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Wood-Fired Bread: How to Bake Bread in a Brick Pizza Oven

Pizza is the first thing everyone bakes in a new oven. Bread is what keeps the fire going. Here is how to turn the heat left over from pizza night into loaves with a crackling crust.

To bake wood-fired bread, fire your brick oven for 2 to 3 hours so the firebrick soaks up heat, rake out the coals, mop the firebrick cooking surface and close the door for 20 to 30 minutes. When the oven settles to about 450 to 500°F, load the loaves straight onto the brick, add steam, close the door and bake 35 to 45 minutes, until the loaves hit 205 to 210°F inside.

That method is called retained-heat baking, and it is what brick ovens were built for long before anyone put pizza in them. The fire heats the brick, the brick bakes the bread. A pizza oven that just finished a pizza night is already most of the way there. All you have to do is let it cool to bread temperature.

Why Brick Oven Bread Tastes Different

Brick oven bread comes out with a thicker, crackly crust, a deeper brown color and a more open crumb than the same dough baked in a kitchen oven. Three things make the difference:

• Heat from the brick. A loaf set straight on hot firebrick gets a hard burst of heat from below. That burst, called oven spring, is what makes a loaf rise tall and split open at the score.
• Heat from every side. The barrel or dome over the loaf radiates heat down on the crust while the brick bakes the bottom. A kitchen oven heats mostly with hot air.
• Moisture stays in. A brick oven with the door closed holds steam around the loaves. That keeps the crust soft early in the bake so the bread can rise, then lets it dry into a shiny, crackling shell.

The wood smoke is mostly gone by the time bread goes in, because you bake in a clean, coal-free oven. What you taste is the crust, and a kitchen oven can't make one like it.

The Right Temperature for Wood-Fired Bread

Most bread bakes best at 450 to 500°F, about half the heat of a Neapolitan pizza. A brick oven passes through every temperature on its way down, so you can line up what you cook with the heat you have:

Temperature alone isn't the whole story. An oven that was fired for 45 minutes might read 500°F on the surface and then drop 100 degrees as soon as cold dough hits it. An oven fired for 2 to 3 hours stores heat deep in the brick and holds bread temperature for hours. That stored heat is the whole secret. See the daily firing guide for how heat spreads through the brick as the fire burns.

Two Ways to Bake Bread in a Pizza Oven

1. Retained heat (the classic way)

Fire the oven hot, rake out every coal, clean the firebrick cooking surface and bake in the stored heat with the door closed. This is how village bread ovens worked for centuries, and it gives the most even bake with the best crust. It's the method in the step-by-step below, and the one to use for big round loaves, sourdough and anything that bakes longer than 20 minutes.

2. Live fire (the fast way)

Push the fire to one side or the back and bake next to the flames, like the loaves in the photos on this page. It works well for flatbreads, focaccia and small loaves, and it's handy right after pizza when you don't want to wait. The catch is uneven heat: the side facing the fire browns first, so turn the loaves every few minutes with a peel. Keep the fire small and use dry hardwood so the loaves don't pick up a sooty taste.

The rest of this guide covers retained-heat baking. For the live-fire basics, our Neapolitan crust guide covers moving the fire and turning food beside the flames.

How to Bake Bread in a Wood-Fired Oven, Step by Step

1. Start the fire 2½ to 3 hours before you bake. Build it in the middle of the oven and feed it steadily with dry, split hardwood. You want the whole barrel or dome to turn from black soot to clean, white brick. That's the sign the brick has soaked up enough heat.
2. Time your dough. Shape your loaves about an hour before baking so they finish their final rise as the oven settles. If the oven is ready early, it will hold. If the dough is ready early, slow it down somewhere cool.
3. Rake out the coals. Pull every coal and ember out with a rake or hoe into a metal ash bucket. Live coals in the oven make hot spots that burn the bottoms of loaves.
4. Mop the firebrick cooking surface. Wipe out the ash with a damp cotton mop or a damp towel wrapped around a brush. The mop also adds a little steam.
5. Close the door and let the heat even out, 20 to 30 minutes. The ceiling is always hotter than the firebrick cooking surface right after the fire comes out. Resting with the door closed lets the heat settle through the whole oven.
6. Check the temperature. Aim for 450 to 500°F on the firebrick cooking surface for crusty loaves. Too hot? Leave the door open a crack for a few minutes, then close it and check again.
7. Load the loaves. Dust a peel with flour, cornmeal or semolina, flip a loaf onto it, slash the top with a sharp blade and slide it onto the brick. Start at the back and work forward. Leave a couple of inches between loaves so the heat reaches every side.
8. Steam and seal. Spray the walls with water, or set a pan of hot water near the door, then close the door tight. See the steam section below.
9. Check at 20 minutes. Open the door, pull out the steam pan, and turn any loaf browning faster than the rest. Close the door and let them finish, usually 15 to 25 minutes more.
10. Test for doneness. The bottom should sound hollow when you tap it, and an instant-read thermometer should read 205 to 210°F in the center. Cool the loaves on a rack at least an hour before slicing. The inside is still baking.

