color you see on the pan above isn't just rust: it's heat damage to the metal that is irreversible, and it's difficult to build good seasoning on top of it. Some people like to clean their cast iron in an oven set to the cleaning cycle.
However, there are also some drawbacks to using a cast iron pizza pan. For example, the sides of the pan may prevent the crust from getting as crispy as it would with a pizza stone. Additionally, the pan may take longer to heat up than a pizza stone, which could lead to uneven cooking if not properly preheated.
If you're making pizza in your wood-fired oven, then you should absolutely be using a pizza stone. They're an essential component of cooking the pizza dough right, and you can't really make a great pizza without one. Pizza stones generate a lot of heat, and work to cook the underside of your pizza base.
An excellent example of a simple and effective design that suits most outdoor spaces. Ceramic tiles come in any color imaginable so you'll be able to customize your oven to whatever specific color scheme you have in mind.