28 Apr 2025
How many of us are all fired-up over outdoor pizza ovens for the summer?
So many of us enjoy the alfresco lifestyle of our Italian cousins in the warmer months, in fact many of us are choosing pizza ovens over the good old British BBQ!
But once that last slice has been devoured… our ovens will most likely need a thorough clean down every once in a while. But how should we go about that?
Easy.
Just follow our super simple step by step guide for brick ovens or portable mixed fuel ovens. With just a few smol products, your pizza ovens will be pristine in no time. In fact our quick cleaning checklist probably can’t be topped!
brick wood-fired ovens.
Firstly, make sure your oven has cooled completely before you attempt any cleaning and never throw water onto a hot pizza oven to cool it down as this could really damage it.
1. sweep.
Brick pizza ovens can reach temperatures of 400°C - a lot hotter than our ovens indoors! So most food spills inside should burn down to ash. Using a dustpan and brush, sweep out the ash from inside the oven and dispose of it in your general waste OR if you have a garden, sprinkle it onto the soil… ash is a great fertilizer for plants.
2. sooty.
Sometimes you will find soot stains building up on your pizza oven bricks. Soot is made up of things like carbon and tar, which are stickier and oilier than ash. It can be tricky to remove. However, if it bothers you - its appearance can be reduced by rubbing the stain with a hard bristle brush. It’s best not to use any sort of cleaning products on the brick as they are porous and you might find you leave more marks than you started with.
3. flue.
When you are burning solid fuels like wood in your pizza oven it’s important to inspect and clean the oven chimney/flue at least once a year. Just open the damper at the top and brush downwards so any particles fall into the oven itself to be removed.
4. door.
Any good outdoor brick built pizza oven needs a door and most of these are built from cast-iron. You can wipe this down inside and out with a damp cloth and smol multi purpose spray before drying it off. Many brick oven owners like to paint a little vegetable oil on a cast iron door to protect it from the elements every now and then. The glass window can be cleaned with smol multi purpose spray or some warm water and a little of our washing up liquid before being dried down thoroughly.
portable wood or mixed fuel pizza ovens.
There are quite a few of these ovens but most share the same components and therefore the same cleaning needs. Many come with waterproof covers for when the weather gets wet and these are also great for storing your ovens once you have cleaned them off for the winter.
As with brick-built ovens, always make sure that the oven has completely cooled down before attempting to clean any part of it.
1. pizza stone.
If your stone is covered in food debris you can run your oven for 30 mins to burn it off and then once it’s cooled down you can brush the stone clear. If the stone still looks dirty you can remove it carefully from the oven and flip it over before putting it back inside. The next time you use the oven you should find the bottom of the stone cleans itself. Never use a cleaning liquid or water to wash down your pizza stone.
2. fuel tray and surfaces.
Empty the fuel tray of any ash and brush the container clean. If there are stains that won’t come off you can try wiping with a damp cloth but remember to dry it immediately afterwards. Wipe down the sides and inner roof of the oven with a little smol multi purpose spray and a damp cloth before drying the surfaces off afterwards.
3. hopper & chimney.
If there is an oily black build up on the outside of the chimney you can clean off this soot with some warm soapy water. Our plant-powered washing up liquid is perfect for this and is great at tackling greasy residue. You can use the same solution to clean the outside of the hopper. Remember to thoroughly dry both areas once you are done.
4. glass door.
First give the glass a wipe with a dry cloth to get most of the soot off. You can use your washing up liquid soapy water or our multi purpose to wash down the glass and remove the last of the soot. Dry the glass door before you hang it back on the oven.
Buon appetito!