If you own a wood-fired pizza oven, the wood you choose matters as much as the dough. The wrong wood means struggling to hit temperature, uneven cooking, excessive smoke, and a bitter taste on your pizza. The right wood means a clean, fierce burn that gets your stone up to 400°C and keeps it there.
Here's what you need to know.
Hardwood only — always
Softwoods like pine, spruce, and fir are not suitable for pizza ovens. They burn too quickly, produce excessive smoke, and release resins that can taint the flavour of your food and coat the inside of your oven with soot. Always use hardwood.
The best hardwoods for pizza ovens in the UK are birch and oak — and for good reason.
Birch — the fast starter
Birch is the go-to choice for pizza oven users who want to get up to temperature quickly. It ignites easily, burns bright and fierce, and reaches extreme temperatures faster than almost any other hardwood. If you're cooking for a group and need your oven ready fast, birch is your wood.
Birch burns slightly shorter than oak, so you'll add logs more frequently during a longer session — but the speed and heat output make it the favourite among home pizza enthusiasts.
Oak — the long burner
Oak is denser than birch, which means it burns longer and holds heat more consistently. Once your oven is up to temperature, oak keeps it there. It produces a good bed of embers and is ideal for longer cooking sessions or when you're cooking multiple rounds of pizza.
Oak takes slightly longer to get going than birch, so many pizza oven users combine both — birch to light and heat up, oak to maintain.
Kiln-dried vs seasoned
Whether you choose birch or oak, the most important thing is moisture content. Wood with high moisture content won't burn efficiently — it produces steam instead of heat, creates excessive smoke, and makes it almost impossible to reach the temperatures a pizza oven needs.
In the UK, wood sold as Ready to Burn must have a moisture content of less than 20%. Kiln-dried wood achieves this through a controlled drying process, making it consistently ready to use straight from the box.
Seasoned wood — wood that has been air-dried over time — can reach the same moisture levels, but it's inconsistent. The drying time depends on species, storage conditions, and climate. Kiln-dried is reliable every time.
Log size matters too
Pizza oven fireboxes are smaller than standard fireplaces. Logs that are too long won't fit, and logs that are too thick will take too long to catch. The ideal log length for most pizza ovens is around 25cm, with a diameter of 5–15cm.
The short answer
The best wood for a pizza oven in the UK is kiln-dried birch or oak, cut to around 25cm, with a moisture content below 20% and a Woodsure Ready to Burn certification. That's exactly what Pizza Logs supplies.
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