Fireside • Builder to Owner
How to Cure a New Pizza Oven: Your First Fires, Step by Step
Six days of small, steadily bigger fires turn a freshly built brick oven into one that's ready for pizza night. Here's the exact schedule, what to burn, what's normal, and how to fire it for daily cooking once the cure is done.
To cure a new pizza oven, let it air-dry for 3 to 4 days after you remove the foam form, then build one small fire a day for six days: one log on Day 1, two logs on Day 2, three logs on Day 3, and on Days 4, 5 and 6, three logs burned down to embers with one, two, then three more logs added on top. Let every fire burn out on its own, leave the oven door off, and use only dry hardwood, dry kindling and plain paper to light it.
We've helped thousands of backyard builders through this exact first week since 2013, and a rushed cure is the most common way a well-built oven gets damaged. The reason is simple: a new oven is full of water from the mortar, the soaked firebrick and the stucco shell, and a big fire turns that water into steam faster than it can escape.
This guide covers why curing matters, when your oven is ready for its first fire, the day-by-day schedule, what you'll see and hear, how to handle rain or cracks, and the BrickWood method for heating your oven for daily use once the cure is behind you.
How to Cure a Pizza Oven: Quick Answers
- Wait first. Let the shell cure, remove the foam form by hand, then air-dry the open oven for 3 to 4 days.
- Six days, six small fires. 1 log, 2 logs, 3 logs, then 3 logs to embers plus 1, 2 and 3 more on Days 4 to 6.
- One fire per day. Let each fire burn out and the oven cool before the next one. Never double up.
- Dry hardwood only. "Firelog" means a split of seasoned hardwood, not a wax log. Light it with plain paper.
- Door off, no shortcuts. No lighter fluid, torches, heat guns or water. Hairline cracks are normal; growing cracks and flaking brick are not.
Why Does a New Pizza Oven Need to Be Cured?
Because you built it wet, and it has to dry from the inside out. Curing a pizza oven (also called breaking it in or seasoning it) means using small, gradually larger fires to drive leftover construction moisture out of the masonry before the oven ever sees full cooking heat.
Think about how much water goes into a brick oven build. High-temp mortar is mixed with water to the consistency of oatmeal. Firebricks are soaked before they're cut and laid, because dry brick pulls the water out of fresh mortar and weakens the bond. The stucco shell goes on as two wet half-inch coats. Add any rain that fell during the build, and a brand-new oven is holding a surprising amount of water, much of it deep inside where you can't see or feel it.
What happens when that water gets hot too fast
Water trapped in brick and mortar boils at 212°F, and when it turns to steam it expands to roughly 1,700 times its liquid volume. Heat it slowly and that vapor migrates through the masonry and leaves through the oven mouth and chimney. Heat it fast and the pressure builds faster than it can escape. At the same time, a hot inner face and cold outer masonry are expanding at different rates. Together, that can cause:
- Spalling. Chips or flakes popping off the face of a firebrick, sometimes with an audible bang.
- Structural cracks. Cracks that run through brick and joints rather than sitting on the surface.
- Blown joints. Mortar pushed out from between firebricks.
- A cracked cooking floor. The floor sits on a slab and holds a lot of moisture, with nowhere to vent but up through the brick you cook on.
Curing fires don't replace material cure time
The word "curing" gets used two ways. Cement-based materials like mortar, castable and stucco need time to harden and gain strength on their own. "Curing fires" are the later, controlled heat-drying stage. Lighting a fire early does not make fresh mortar cure faster in any useful way, so always finish the waiting periods in your plans first, then start the fires.
The cure is a one-time investment of about a week. A properly cured oven is ready for years of hot cooking fires. An oven that was blasted with heat while it was still wet may never fully recover from that first fire. If you're still planning your build, our guide to building a brick pizza oven shows where curing fits in the overall timeline.
When Is Your Oven Ready for Its First Fire?
