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Pizza Oven Temperature: How Hot Should a Pizza Oven Be?

Every great pizza starts with the right heat in the right place. Here's how hot a brick pizza oven gets, how hot it should be for every style, and how to read and control the heat on the firebrick cooking surface.

For wood-fired pizza, a brick oven should read 700 to 800°F on the firebrick cooking surface, with the ceiling running 100 to 200°F hotter. At that heat a thin pizza bakes in about 90 seconds to 3 minutes. A well-built brick oven gets there after about 1 hour of steady fire, or about 1½ hours on cold days.

The number on the thermometer is only half the story. A brick oven bakes with heat from three places at once: the firebrick under the pizza, the hot ceiling over it and the flames rolling across the top. Get all three working together and you'll pull out a pizza with a crisp, spotted bottom, a puffy crust and bubbling cheese. Get them out of balance and you'll burn the bottom or wait forever for the top.

How Hot Does a Pizza Oven Get?

A fully fired brick pizza oven easily reaches 800 to 900°F on the firebrick cooking surface, and the ceiling and back wall can climb past 1,000°F. BrickWood owners regularly report readings in the 900s with an infrared thermometer. You don't need all of it. Most backyard pizza bakes best between 700 and 800°F.

That's two to three times hotter than a kitchen oven, which tops out around 500 to 550°F. It's why a pizza that takes 10 to 12 minutes on a kitchen pizza steel is done in a couple of minutes in a brick oven. One of our forum moderators timed it: about 4 to 5 minutes in his brick oven against 11 minutes at 525°F in his home oven, and that was for a thicker pie.

How hot a pizza oven gets depends on three things:

• Thermal mass. Firebrick and castable refractory soak up heat and give it back. More mass takes longer to heat and holds heat longer.
• Insulation. Ceramic fiber blanket over the oven and insulation under the hearth keep the heat in the brick instead of leaking out into the base and the air.
• The fire. Dry hardwood, enough of it, and enough time. Wet wood or a short fire will never get the firebrick cooking surface to pizza heat.

Pizza Oven Temperature Chart by Style

Different pizzas want different heat. Thin, soft doughs want it blazing hot and fast. Thicker doughs and pizzas baked in pans want less heat and more time, so the middle cooks before the outside burns. The temperatures below are for the firebrick cooking surface, read with an infrared thermometer where the pizza will bake.

If you're new to your oven, start in the 650 to 750°F range. You'll have a few extra seconds to turn the pizza, and you can work your way up as your peel and your timing get faster. When you're ready to chase the real thing, our guide to Neapolitan pizza at home covers the dough, the launch and the 90-second bake.

Pizza Oven Temperatures for Everything Else

Pizza is only the start. A brick oven that's been fired for pizza holds its heat for hours, and that falling heat can cook a whole menu. Bakers call it cooking down the heat curve: the hottest jobs first, then the slower ones as the oven cools.

For a turkey, fire the oven all the way, let the firebrick cooking surface fall to about 550°F, keep a small rolling fire on one side and set the pan on the other, then use the door and damper to hold the temperature. A brick oven that cooks all day without a plug is also a lifesaver when the lights go out. Here's how to cook without electricity in your oven.

How to Heat a Brick Pizza Oven

A brick pizza oven takes about 1 hour to reach pizza temperature, and about 1½ hours on cold days. The goal isn't hot air. It's hot firebrick, all the way across the cooking surface, and that only comes from fire touching the brick long enough for the heat to soak in.

The most common mistake is building one fire in the center and shoving the embers to the back. That heats one spot and leaves the rest of the firebrick cooking surface cold, and you'll get pizzas with burnt bottoms on one side and pale bottoms on the other. Here's how we fire a BrickWood oven:

1. Use dry hardwood only. Split it into pieces about 18" long and 5" x 5", then split a few pieces again for kindling. Wet or green wood smokes and never gets the oven hot. Our firewood guide covers what to burn.
2. Start at the front and center. Stack the kindling at the front-middle of the firebrick cooking surface and light it.
3. Spread the embers around, then add 3 to 4 pieces of firewood.
4. Get a good burn going. You'll feel the heat pour out of the opening.
5. Keep spreading and feeding. Spread the embers around the cooking surface again and add more wood. Over the next hour, move the fire so every part of the firebrick cooking surface spends time under it.
6. Build it to a blazing inferno. Flames should roll up and across the ceiling.
7. Spread the embers and let them set for 15 minutes. A blanket of coals over the whole cooking surface finishes heat-soaking the firebrick.
8. Push the embers to the back, keep a couple of burning logs on them so the flames keep rolling over the ceiling, then brush the firebrick cooking surface clean.
9. Check the temperature and start cooking.

The 1-hour rule. At 15 to 20 minutes only the front-center is hot. By 45 minutes most of the cooking surface is warming up. After 60 minutes or more, the whole firebrick cooking surface is saturated with heat. That's when you're ready.

Watch the ceiling. When you first light the fire, the inside of the oven turns black with soot. As the brick gets hot, the soot burns off and the ceiling turns white and clean, starting over the fire and spreading outward. When the ceiling has cleared, you're close to pizza heat. When it goes dark again later in the night, it's time to add wood.

A word to the wise: hold off on the big pizza party until you've fired your oven a few times and learned how it heats. Every oven has its own personality.

Ceiling vs. Firebrick Cooking Surface: Two Temperatures That Matter

A brick oven has two temperatures, and they're rarely the same. The ceiling, heated by the flames, often runs 100 to 200°F hotter than the firebrick cooking surface. Our forum moderator describes a properly fired oven as about 800°F on the firebrick cooking surface with the ceiling up to 200°F hotter above.

