Cooking food over wood is an excellent way to experience some delightful flavours. For instance, flame-grilled ribs, or wood-smoked pizza, are pretty hard to beat! While cooking with wood at home isn’t overly complex, there are some things you need to think about to ensure you go about it the right way. With that in mind, here are some of our top tips to ensure your fire burns hot and your food tastes great!
Dried hardwood is the best fuel for your fire
Picking the right wood is such an important first step when it comes to cooking with wood at home. The best wood you can use is dried hardwood from a species like birch, oak, or pecan, for example. It’s best not to use softwood for cooking, as it doesn’t maintain heat for very long and will burn much more quickly than hardwood, which is far from ideal when you’re hoping to maintain a steady heat to effectively cook a meal.
Avoid wet wood
Wet wood - or wood that has not been dried - causes high volumes of smoke and is not safe for cooking. When you’re setting up a fire for cooking food, you need to ensure you use wood that has a moisture content of less than 25%, which will allow you to cook your food to perfection. All of our kiln-dried firewood has been dried to a moisture content of 20% or less, making it perfect for home cooking, ensuring you won’t be overcome by smoke and fumes from your fire. One other thing to note - burning wet wood at home is now illegal, so make sure you have a stock of legal firewood you can use in your home fireplace.
Think about the flavours
When you cook over firewood, your food will take on the flavours generated within the fire. If you use the right fuel, the result will be delicious, wood-smoked flavours that melt in your mouth and complement your meal. Done wrong, you could have a problem on your hands. It’s so important that you avoid wood that has been pressure or chemically treated, as you need to make sure your food isn’t heated over toxic flames - for obvious reasons! You should also avoid wood that is covered in mould or fungus if you plan to cook with it, as it can produce some undesirable flavours in your food.
Build a small, hot fire
While it can be tempting to set a huge fire in your firepit at home before getting started with your cooking, a small, hot fire is actually the best for cooking. Keep things reasonable and build your fire in such a way that enables sufficient oxygen to get around the fuel that you’re using. You can then add logs as and when you need them in order to maintain the heat of your fire, as opposed to merely for aesthetic purposes!
Use a Home Fire combo to prepare the perfect woodfire for cooking Because there’s so much to think about when it comes to preparing the perfect fire to cook over, we want to make your life so much easier. We’ve put together a range of handy bundles for you to choose from, which will make things incredibly straightforward when you come to cook over wood at home as well as saving you some money at the same time!. Our handy firepit bundle includes the kindling and logs you need to get your fire started in the right way and ensures you will be able to cook your food to perfection.