Gas, Electric, Wood, or Coal: Types of Pizza Ovens and Their Impact on Baking, Flavor, and Texture

Different ovens – gas, wood, electric, and coal – use distinct heat or fuel sources that can significantly influence the pizza’s texture and flavor. In this article, we’ll explore how each oven affects the baking process and, potentially, the final flavor and texture

Introduction to Pizza Ovens

When it comes to baking pizza, the type of oven used can significantly affect how the pizza bakes. Each oven type utilizes a different heat or fuel source, which influences the baking process and can impact the final flavor and texture of the pizza.

Before exploring these effects, let’s first take a look at the five main types of pizza ovens.

Wood-Fired Ovens

Wood-fired ovens are the traditional choice for Neapolitan pizza. These ovens use burning wood to generate intense heat, typically reaching temperatures of 430°C (800°F) or higher. This high baking temperature allows the pizza to cook quickly – for Neapolitan pizza, traditionally in under 90 seconds.

Traditional wood-fired ovens are built with an interior made of bricks or stone, including both the dome/walls and the oven floor. This design allows the stone to absorb heat and radiate it evenly throughout the oven chamber and onto the pizza.

The primary heat source in these ovens is the live fire, which radiates intense heat directly to the pizza.

Coal-Fired Ovens

Coal-fired ovens share similarities with wood-fired ovens, as they both use combustion to generate heat. However, instead of wood, coal is the fuel source. 

Coal-fired ovens are particularly common in New Haven pizzerias that make New Haven style pizza, as well as in some pizzerias in New York, where they are part of the historical roots of classic New York style pizza. Baking in a coal-fired oven creates a distinctive crust and texture that has become synonymous with these iconic pizzas.

Similar to a wood-fired oven, the interior of a coal-fired oven is made of bricks or stone that absorb heat and radiate it back into the oven chamber.

Gas-Fired Ovens

Gas is a popular heat source in both commercial pizza ovens and home ovens. These ovens use natural gas or propane to generate heat through a gas burner, providing a reliable and controllable heat source.

Home ovens that operate on gas use a gas burner that is ignited to produce a controlled flame, typically located beneath the oven floor or in the broiling section. The heat from the flame warms the air within the oven and heats the oven walls, creating a consistent environment for cooking or baking food.

Gas-Fired Pizza Ovens with Live Flame

Gas is a popular heat source in pizza ovens with live flame, used in both commercial and portable/home pizza ovens, like those by Ooni and Gozney.

While these ovens are designed to mimic traditional wood-fired ovens by using live fire, they rely on gas as the fuel source (via a gas burner) rather than wood, providing convenience without sacrificing the high temperatures characteristic of wood-fired cooking.

Gas-Fired Deck Ovens

Gas is also a common fuel source in commercial pizza ovens (deck ovens), which are widely used in commercial pizzerias.

A typical gas pizza deck oven features a burner beneath the stone deck, serving as the primary heat source. This burner heats the deck directly, enabling it to radiate intense heat upward, and also bake the pizza’s bottom through conduction.

At the same time, the burner heats the air within the baking chamber, transferring heat to the oven’s walls and ceiling, often made of heat-retaining materials like stone or aluminized steel. These surfaces absorb and radiate heat back into the chamber, cooking the top of the pizza through radiant heat. Additionally, natural convection circulates hot air, promoting even baking throughout the oven.

The temperature in the oven chamber is controlled by a thermostat, which regulates the burner flame to maintain the set temperature. However, the stone deck and the oven chamber don’t necessarily reach the same temperature, as the deck retains and conducts heat differently.

Many gas deck ovens include adjustable dampers, vents, or heat deflectors that can be manipulated to control how much heat rises into the chamber versus staying concentrated in the deck. This allows to fine-tune the balance of heat between the bottom and top of the pizza.

Electric Ovens

Electric pizza ovens are fairly common in pizzerias, where they are used as pizza deck ovens that operate on electricity instead of gas.

