Make the most of alfresco cooking with your own outdoor pizza oven

If you're looking for an unusual and fun way to cook outdoors, then an outdoor pizza oven might be the perfect thing for you.

"The whole family will love it," says Geoff Chilman, from Perth's Alfresco Wood Fired Pizza Ovens. "The kids can make as much mess as they like because it's outdoors, everyone can get involved in making the pizzas, and the oven itself will really lift the look of your garden."

Geoff suggests that an outdoor pizza oven represents a natural extension of Australians' love of preparing and eating food in the outdoor environment. He also says these ovens are not just for cooking pizzas - anything from roast lamb to vegetables can be prepared, although these sorts of dishes must be protected from the intense heat with foil or pots.

A properly managed outdoor pizza oven will reach temperatures of around 350°C. A pizza will cook perfectly in two minutes at this temperature. To get the oven this hot, the fire must be nurtured and the correct wood (hardwood) must be used. 

"A good indication that you've reached 350°C is when the burnt carbon from the previous fire has disappeared from the walls and roof of the oven," says Geoff.

Outdoor pizza ovens are available in a variety of designs and sizes, and come either pre-made or as kits. A pre-made oven with a one-metre internal diameter will weigh over a tonne, which means that it needs to be moved with a trolley, scissor lift or even a crane, depending on how much access space you've got in your garden. The heaviest element in a kit is around 100 kilograms.

Geoff says that many outdoor pizza ovens have been modelled on old ovens that were used before gas and electricity became available. But he says they can be custom designed to achieve any look chosen by the customer - he recently designed one shaped like a volcano, with flashing lights on the outside to emulate lava flows! Brightly coloured paints and mosaics are also popular.  

Outdoor pizza ovens can be installed in any garden that has sufficient space. They can stand alone, be fitted into retaining or dividing walls, or into structures in 'outdoor rooms'. They can even be mounted on trolleys and moved within the garden - you can have a summer spot in the shade and a winter spot in sunshine or undercover for your outdoor pizza parties.