Not the day you finish it. The order matters, and every wait is doing a job. Here's the sequence for a BrickWood oven, from the last coat of stucco to the first curing fire.
- Let the shell cure.On the Mattone Barile, Mattone Barile Grande and 28" Mattone Cupola, give the second stucco coat 3 to 4 days before you touch the foam form. The shell holds the ceramic fiber blanket insulation in place and needs real strength before you take out the internal support.
- Remove the foam form by hand, in pieces.Never burn the foam out and never dissolve it with solvents. Burning it can ruin the oven and the fumes are hazardous. Clear every fragment, plus any construction debris, from the chamber and chimney path.
- Air-dry the open oven for 3 to 4 days.Leave the mouth open so moisture can move out on its own. This passive drying does a meaningful share of the work before any fire is lit.
- Light the first curing fire.Only now does Day 1 of the schedule begin.
| Your BrickWood oven | Before you remove the foam | After the foam comes out |
|---|---|---|
| Mattone Barile, Mattone Barile Grande and 28" Mattone Cupola | 3 to 4 days after the second stucco coat | 3 to 4 days of air-drying, mouth open |
| Cortile Barile | Castable pieces cure 7 days before foam removal | 3 to 4 days of air-drying, mouth open |
These are the stated minimums. Cold weather, damp conditions, a wet base or a recent storm can all stretch them. If the stucco still feels cool and damp to the touch, give it another day. Masonry that looks dry on the surface is very often still wet underneath. Always keep the installation instructions for your exact model open alongside this guide.
Pick your curing week
- Watch the forecast. Six dry days in a row is ideal. Curing through a rainy week means the oven soaks water back up between fires.
- Avoid freezing weather. Water still in the masonry can freeze and expand, which does the same kind of damage as steam, only more slowly.
- Protect it between fires. A tarp can keep rain off a completely cold oven overnight. Remove it well before you light the next fire, and never let a cover near a warm oven or chimney.
- Leave the door off. The insulation and stucco shell deliberately slow heat and moisture moving outward, so most of the escaping vapor has to leave through the mouth and chimney. Blocking the mouth defeats the purpose.
Before you light the first curing fire
- All material waiting periods in your plans have passed.
- The foam form and every scrap of debris are out of the chamber.
- The chimney and vent path are open and clear.
- The oven door is off, and covers and combustibles are away from the oven.
- Dry hardwood splits, small kindling and plain paper are ready.
- Long-handled tools and heat-resistant gloves are within reach.
- You can stay with the fire the whole time, and wind and local burn rules allow a fire today.
- Ready for Day 1.
The 6-Day Pizza Oven Curing Schedule
This is the curing schedule from the BrickWood installation instructions, laid out day by day. Build one fire per day, make each one a little bigger than the last, let it burn all the way down on its own, and let the oven return to air temperature overnight before the next fire.
Throughout the schedule, a "firelog" or "log" means one ordinary split of dry, seasoned hardwood, roughly the size you'd put in a home fireplace. It does not mean a manufactured wax log, and it does not mean a whole unsplit round.
| Day | Build this fire | Then | What's happening |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | 1 log on dry kindling, lit with plain paper | Let it burn out completely. Don't add more wood. | The gentlest possible warming. Vapor is often easy to see. |
| Day 2 | 2 logs on dry kindling, lit with plain paper | Let it burn out completely. | Heat reaches a little deeper into the masonry. |
| Day 3 | 3 logs on dry kindling, lit with plain paper | Let it burn out completely. | Heat begins reaching the outer layers. |
| Day 4 | 3 logs on dry kindling | Burn to embers and spread them. Add 1 log on the embers, then spread the embers around the cooking surface. | Two-stage fire. Spreading embers warms the whole floor, not just the center. |
| Day 5 | 3 logs on dry kindling | Burn to embers and spread them. Add 2 logs on the embers, then spread the embers around the cooking surface. | Longer, steadier heat. Vapor usually tapers off. |
| Day 6 | 3 logs on dry kindling | Burn to embers and spread them. Add 3 logs on the embers, then spread the embers around the cooking surface. | The largest curing fire. Afterward, cool and inspect. |
Days 4 through 6 are two-stage fires. The extra logs go onto the ember bed only after the first three have burned down. Don't combine them into one starting load of four, five or six logs.