These ovens use electric heating elements to generate heat, with both top and bottom elements distributing heat evenly throughout the baking chamber.

While electric pizza ovens typically don’t reach the extreme temperatures of wood or coal-fired ovens (though some models, like the PizzaMaster above, can), they are a popular choice in pizzerias that don’t require very high baking temperatures.

Electric ovens are also the most common type of oven found in homes worldwide.

Conveyor Ovens

Conveyor ovens, also known as air impingement ovens, fan-forced or convection ovens, are commonly used in large pizza chains such as Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s, and they differ somewhat from the ovens previously discussed.

These ovens bake pizzas through convection rather than radiation and conduction, using hot air to cook the pizza. The pizza is placed on a conveyor belt, which moves it through the oven, where hot air is “injected” directly onto the pizza, ensuring consistent baking time and temperature throughout the process.

Conveyor ovens provide a reliable, high-efficiency baking process, ideal for high-volume pizza production, particularly in DELCO pizzerias (Delivery + Carryout), where the pizza is typically transported and not eaten immediately out of the oven.

The design of conveyor ovens allows for continuous cooking, making them ideal for large-scale operations where speed and consistency are crucial. They require minimal training and skill to operate: the unbaked pizza is placed on one side of the oven, the conveyor belt moves it through the oven for a pre-set time, and the pizza comes out fully baked on the other side – without the need for an oven tender or anyone overseeing the process.

This simplicity makes conveyor ovens the preferred choice for large pizza chains with high employee turnover, as well as pizzerias and restaurants where speed, quantity and ease-of-use are prioritized over quality.

Conveyor ovens can operate using either gas or electricity.

How the Type of Oven Affects Pizza Baking and Characteristics

Now that we are familiar with the different types of pizza ovens, let’s explore how they affect the baking process in practice, specifically the flavor and texture of the pizza.

How the Oven Affects the Pizza’s Flavor

For this section, let’s start with the bottom line: contrary to popular belief, baking with wood or coal does not directly affect the pizza’s flavor.

Wood and Coal-Fired Ovens: No Direct Flavor Impact

There are two main reasons why baking in a coal or wood-fired oven does not directly affect the pizza’s flavor:

1. In a properly operated wood or coal-fired oven, there shouldn’t be smoke in the oven cavity. Even if there is some smoke (which at most should be very minimal), it circulates above the pizza without directly touching it, imparting no noticeable flavor.
2. Consider Neapolitan or Neapolitan-style pizzas, which bake at high temperatures for less than 3 minutes in a wood or coal-fired oven. This brief baking time is too short for the aromas from the wood or coal to penetrate the pizza and influence its flavor, even if any smoke comes into direct contact with it.

For these reasons, there shouldn’t be any actual flavor or “smokiness” imparted by the fuel source, whether it’s wood, coal, or gas.

The same applies to other types of pizzas baked in wood or coal-fired ovens, such as New Haven-style or New York-style pizzas, which are typically baked for 5–10 minutes.

Confusing Charring with Smokiness

The ‘smoky’ flavor often attributed to wood or coal-fired ovens actually comes from the charring on the crust, a signature of high-temperature baking.

When pizzas are baked at high temperatures, they develop distinctive ‘leoparding’ or charred spots on the crust, which contribute a slightly burnt flavor that is often mistaken for smokiness.

Electric ovens that can reach similar high temperatures also produce comparable charred crusts, showing that this flavor is not unique to wood or coal. While the intensity of the charring may vary depending on the oven’s heat distribution and temperature, the fuel source does not influence the charring process. It is the baking temperature and technique that are responsible for creating the characteristic charred crust.

How Baking Pizza Differs from Cooking Meat in Terms of Coal or Wood’s Effect on Flavor

The idea that wood or coal might affect pizza flavor often arises from comparisons to smoking or roasting meat. However, the processes differ significantly due to the interaction between heat, fat, and smoke.

