Do You Need A Chicago Brick Oven: [Pros And Cons]

A Chicago Brick Oven is an exceptional oven that you can use to prepare a wide range of meals, including large pizzas, steaks, chicken, and many more. The remarkable shape of the oven reduces the cold spots while ensuring that foods cook evenly.

To be precise, having a Chicago brick oven in your home will bring the Unique Neapolitan flavor back. Moreover, the certified American oven is designed for maximum durability. The stainless steel fiber reinforcement and refractory cement guarantee the sturdiness you need in a reliable oven. Regardless of the weather conditions around you, the oven will offer the necessary protection to your food.

Further, the Chicago Brick Ovens features a visible in-chamber fire that cooks your pizzas perfectly while offering a superb opportunity for the family to come together for storytelling as they enjoy the soothing warmth from the oven. Keep reading for more details about the unique Chicago brick oven.

Benefits Of A Chicago Brick Oven

The demand for Chicago brick ovens is rising due to their numerous benefits. For instance, the oven allows you to enjoy the power of using firewood to prepare your meals. Whether or not you have used the Chicago brick oven before, it changes how you cook pizzas, bread, cakes, cookies, and even meat by elevating the flavor.

Generally, numerous benefits come with investing in a Chicago oven, including the following;

• The Chicago brick oven allows you to use traditional firewood to prepare your pizzas. Cooking using traditional firewood imparts a unique flavor to the food and makes the cooking process a bit cheaper.
• The oven is characterized by an even temperature, which makes it great for preparing pizza.
• The Chicago brick oven has an optimal temperature of about 625 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hotter than you can achieve with traditional ovens. It is the ability to achieve a high temperature that makes the oven ideal for cooking a variety of dishes.
• The oven is also made up of sturdy materials, hence the potential to serve you for a long time.
• It comes with an install kit and cooking kit, which includes pizza peel, an insulating door brush, an insulating blanket, an insulating board, and a mortal.

Types Of Brick Ovens

While there is no doubt that the brick oven is superior to traditional ovens, it is good to understand that there are different types of brick ovens. Further, the different kinds of brick ovens available in the market have various pros and cons.

Medium Duty Firebrick

These brick ovens are made up of medium-duty firebrick. The medium-duty firebricks comprise 50% silica and 35 % alumina. These materials give the oven characteristics such as heating up fast and cooling down quickly. Further, Medium Duty Firebrick-based ovens easily attain the optimum temperature required for cooking the pizza.

The Red Clay Brick

Another great type of brick oven is one made up of red clay brick. The red clay brick is available in home depot, Lowes, and masonry supply stores. As the name suggests, these bricks are made from clay before they are fired in a kiln. Notably, you can use the red clay brick in the oven dome and on the oven floor.

Although red clay bricks are among the best bricks for brick ovens, they have two main shortcomings. These shortcomings include the following:

• They are prone to thermal cycling that can cause the brick to spall; cracking the bricks
• It is not an excellent conductor of heat hence takes longer to heat up

Concrete Brick

Another type of brick oven is made up of concrete brick. They are made up of standard cement-based concrete before they are dried. They may not be able to withstand the high heat inside your oven, which is why they are not ideal. Avoid brick ovens made up of concrete bricks.

High Duty Firebrick

As the name suggests, the high-duty firebricks are designed to withstand high temperatures. They have a high level of alumina content and can get very hot, 1500 degrees Fahrenheit and above.

Generally, high-duty firebricks are designed for high-heat applications. However, they are pretty expensive and can get too hot for some of your oven uses, including baking bread.

What Type Of Wood To Use For Chicago Brick Oven

One of the common questions people ask themselves whenever they want to invest in the Chicago brick oven is the best wood they should use.

Dry and aged hardwood is the ultimate choice for the best results. Hardwoods that are aged have always proven essential in offering incredibly suitable conditions for preparing a wide range of foods. However, you can use softwoods when starting the fire and preheating your oven. Since softwood has less heat compared to hardwood, they impact heat production, influencing your cooking time.

Further, you should avoid treated or resinous woods as they can be hazardous to your health.

Where To Purchase The Best Wood?

Since the wood you will use will directly impact your cooking process, it is vital to ensure that you buy the wood from a reputable shop. Moreover, some traders may not disclose all the necessary information to allow you to make the right decision, and this may negatively impact your choice.

Regardless of where you live, before you purchase wood for your oven, ensure that you do your diligence. Further, ensure that you stress the need for hard and aged wood. If possible, cut the wood into smaller pieces for easy usability and transportation.

Is The Oven Safe Around Children?

Your safety and that of your loved ones should always come first when investing in an oven. The oven is supposed to make your cooking simple and more rewarding and not cause your household more trouble.

Although the outside of the oven can get too hot, a good design and installation should not pose any danger to your children and your loved ones. To prevent the outside of the oven from getting dangerously hot, use the right installation material.

DIY Brick Oven

If you are passionate about DIY projects, you can easily make a great brick oven at home. Although you’ll spend time and resources to complete the project, a DIY brick oven is cheaper than a fully assembled one. In addition, there are numerous other benefits of DIY brick Ovens, including the following;

Eliminate Access Problems

One of the significant benefits that come with the DIY brick oven is that it gets rid of access issues. The DIY brick oven kits are easily transported to any location and assembled on-site. This makes them ideal for installation in restaurants or places with limited space.

Customized External Look

Another notable advantage of the DIY brick oven is that they allow you to customize them to match the surroundings. For instance, ensuring that the external appearance of your oven complements your landscape’s design will enhance your property’s general appearance. With the DIY brick oven, you have unlimited options to enhance the appearance of your property.

Proven Performance

Whether you want to purchase an already assembled oven or build one from scratch, you need an oven capable of providing you with proven performance. The good thing with DIY brick kits is that you can build an oven with reliable performance at a pocket-friendly cost. All you need is some construction skills to help the building and enclose the oven.

Conclusion

A quality Chicago brick oven provides an exciting experience cooking in a wood-fired oven. Regardless of the type of food that you are out to prepare, the oven makes it easy to cook your meals while ensuring that they are incredibly delicious.

Always check the quality of the materials used to make the oven. Further, use aged and hardwoods for stellar performance.