Cooking with a pizza oven is a unique experience – one that can be challenging, especially if you’re a beginner. Purchasing the oven for your home or business is only the tip of the iceberg. You’ll also need to learn the special techniques required to craft mouthwatering pizzas, including understanding the most effective wood for pizza ovens.
Can’t you use any wood in a pizza oven from a reputable supplier? Unfortunately, no. There are a few cooking wood contenders that will help you craft the most delicious pizzas. No matter what your go-to flavor is, your wood needs to be dense, moderately dry and squeaky clean.
What Traits Does the Best Wood for Pizza Ovens Possess?
Multiple types of cooking wood are excellent for use in making pizzas. How can you tell which those are? They’ll possess a few of the same traits, regardless of the specific species the wood is.
Organic, Not Treated
Treated wood includes wood that’s laminated, painted or contains other chemicals. Don’t use broken furniture as kindling! If the chemicals don’t become toxic fumes that enter your lungs, they’ll create explosive, erratic flames. The best way to avoid contaminated wood is to know your supplier doesn’t cut corners.
Organic wood, on the other hand, is free of chemicals and processed parts. At Lumberjacks, we’re dedicated to providing the best wood for pizza ovens! That’s why our wood is locally sourced from trusted harvesters and carefully processed on-site to ensure no contamination happens.
Hardwood, Not Softwood
Fires with the highest heat require firewood with the highest density. The denser a log is, the more wood there is to burn. That’s why you’ll need hardwood, which always has much more density than softwood.
Hardwood is also more effective in terms of limiting contamination. Unlike softwood, hardwood species don’t contain as much sap or produce as much creosote. For hot, clean cooking, hardwoods are a requirement.
Kiln-Dried, Not Seasoned
Seasoning is a popular process during which firewood is left outside to dry for several months. Unfortunately, this technique is far from the most effective one. Seasoned wood still contains a moisture content that’s too high, and it’s notoriously infested with bugs, mold, mildew and other unpleasant things.
Kiln-drying is a more involved process that significantly reduces firewood’s moisture in no more than two days. During this process, vendors heat firewood in kilns to achieve optimal dryness. Kiln-dried firewood is much easier to ignite and burns longer. Plus, this process purifies the wood from pests, mold and mildew.

How to Use Pizza Oven Wood in Any Pizza Oven
Like cast-iron skillets, pizza ovens develop their own flavor profiles over time in response to their environment, the pizza’s ingredients and the type of wood you use. As you continue to use your pizza oven, it’ll infuse its unique cocktail of flavors into every new pizza it makes.
To start using your wood-burning pizza oven:
- Make sure you have a clean pizza oven before the first use
- Choose the right wood for pizza ovens
- Fire up the oven with about five small chunks of your chosen wood
- Craft your pizza while the oven heats up
- Add one more piece of cooking wood every 20 to 30 minutes
- Cook your pizza according to your recipe
- Enjoy!
A pro tip is to ensure you’ve stocked up on your cooking wood ahead of time. There’s nothing worse than getting halfway through your last pizza only to discover you’ve run out of wood.
What Type of Wood for Pizza Ovens Is Best?
There’s plenty of information regarding the best wood for smoking and grilling. Unfortunately, there’s not nearly as much material explaining the type of wood for pizza ovens. Surely, you can’t let pizza fall by the wayside in the world of food!
The type of firewood you use has a significant impact on your pizza’s outcome. Here are a few suggestions for types of species to use:
Oak Is Perfect for Beginners
Local woods are the most realistic options because they’re easy to source. However, oak is usually the best option for beginners, regardless of whether this species is native to your area.
Why? Oak doesn’t have a strong flavor profile. This makes it perfect for dishes where you want to provide a subtle hint of smoky goodness without overpowering the other flavors in your dish. Many restaurants favor oak cooking wood for these very reasons.
As the densest hardwood, oak provides the perfect amount of heat for the longest time. It also pairs well with other woods. No matter what beginners cook, we always recommend oak.
Sugar Maple for Subtly Sweet Notes
Sugar maple is another excellent wood for pizza ovens – especially if you’re craving something sweet and savory. The subtly sweet notes of maple syrup are great for topping-heavy pizzas with thick layers of crumbled sausage and savory veggies.
The best part? There’s a high chance maple is part of your region’s local flora! With 100 unique subspecies, maple is probably available near you. As with oak, you’ll enjoy good, even burns thanks to high density.
Ash Is a Consistent Choice
If you’re looking for a reliable cooking wood for pizza ovens that you can count on for consistency, ash is what you’re looking for. This cooking wood provides high heat without overwhelming a dish’s flavor. More importantly, its burns are consistent and persistent, providing constant heat for several hours. In comparison to other kiln-dried firewood, it’s easiest to light, too.
If this is your first time making wood-fired pizza, and you’re using ash, you have nothing to worry about. You can even throw in some mesquite or fruitwood without needing to keep a close eye on the fire.
Apple for Mouthwatering Aromas
Applewood can complement toppings with hints of fruity undertones. Because fruitwood doesn’t produce as much heat as more conventional hardwoods do, you might benefit from combining fruitwood with oak. The oak will keep the oven from undercooking the pizza and the applewood from overwhelming the pizza’s other flavors.
Apple owes its incredible popularity to its mouthwatering aroma, subtly sweet flavor profile, and hefty heat content. Apple is suitable for poultry, but if you’re making an anchovy pizza, for example, you might want to use apple wood to complement the salty, fishy flavor of anchovies.

Hickory is Smoky Perfection
Highly popular in the world of barbecue, hickory provides some of the highest temperatures of all cooking wood. While this is excellent for meats that require long, hot cooking times, it’s possible to burn thinner dishes like pizza. For this reason, we don’t recommend hickory wood for pizza ovens if you’re a beginner.
However, experienced pizza makers will love the heavy, delicious tastes of hickory. Imagine pairing barbecue chicken pizza with the taste of hickory wood. Our stomachs are rumbling just thinking about it!
Mesquite for Strong Flavors and Flames
Master grillers often compare hickory to mesquite because both hardwoods exhibit intense flavors and more robust flames. Due to its chemical makeup, mesquite produces more smoke than other wood forms without yielding excess creosote. This means you’ll cook food quicker and with more flavor but with less chance of souring your food with heavy smoke.
But the benefits of mesquite go beyond smoking. The hot and quick burns mesquite yields can create the crispiest of crusts in no time flat. However, we recommend keeping a close eye on your pizza if you choose mesquite’s hot flames and intense flavors.
The Best Pizza Oven Wood in Chicagoland Is Within Reach
Looking for the best place to buy clean, reliable wood for pizza ovens? The team at Lumberjacks is happy to be of assistance! We provide cherry, apple, oak and hickory for all sorts of culinary adventures. Beyond wood for pizza ovens, we also offer high-quality, kiln-dried cooking wood for grilling, smoking and barbecuing. Please call us or drop us an email to start your cooking wood order.