Here’s how coal or wood imparts flavor to roasted meat:

1. The meat is placed directly above the coals.
2. As the meat cooks, fat drips onto the hot coals.
3. The fat undergoes a chemical reaction upon contact, releasing aromatic compounds and generating smoke.
4. This aroma-rich smoke rises and directly contacts the meat.
5. Meat, being high in fat, traps these aromatic compounds (since fat has the ability to “trap” aromas), absorbing them and enhancing the meat’s flavor.

To conclude: Unlike meat, which absorbs smoky flavors through fat interacting with smoke generated from coals or wood coming in direct contact with it, pizza baked in a wood or coal-fired oven doesn’t follow the same process.

The Verdict

The characteristic flavors of pizzas baked in wood or coal-fired ovens primarily come from the baking temperature and resulting crust char, not from the fuel source.

All else being equal, a pizza baked at the same high temperatures in any oven – whether wood-fired, gas, or electric – will have similar flavor characteristics.

How the Oven Affects the Pizza’s Texture

While wood or coal baking doesn’t directly affect flavor, it does influence the texture of the pizza, which in turn can impact flavor perception.

Different heat sources influence the humidity in the baking chamber, creating either a “wet” or “dry” heat:

• Wood creates the most humid baking environment, due to the moisture released from the wood during combustion (firewood typically contain between 15-30% moisture).
• Gas also produces a relatively humid baking environment, because of water vapor released during combustion.
• Coals create a very dry heat, as the combustion of charcoal produces heat that is almost completely moisture-free (since charcoals contain little to no moisture).
• Electric heat also creates a relatively dry heat, as there is no moisture released from combustion.

The humidity in the oven chamber can significantly impact the baking process and the texture of the pizza. Typically, a more humid environment results in a softer, less crispy crust, while a drier environment produces a crispier crust.

Additionally, the humidity level in the oven can influence how the sauce, cheese, and toppings bake. A drier environment may cause them to dry out or brown more quickly, while a more humid environment can help retain moisture, resulting in slower browning.

Summary Table: How Different Ovens Affect Baking

Moisture in Home Ovens

It’s important to note that the above refers to the baking environment in:

1. wood or coal-fired ovens, which have a front opening or chimney that allows for air circulation and moisture dispersion.
2. A pizza deck oven, whether gas or electric, with an effective moisture-management system.

Home ovens, in contrast, are designed with a sealed cavity to maintain consistent temperatures for a variety of cooking and baking tasks. While effective for many purposes, this design can inadvertently trap moisture during baking.

As the dough and toppings release moisture during baking, the sealed environment allows moisture to build up, resulting in a humid baking environment.

Therefore, while an electric heat source creates a dry baking environment, this doesn’t typically apply to home ovens, whether gas or electric, which tend to accumulate moisture during baking, resulting in a humid baking environment.

Concluding Remarks

While the type of oven doesn’t have a direct impact on flavor, it significantly influences how the crust bakes and chars, indirectly affecting the “smoky” or burnt flavor often associated with high-temperature baking in wood or coal-fired ovens. However, this charring effect can also be achieved in electric or gas ovens capable of reaching high temperatures.

The type of oven has a profound impact on how the pizza bakes, particularly its final texture. Oven type influences the humidity in the baking chamber, which can dramatically affect how the pizza develops during baking, and the resulting crust texture.

What is considered ‘better’ or ‘worse’ depends on the pizza style, the desired characteristics, and personal taste. The difference in outcomes between ovens can be significant, with each offering distinct results.

Choosing the ‘best’ oven, heat source, or fuel type ultimately depends on your preferred pizza style and what you enjoy most. One thing is certain: different ovens bake differently, and no two ovens will produce the same results.

Ultimately, understanding how your oven operates and its unique characteristics is key to making the most of your baking setup. Whether you’re aiming for a crispy crust of a New Haven style pizza, or the soft, fluffy texture of a Neapolitan pizza, adapting your technique to suit your oven will help you achieve the best possible results.