Rules that make the schedule work
- One fire per day. The cool-down between fires is part of the process. It's when moisture that moved toward the surface actually leaves.
- Keep the early fires small. Days 1 to 3 are supposed to look unimpressive. Resist the urge to add "just one more log."
- Spread the embers from Day 4 on. Concentrated heat in one spot means uneven expansion, and uneven expansion stresses joints. It's also the same technique you'll use for every cooking fire.
- Stay with the fire. Let it burn down and go out while you're there. Use long-handled tools and move embers gently without striking the brick.
- Missed a day? Repeat the previous day's fire instead of jumping ahead. Taking eight or nine days costs you nothing. Skipping a step can cost you an oven.
- Six days is the minimum, not a deadline. A very wet build, a rainy week or any warning sign is a reason to slow down and repeat smaller fires.
Different oven designs use different curing methods. Follow the schedule written for your BrickWood model, and if your instructions differ from this summary, your instructions win.
What Temperature Should a Pizza Oven Be During Curing?
BrickWood's curing schedule is measured in logs, not degrees. You'll find curing schedules online that target around 300°F on the first day and climb about 50°F a day toward 500°F. Those temperature ladders were written for other oven designs, usually measured with a door thermometer, and they shouldn't be swapped in for the schedule written for your BrickWood oven.
The fuel-based schedule works because it controls the thing that actually matters: how much heat goes into the masonry each day, and how quickly. One log, then two, then three, then a sustained ember bed is a slow, repeatable ramp that every builder can follow without instruments.
Can I use an infrared thermometer?
Yes, as an observation tool. Point it at the same spots on the cooking floor at the end of each fire and you should see a steady upward trend across the week. But an infrared thermometer only reads the surface. It can't measure the moisture hidden inside a thick wall or floor, and it can't tell you the cure is complete. Never add fuel beyond that day's schedule to chase a higher reading.
Don't chase a white dome, either
Your oven will turn black inside during the cure. That's soot from small, relatively cool fires, and it's completely expected. Later, once you're running full cooking fires, the dome will burn clean and turn white again. That clearing is a handy sign during normal firing, but during the cure it's not a goal. Building a bigger curing fire to burn off soot is exactly the mistake the schedule is designed to prevent.
What Wood Should You Burn When Curing a Pizza Oven?
Fuel matters more during the cure than at any other point in the oven's life. Wet wood produces a cool, smoky, smoldering fire that adds moisture to the chamber instead of driving it out, which is the exact opposite of what the cure is for. The answer to a weak fire is drier wood and better kindling, never a bigger load.
Use
- Dry, seasoned hardwood under 20% moisture. Oak, maple, ash, beech, hickory and similar local hardwoods all work when they're properly dried. To check, split a piece and test the fresh inside face with a moisture meter; a dry outside can hide a wet center.
- Consistent, reasonably sized splits. One oversized split can hold more fuel than two small ones, so the log count only works if the pieces are fireplace-sized.
- Dry kindling, split small. No kindling on hand? Split one of your logs down several times.
- Plain paper to light it. Newspaper or plain packing paper. That's it.
Never put these in a curing oven
- Manufactured wax or sawdust firelogs. Duraflame-style logs are compressed sawdust bound with petroleum wax and additives. They aren't firewood, and their residue has no place on brick you'll cook on. When the instructions say "firelog," they mean a split of hardwood.
- Lighter fluid, gasoline, kerosene or chemical starters. They leave residue on the cooking floor and create a fast temperature spike, the one thing the cure exists to avoid.