• The firebrick cooking surface bakes the bottom. It sets the crust, crisps it and gives it those dark spots.
• The ceiling and the flames bake the top. They melt the cheese, blister the rim and finish the toppings. We like to say you need a white-hot oven ceiling to bake from the top down.

Here's how to read the balance:

If the firebrick cooking surface never seems to get hot, even after a long fire, look underneath. Moisture in the hearth slab or the sand bed, or missing insulation under the hearth, will pull heat out of the cooking surface as fast as you put it in. A good cover and sealer keep water out. See our guide to pizza oven covers and sealer.

How to Check Your Pizza Oven's Temperature

The best pizza oven thermometer is an inexpensive infrared thermometer, the point-and-shoot kind. They cost about $15 and up. Buy one that reads to at least 1,000°F, because many cheap models top out below pizza heat. Our owners have maxed out their guns reading back walls over 1,050°F.

How to use an infrared thermometer in a pizza oven:

• Brush first, then aim at the exact spot on the firebrick cooking surface where the pizza will go. Ash and coals throw off the reading.
• Take a few readings. The spot near the fire and the spot by the door can be 100°F apart.
• Read the ceiling separately. It will always read higher, and it tells you how fast the top will bake.
• Know its limits. An infrared gun reads only the surface it's pointed at, not the air and not the heat stored deep in the brick. Smoke, steam and a steep angle can throw it off. Read straight on, from a foot or two away.

Dial thermometers that sit on the firebrick cooking surface or mount in a door read air temperature, not the brick. They're handy for roasting and bread with the door closed, but they won't tell you if the brick is ready for pizza.

No thermometer? Use these signs

• The ceiling clears. White, clean brick overhead means you're near pizza heat.
• The flour test. Toss a pinch of flour on the firebrick cooking surface. If it browns in a few seconds, you're at pizza heat. If it turns black right away, it's too hot for pizza and way too hot for bread. If it slowly turns golden over 15 to 30 seconds, you're in bread and roasting range.
• The first pizza. Your first pizza is the best thermometer you own. Bottom burnt in 60 seconds? Too hot. Still pale at 3 minutes? Too cool.

Keeping the Heat Up All Night

Every pizza you launch pulls heat out of the brick. Cool, wet dough soaks up heat from the firebrick cooking surface, while the fire mostly heats the ceiling. One of our owners measured his baking spot falling from over 750°F to about 650°F by the fourth pizza. That's normal, and it's easy to manage:

1. Bake each pizza on a fresh spot. Move around the cooking surface so each spot has time to recover.
2. Feed the fire a little at a time. Add a split every 15 to 20 minutes to keep flames rolling over the ceiling. One or two pieces at a time, not an armload.
3. Re-heat cool spots. When a spot drops below about 600°F, pull coals back over it for 5 to 10 minutes, then push them back and brush.
4. Shift the fire from side to side during a long session. With a brick oven, that's just part of the job.
5. Fire longer before a big party. The firebrick cooking surface works like a battery. It fills with heat at a set rate, and after a few hours of firing it's heat-saturated and stops dropping between pizzas. For a crowd, light the fire earlier.

Need to cool it down? Let the fire burn down and leave the door off for a few minutes. Swabbing the firebrick cooking surface with a damp mop also drops the surface temperature quickly. Never throw water into a hot oven.

How Long Does a Brick Pizza Oven Hold Heat?

A well-insulated brick oven stays usable for a day or more after one firing. Once the flames die, with the door on and the damper closed, our forum moderator says a properly insulated oven settles into the 350 to 400°F range and holds it into the next day. Owners often find their ovens still at 200°F or more the morning after a pizza party, warm enough to bake, slow-cook or dry kindling.

Two things decide how long your oven holds heat:

• Firebrick stores the heat. The thick firebrick barrel or castable dome is the battery.
• Insulation keeps it there. Firebrick without insulation loses its heat fast. The BrickWood plans call for 2" of insulation under the hearth and two layers of 1" ceramic fiber blanket over the oven. If you plan to bake bread or cook in cold weather, add more layers of blanket. Thicker insulation mostly matters after the fire dies, which is exactly when bread and roasts need it. Our guide to pizza oven insulation covers it layer by layer.

A pizza oven door and a chimney damper are what turn a pizza oven into an all-day oven. You won't need the damper during a blazing pizza fire, but once the flames die, closing the door and the damper traps the heat for roasting, bread and overnight cooking. Our chimney and damper guide explains how draft works.

Which BrickWood Oven Runs Hottest?

Every BrickWood oven gets hot enough for any pizza. They differ in how fast they heat and what they do best after pizza night.

Still deciding? Our pizza oven kit comparison lays out size, cost and build time side by side.

Pizza Oven Temperature Mistakes

• Cooking too soon. A hot ceiling doesn't mean hot firebrick. Fire for at least an hour, until the whole cooking surface is heat-soaked.
• One fire in one spot. Spread the fire around the firebrick cooking surface while you heat, or you'll have hot spots and cold spots.
• Rushing a cold oven. A giant fire in a cold oven risks thermal shock. Build up gradually.
• Firing a new oven to pizza heat. Cure it first, then go hot.
• Burning wet wood. It smokes, sputters and steals heat to boil off water. Burn dry, seasoned hardwood.
• Reading the wrong spot. Aim your thermometer where the pizza will bake, not at the fire or the ceiling.
• Too hot for the dough. 900°F burns a New York or pan pizza before it's cooked through. Match the heat to the style.
• Letting the fire die mid-party. Feed it a split at a time. When the ceiling goes dark, you're behind.
• Skimping on insulation. An uninsulated oven never stops eating firewood and never holds heat for bread.

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Oven temperatures and bake times vary with your oven, your dough, your firewood and the weather. Use a thermometer and adjust to your oven. Always follow the plans for your specific BrickWood model.