Holly Jones, David Jones

Lighting a Fire

Appears in
Wood-fired Oven Cookbook
Wood-fired Oven Cookbook

By Holly Jones and David Jones

Published 2016

  • About
  1. Take three logs and make an open-fronted ‘hearth’ near the front of your oven. This will hold the fire together in its early stages. Having the fire near the door provides the maximum amount of oxygen in its early stages.
  2. Tightly scrunch up four or five sheets of newspaper and put on the base of the oven floor inside your ‘hearth’.
  3. Place some of the smallest pieces of kindling over the newspaper with some thicker sticks on top at right angles. Leave small gaps between each piece of wood to allow the flames to rise through them.
  4. Light the newspaper and let the kindling catch. Firelighters can be used, but doing without is good practice, easy after a bit of practice, and more satisfying.
  5. When the kindling and thicker sticks are burning well, add four or five fairly thin split logs on the top and leave to catch. Wear a pair of gauntlet-style gloves to protect your hands when doing this.
  6. Keep adding thicker logs to gradually increase the temperature, but don’t add too much fuel. The oven will only absorb energy at a certain rate, so a medium-size fire will heat just the inside of the oven just as quickly as a large one.
  7. Once the fire is well established, push it to the back or side of the oven. Put the door in front of the entrance but leave it slightly ajar to draw in the air.
  8. Use a laser thermometer to test the oven temperature. Take the temperature of the roof, walls and floor of the oven to give an overall picture of the heat.
  9. If you are going to cook something quickly, such as fish or pizzas, then you are ready to cook as the oven floor reaches the temperature you want.
  10. If you want a prolonged heat for longer cooking without flames, you will need to heat the entire thermal mass of the oven, If possible, take the external temperature of the oven, then compare this to the inside temperature. Initially there will be a large differential, but the two temperatures will become closer as you heat the oven for longer.
  11. If you are cooking straight on the floor of the oven, use a long-handled fireproof brush to sweep ash from the oven floor.