Wood-fired or electric: what actually changes
A modern electric deck oven reaching 450 °C makes a pizza indistinguishable from a wood-fired one to almost every customer. What wood genuinely gives you is the room — the smell, the flame, the theatre. What electric gives you is a consistent floor temperature, no flue, and a pizzaiolo who is not also managing a fire.
The comparison that matters
| Wood-fired | Gas | Electric deck | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Floor temperature | 430 – 500 °C | 400 – 480 °C | 400 – 450 °C |
| Consistency across a service | Depends on the fire | Good | Excellent |
| Time to heat | 1.5 – 3 h | 30 – 45 min | 45 – 60 min |
| Attention during service | Constant | Occasional | None |
| Flue and extraction | Required, expensive | Required | Usually simpler |
| Running cost | Wood, and labour | Gas | Electricity — often the highest |
| Suitable for a van | With difficulty | Yes | Only with real power |
Working ranges for commercial pizza ovens. Domestic ovens top out around 250 °C, which is a different exercise entirely.
Surface temperature is the whole argument
What cooks the base is the floor, not the air. A 60–90 second bake needs a hearth at 430 °C or so; below about 350 °C the water leaves the dough before the crust sets and you get a cracker instead of a soft, blistered base.
This is why an infrared thermometer pointed at the floor is worth more than the dial on the front. The dial reads air, and air recovers far faster than stone.
What wood actually changes in the pizza
Less than most people claim. In a 90-second bake there is very little smoke uptake — the flavour people attribute to wood is mostly the char from a very hot, radiant, uneven bake, and a hot enough electric deck with a live flame roll can get close.
Where wood is unambiguously better is the room. A visible fire is a reason to sit down, and that is a commercial argument rather than a culinary one — a good one, just not the one usually made.
What electric actually changes in the kitchen
- One less job during service. Nobody is feeding a fire at the moment twelve tickets land.
- Consistency between Tuesday and Saturday. The 200th pizza bakes like the first.
- It is trainable. A new pizzaiolo learns an electric deck in days and a wood oven in months.
- Installation is usually simpler — but check your supply. A three-phase requirement can cost more to install than the oven.
Gas, which nobody argues about
Gas sits in between and is the default for vans and for a lot of high-volume takeaways: hot quickly, cheap to run, controllable, no fire to manage. It gets less attention because it is neither romantic nor especially modern, which is not a reason to discount it.
How to actually decide
- Is the oven visible to customers? If yes, wood or gas with a flame earns its keep as part of the room.
- What is your extraction situation? A flue for a wood oven in a leased unit can be the most expensive line in the whole fit-out.
- Who is on the peel on a Tuesday? If it is not always you, consistency is worth more than character.
- What does your electricity actually cost? Run the numbers rather than assuming — electric is often the priciest per pizza.