As outdoor dining becomes more popular, we see more households putting together outdoor kitchens equipped with the right appliances to make dining out practical and convenient. With more families gathering for weekend cookouts with friends and relatives, home cooks must have a place to create their culinary masterpieces.
With several appliance options available to make an outdoor kitchen function properly, you must choose the ones that suit your needs. For cooking, an electric grill, some stoves, and outdoor wood fired ovens would constitute a good start. You can build around these appliances and make your ideal outdoor kitchen where you can have a great time to create various vegetable and meat dishes and pizza and serve them fresh from the oven to your family members and guests.
However, cleaning and properly maintaining these appliances is another matter, as they need enough attention and care. You wouldn’t want to clean these appliances carelessly because it will affect their functionality and quality.
Here are some tips for caring for and maintaining your outdoor wood-fired ovens.
Regular cleaning
If you have outdoor wood-fired ovens, ensure that you conduct a regular clean-up. After every cook, let the oven cool down properly before removing all the accumulated ash. You have to sweep as much as possible so your oven wouldn’t have accumulated ash that can affect the quality of your next cook. You can reuse the ash as an organic fertiliser and pest repellent.
Cover the oven properly
Your oven being outdoors means it’s vulnerable to the elements. Rain, snow, sleet, sunlight, and wind, among other things, can effectively age the oven quickly. You’ll need to cover your outdoor oven with the right material to prevent water damage, brick cracks, UV damage and rust. Whether you have a brick, cast iron, or metal oven, it pays to have them protected and covered when not used.
Do seasonal curing
Another way to protect your outdoor oven is to cure it seasonally, especially if you cannot cover it properly. Curing your oven means drying it with low heat for a given duration to eliminate any accumulated moisture in the structure. Remember that when you heat your oven to an extreme temperature with moisture within, the results will not be good, as there are bound to be cracks in the structure.
It’s best to cure your oven, especially if you use it often. If you haven’t used the oven for a long time, it’s also good to cure it first to reset the oven’s components which expand when heated.
Use the oven properly
Stay within the suggested temperature range. You have to remember that while ovens can withstand extreme heat, you cannot expose them to such scenarios frequently. If you do so, you’re risking the chance of ageing your oven prematurely. Instead, you can use an infrared thermometer to monitor the temperature while you cook so you can adjust accordingly.
Summary
Using an outdoor oven can be fun, but there are attached responsibilities for its proper care and maintenance. You have to be ready to take care of the oven year-round to ensure its functionality.