Steam: The Secret to a Good Crust

For the first 15 minutes, a loaf needs a moist oven. Steam keeps the outside soft so the loaf can keep rising, then the crust sets shiny and crisp. Without it, the crust hardens too early, the loaf can't open up and the bread comes out dull and dense.

A brick oven with the door closed is already a steamy place, because the dough itself gives off water. To add more:

• Mop the brick just before loading. A damp mop leaves a little moisture behind.
• Spray the walls and ceiling with a garden mister after the loaves go in, then close the door fast. Don't spray the loaves themselves.
• Set a cast iron pan of hot water near the door, and pull it out after 15 to 20 minutes so the crust can dry and crisp.
• Bake several loaves at once. A full oven makes its own steam.

The door matters as much as the water. A door that seals holds both the heat and the steam in, and that's why bakers who bake often add a fitted oven door with a gasket.

A Simple Wood-Fired Oven Bread Recipe

This overnight country loaf is an easy first bake. It needs only four ingredients, almost no kneading, and the long, cool rise builds flavor while you sleep. It makes one large loaf of about 1½ lb. Double or triple it to fill the oven.

Ingredients

• 4 cups (1 lb 2 oz) bread flour
• 1½ cups (12 oz) lukewarm water, about 85°F
• 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
• ½ teaspoon instant yeast

Steps

1. Mix (evening before). Stir the flour, salt and yeast together in a big bowl, add the water and mix until there's no dry flour left. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover and let it rest 30 minutes.
2. Stretch and fold. With wet hands, grab one side of the dough, stretch it up and fold it over the middle. Turn the bowl and repeat 4 times. Do 3 sets of folds, 30 minutes apart.
3. Rise overnight. Cover the bowl and put it in the refrigerator for 12 to 18 hours.
4. Light the oven. On bake day, start your fire 2½ to 3 hours before you plan to bake.
5. Shape. About an hour before baking, turn the dough out onto a floured counter, shape it into a tight round and set it seam-side up in a floured bowl or basket lined with a towel. Let it rise at room temperature until it's puffy and springs back slowly when poked.
6. Bake. Flip the loaf onto a floured peel, slash an X or a single long cut across the top and bake on the firebrick cooking surface at 450 to 475°F with steam for 35 to 45 minutes, until it's deep brown and reads 205 to 210°F inside.

Which BrickWood Oven Is Best for Bread?

Every BrickWood oven bakes bread, and the ones that do it best have two things in common: lots of mass to store heat, and enough insulation to hold onto it.

• Mattone Barile Grande: our best seller and a true bread oven. The firebrick barrel holds heat for hours, the 24" × 41.5" firebrick cooking surface fits a full bake of loaves, and the 18.5" ceiling leaves room for tall loaves and Dutch ovens.
• Mattone Barile: the same firebrick barrel in a smaller size, with a 17" ceiling. It bakes a handful of loaves at a time and heats up a little faster.
• 28" Mattone Cupola: a castable dome with a low ceiling that heats fast and bakes beautiful pizza. Its smaller cooking surface fits fewer loaves at a time.

Whichever oven you build, insulation decides how long it holds bread temperature. Wrap the oven in a thick layer of ceramic fiber blanket, and many builders add a second layer for longer baking sessions. A well-insulated barrel can still be warm the next morning.

Want to see a bread oven come together? Follow one family's outdoor bread oven build, from the block base to the first loaves. Every bread photo in this guide came out of that oven.

Bake Day: Pizza, Bread, Then Everything Else

One firing can feed you all day. Bakers call it cooking down the heat curve: you start with the food that needs the most heat and work your way down.

A brick oven that can bake all day without a plug is also handy when the lights go out. Here's how to cook without electricity in your oven during an outage.

Wood-Fired Bread Mistakes

• Baking at pizza heat. At 700°F and up, bread burns on the outside before the inside is done. Let the oven cool to 450 to 500°F.
• Not firing long enough. A short fire heats the surface of the brick, not the mass, and the temperature crashes when the dough goes in.
• Leaving coals in. Even a few embers make hot spots that scorch the bottoms. Rake them out and mop.
• Skipping the rest. Load right after the coals come out and the ceiling will burn the tops. Let the oven even out with the door closed.
• Forgetting the steam. No steam means a thick, dull crust and a loaf that can't open up.
• Peeking. Every time the door opens, heat and steam pour out. Check once at about 20 minutes.
• Burnt bottoms. If the brick is still too hot, bake the first loaves on parchment, or slide a sheet pan under them for the second half of the bake.
• Slicing too soon. Hot bread is still finishing inside. Give it an hour on a rack.

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