- Charcoal or briquettes. Binders and additives, and the wrong kind of heat for this job.
- Treated, painted, glued or stained wood, or unknown pallets. Toxic when burned, and the residue concentrates in the ash on your cooking surface.
- Softwood as the main fuel. A little dry pine kindling is fine. A whole pine fire is resinous, sooty and burns too fast.
- Torches, heat guns or space heaters. Concentrated heat on one spot is the definition of uneven expansion.
- The foam form. It bears repeating: take it out by hand.
For a deeper look at species, seasoning and storage, read our guide to the best wood for a pizza oven, or find a firewood supplier near you.
What's Normal During the Cure, and What's Not?
Most of what alarms first-time builders is perfectly normal. Here's how to tell the difference between an oven that's drying out and one that's telling you to back off.
| What you notice | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| White vapor from the mouth and chimney | Moisture leaving the masonry. Burning wood also releases some water vapor. | Keep following the schedule. Don't build a bigger fire to make more appear. |
| Little or no visible vapor | Weather, light and humidity can make it hard to see. | Follow the schedule anyway. Vapor isn't a reliable dryness test. |
| Damp patches on the exterior stucco | Moisture working its way outward. | Normal. They should fade as the week goes on. |
| Faint ticking or pinging sounds | Normal thermal movement as the masonry warms and cools. | Nothing, unless it comes with visible damage. |
| Black soot inside the dome | Small, cool fires during the cure. | Expected. It clears later with full cooking fires. |
| Small ridges where the foam form's brick guides were | Impressions left by the form. | Leave them. New mortar won't bond to hardened mortar and can drop out later. |
| Fine hairline cracks | Normal expansion where mortar meets firebrick. | Photograph them and watch for change after each cooled fire. |
| Smoke rolling out the front instead of up the chimney | Wet wood, a cold or blocked flue, or wind pushing on the oven. | Check your wood first, then the chimney path. See our pizza oven chimney guide. |
| Loud bangs, flaking brick, loose pieces or cracks that grow | Spalling or a real masonry problem. The oven is heating too fast. | Stop adding fuel, keep people back, let it cool naturally and get advice before the next fire. |
Is It Normal for a New Pizza Oven to Crack?
Hairline cracks are normal and expected. Heat makes the oven expand, and that stress shows up where mortar meets firebrick. Thin surface cracks that stay the same from one fire to the next are cosmetic, and they don't need filling.
What isn't normal is a crack that grows between firings, one that runs continuously through both brick and mortar, displaced or loose brick, mortar falling out of joints, chips flaking off the brick face, or smoke and flame escaping somewhere other than the mouth and chimney. Width alone isn't a reliable test, so pay attention to change.
If you see damage during the cure
- Stop adding fuel and keep people away from the opening.
- Let the fire and the oven cool naturally. Never pour water into a hot oven.
- Once it's cold, photograph the damage with some context: where it is, which curing day you reached, how much wood you burned and any recent rain.
- Get advice before firing again. Contact BrickWood or post your photos in the BrickWood builder forum.
Don't smear a fresh layer of mortar over the whole interior to hide cracks or form impressions. A thin, poorly bonded patch can let go later, probably onto a pizza. Real repairs use the right material, like BrickWood's high-temp refractory mortar, and a repaired section needs its own drying time and gentle fires, just like new construction.
What Happens If You Don't Cure a Pizza Oven?
The temptation is real. You've spent weeks building, the oven looks finished, and everyone wants pizza tonight. The trouble is that the damage from skipping or rushing the cure usually isn't dramatic in the moment.
What typically happens is a builder runs a couple of small fires, decides the oven seems fine, and lights a roaring cooking fire on Day 3. It works. The pizza is great. Then, over the following weeks, cracks appear and spread, because the damage was done in that one firing and simply took time to show.
