How Often Should You Clean Your Pizza Oven?
Cooking delicious food in your pizza oven is an amazingly satisfying experience. Crafting mouth-watering, homemade pizzas, wholesome family roasts, delicious fresh veggies and a banquet of other foods in your outdoor oven is simply a food-lover’s dream.
But, if you thought the cooking part was satisfying, wait until you give your oven a deep clean. Pizza ovens require regular cleaning to keep them safe and sanitised and prevent visits from unwanted pests. Just how often should you clean your pizza oven? Let’s find out!
Cleaning the interior
The interior is the most important part of your oven to make sure you’re cleaning it often. If you don’t clean your interior regularly enough, you could risk it being damaged, catching on fire, and it’s also inviting unwanted guests: mice, rats, cockroaches and other pests. To clean the interior, you must:
- Remove the ashes each time you go to use your pizza oven. Use a shovel or a copper brush to scrape them out and dispose of them safely.
- Clean grease stains using a sponge and a mixture of water and vinegar to cut through the grease. Don’t use detergents or cleaning products on your pizza oven because the pizza stone can absorb the chemicals, tainting your food. Don’t use too much water either as this can cause cracking in the stone.
- Remove creosote from the inside of the oven. Creosote presents a fire hazard when it builds up in your pizza oven without cleaning it.
Q: How often should you clean the interior?
A: Clean the interior after each use, waiting for the oven to cool down first.
Cleaning the exterior
Cleaning the exterior ensures that you’ve got the prettiest pizza oven in the neighbourhood. The proper cleaning and maintenance of your pizza oven exterior depends on which material you have: brick, or stainless steel. Use an oven brush with copper or brass bristles to scrape away any baked-on or burnt food, grease or other materials from the exterior.
Q: How often does the exterior need to be cleaned?
A: Clean the exterior every four or five uses, depending on how it looks. Cleaning the chimney Your chimney can build up soot after a while, so it’s vital that you clean it out at regular intervals. Simply use a brush to clean out the soot in your pizza oven. Inspect your soot levels regularly and clean when there’s visible soot.
Q: How often does the chimney need cleaning?
A: Clean the chimney once a year, depending on soot build-up.
Alfa Ovens are one of the world’s most trusted manufacturers of top quality pizza ovens. Made in Italy, these high performance ovens for domestic and commercial use are a stunning addition to any home. Contact the team at Alfa Ovens to learn more today.