- Steam damage is permanent. Spalled firebrick and blown joints have to be cut out and replaced. On a cooking floor that means lifting brick. On a dome or barrel it means real surgery.
- It compounds. A cracked joint lets more water in during wet weather, that water flashes to steam on the next fire, and the crack widens. Damaged ovens tend to get worse rather than settle down.
- It's cheap to avoid. Six days and about 21 splits of firewood plus kindling, against weeks of construction and hundreds of dollars of firebrick. It's the best trade in the entire project.
Rushing the cure made our list of the most common DIY pizza oven mistakes for exactly this reason.
Already fired it hard before curing?
Don't panic. If nothing obvious went wrong, let the oven cool completely and run the six-day schedule now, starting small and working up. It's less effective after the fact, but slow, gentle heat will still drive out remaining moisture, and it costs you nothing but a week.
What If It Rains During the Curing Week?
Pause, protect the cold oven and pick up where you left off. If a day is rained out, skip it and repeat the last fire you completed rather than jumping to the next size. Stretching the cure over eight or nine days does no harm at all.
- Keep new water out. Pay attention to the mouth, the chimney cap and any unfinished exterior. A tarp over the top won't stop water running into an open joint.
- Covers are for cold ovens only. Never build a tent around a burning oven or run the chimney through a tarp. Remove covers well before lighting.
- A soaking resets the clock. After heavy rain gets into the oven, go back to smaller fires. One quick warming fire isn't a cure-all for a saturated oven.
- Don't fire a frozen, wet oven. Wait for a thaw, and never use a big fire to thaw it out.
How to Fire Your Pizza Oven for Daily Use
Once the six curing fires are done and the oven has cooled and passed a quick inspection, it's ready to work. Normal firing has its own technique, and it isn't the same as building a fire in a fireplace. These large cooking fires are for a cured oven only.
The key point: don't build the fire in the center and immediately push it to the back. That heats one strip of floor and leaves the rest cool, and you'll get pizzas that are burnt on one side and raw on the other. Start the fire at the front and center, then work it around the whole cooking surface so the entire floor comes up to temperature together.
You're heat-soaking masonry, not heating air, and that takes time. Plan on 60 minutes or more. Roughly, the floor near the fire warms in the first 15 to 20 minutes, heat spreads across the cooking surface from 20 to 45 minutes, most of the floor is up to temperature by 45 to 60 minutes, and the oven is fully saturated after the 60-minute mark. A larger oven, a cold or windy day, or a damp oven will take longer.
Word to the wise: hold off on that pizza party until you've mastered your oven.
The BrickWood daily firing method
- Prep your wood. Use only dry hardwood. A good working size is about 18 inches long by 5 by 5 inches, with some pieces split again for kindling.
- Stack kindling front and middle. Build it inside the chamber toward the front-center, with air spaces between pieces. Keep fuel inside the oven, never on the landing.
- Ignite with plain paper.
- Spread the embers around once the kindling has made a small ember bed.
- Add 3 to 4 pieces of firewood and let it build into a strong burn. You'll feel the heat.
- Spread the embers again, add more firewood and let it run hot, moving the fire around so it warms more than one patch of brick. Keep it controlled; flames pouring out the mouth or chimney aren't the goal.
- Spread the embers and set a 15-minute timer. The embers heat the floor directly while heat keeps soaking into the brick below.
- Push the embers to the back, brush the cooking surface, check your floor temperature and cook.
During active firing, leave the door off so the fire gets air and the smoke has a path out. Never seal a burning fire behind a door. A fitted BrickWood oven door earns its place later, for holding heat for bread and roasts and keeping rain out of a cold oven. For the full picture on draft and dampers, see our chimney guide.
How Do You Know the Cooking Floor Is Ready?
Don't go by the clock alone. Check the floor itself.
- Take infrared readings in several spots. Read the front, center, rear and sides of the area where you'll cook, aiming at bare firebrick, not at flames, embers or ash. If one zone is much cooler, give it more ember contact and time before you push everything back.
- Expect gauges to disagree. A door thermometer and an infrared reading measure different things in different places. Neither measures the full thickness of the masonry.
- Watch the dome. Soot burning off to a clean white dome is a good clue the oven is getting hot, but it doesn't prove the floor is evenly heated.
- Let the first pizza tell you. A pale bottom with a finished top means the floor needs more heat or recovery time. A scorched bottom with an underdone top means the floor is too hot for that dough or the flame balance is off.
There's no single right temperature for every pizza. Thin, lean dough and a thick, sugary or heavily topped pizza want different floor temperatures and bake times. For dough, floor temperature and launch technique, read our guide to Neapolitan pizza at home.
Practice before your first pizza party
The BrickWood instructions give advice that's easy to skip and worth following: buy six or seven inexpensive frozen pizzas and use them to learn your oven, following the package storage directions. You'll burn a few. That's the point. Burn a cheap frozen pizza, not the dough you cold-fermented for two days. Learn where the hot spots are, how fast the floor cooks and how the flame behaves, then move on to the real thing.
Keep a short log for your first few firings: the weather, wood species and split size, how long you spread embers, floor readings before the first pizza and how it came out. A few sessions in, that log becomes your personal firing routine.
Cleaning up and cooling down
- Let the fire burn down on its own. Never use water to put out a fire, cool the oven or wash the floor. Sudden cooling can crack firebrick.
- Use metal tools made for hot ovens. If you use a bristle brush, check the floor for loose bristles before food touches it.
- Store ash in a metal can with a tight lid, outdoors and away from anything that can burn. Ash can hide live embers for a long time.
- Cover only a completely cold oven. Wait until the oven and chimney have cooled fully.
Once the active fire dies down, that stored heat is perfect for bread, roasts and vegetables. See what to cook in a pizza oven besides pizza.
When Should You Re-Cure a Pizza Oven?
The first cure removes construction moisture. It doesn't waterproof brick, mortar or insulation forever. Any time significant water gets back into the masonry, the same physics applies, and a few gentle fires before a hot one is cheap insurance.
- After a wet winter or a long layoff. An oven that sat uncovered through months of rain and snow has absorbed water. Start small and work up over several progressively larger fires before going to full temperature.
- After heavy or prolonged rain on an unprotected oven.
- After any repair. New mortar means new water. Treat a repaired section like new construction: let it dry, then work up slowly.
- If the oven stood unfinished. An oven that spent a season under a tarp before its finish went on needs the same care as a brand-new one.
Signs an oven has taken on water include masonry that feels cool and damp, heavy wet ash, damp patches on the exterior and an oven that's slow to heat. You don't need to repeat the full six-day schedule every spring, but scale the drying to how wet the oven got. A light dampening may need one gentle warm-up fire; a saturated hearth needs several. Prevention is easier: a fitted door, a cover or a small roof over the oven keeps most of the water out. Our guide to winterizing a brick pizza oven covers protection in detail.
Troubleshooting: Why Won't My Oven Heat Evenly?
Diagnose the pattern before you throw more wood at it. Fuel, firing technique, the chimney and moisture all play a part.
| Problem | Likely causes | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| Back of the floor is hot, front is cool | Fire pushed to the back too early; embers not spread | Start front and center and give the cool zone more ember time |
| Plenty of flame, but pale pizza bottoms | Floor not heat-soaked; damp hearth | Fire longer, check bare-floor readings and think about recent rain |
| Fire struggles and smokes | Wet wood, too much wood crammed in, cold or blocked flue | Use drier, smaller splits and inspect the chimney when cold |
| First pizza great, later ones pale | Pizzas pulling heat out faster than the floor recovers | Give the floor recovery time between pizzas and keep the fire fed |
| Bottom burns before the top is done | Floor too hot for that dough; loose flour burning | Use a cooler spot, let the floor settle, use less dusting flour |
| Outside of the oven gets unusually hot | An insulation gap or overfiring | Stop escalating the fire and investigate. Insulation matters; see our insulation guide |
| Smoke escaping through the masonry | A joint or structural problem | Stop adding fuel, cool naturally and get an assessment before reuse |
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to cure a new pizza oven?
The BrickWood curing schedule is six days of fires, one per day. Before that, plan for the shell to cure (3 to 4 days after the second stucco coat on Mattone Barile and Cupola ovens) and another 3 to 4 days of air-drying after the foam form comes out. A wet build or a rainy week can stretch it longer, and that's fine.
What temperature should a pizza oven be during curing?
BrickWood's schedule is based on fuel, not temperature: one log on Day 1, two on Day 2, three on Day 3, then three logs to embers plus one, two and three more on Days 4 to 6. Don't substitute another brand's temperature ladder, and don't add wood to chase a thermometer reading.
Can I cook pizza during the curing fires?
No. Reaching cooking temperature means building far bigger fires than the schedule calls for. Finish all six curing fires, let the oven cool, inspect it, and then start practicing.
Can I do two curing fires in one day?
No. The cooling period between fires is when moisture that moved toward the surface actually leaves the masonry. Doubling up heats the oven faster than the water can escape, which is exactly what curing is meant to prevent.
What if I don't see any steam during the cure?
Keep following the schedule. Visible vapor depends on weather, light and humidity, so it isn't a reliable dryness test. Never build a bigger fire just to make steam appear.
Can I use a Duraflame or a store-bought firelog?
No. Manufactured firelogs are compressed sawdust bound with petroleum wax and additives, and they leave residue on brick you'll cook on. In the curing schedule, a firelog means one split of dry, seasoned hardwood.
Can I burn the foam form out of my pizza oven?
Never. Burning the foam can ruin the oven and produces hazardous fumes, and dissolving it with solvents brings its own hazards. Remove it by hand, in pieces, and clear out every fragment before the first fire.
My pizza oven cracked during curing. Did I ruin it?
Probably not. Hairline cracks are normal as the oven expands. Stop and get advice if a crack keeps growing, runs through both brick and mortar, or if brick flakes off or comes loose. Let the oven cool naturally and contact BrickWood with photos.
Should the oven door be on during curing?
No. Leave the door off for the entire cure so moisture can escape through the mouth and chimney. Never seal a burning fire behind a door at any time.
Do I need to cure my pizza oven again after winter?
Not the full six days for a dry, protected oven, but an oven that sat uncovered through a wet season has absorbed water. Start with small fires and build up over several firings before going to full heat. The same goes for any oven after a mortar repair.
How long does it take to heat a pizza oven for cooking?
Plan on 60 minutes or more for a cured BrickWood oven, starting the fire at the front-center and spreading embers across the floor as it builds. Bigger ovens, cold or windy days and damp ovens take longer. Check the floor in several spots before you bake.
Can I use water to cool down a pizza oven that's too hot?
Never. Water on hot firebrick can cause spalling and cracks. Stop adding wood, let the oven cool naturally and use a cooler part of the floor in the meantime.
One Slow Week. Years of Great Pizza.
Six days feels like forever when the oven is finished and sitting right there. It isn't. It's one patient week against years of pizza, and it's the difference between an oven that holds up and one that never quite recovered from its first fire.
Keep your installation instructions close, follow the schedule for your model, and when the curing fires are done, spend a few sessions learning how your oven heats before you invite a crowd.
Small fires now. Big fires forever after.
Still planning your build? Get the FREE step-by-step pizza oven plans and see every stage, from the base to the first fire.
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Written by BrickWood Ovens. Last updated October 2026. Waiting periods and curing steps can vary by model and material. Always follow the installation instructions for your specific BrickWood oven, supervise every fire, and follow local burn rules and installation clearances.