How to Cure a New Wood Fired Pizza Oven (Step-by-Step Guide)

Why curing matters — and what happens if you skip it

You've just unboxed a beautiful new wood fired pizza oven. Every fibre of your being wants to load it up with kindling, build a roaring inferno and slide a pizza in within the hour. Do not do this.

A new pizza oven — even a properly built one like the XclusiveDecor range, handmade in Portugal — contains residual moisture from the manufacturing process. The refractory cement, the brick dome, the insulation layers and the cooking floor all hold a small amount of water. Heat that moisture up too fast and it expands into steam inside the structure, and steam expanding inside cement is one of the most reliable ways to crack a brand-new oven.

Curing is the controlled process of driving that moisture out gradually. It takes patience, four to six small fires over four to six days, and almost no money. Skip it and you risk hairline cracks, surface spalling, and in the worst cases serious structural damage that no warranty will cover.

The good news: cured properly, a handmade oven will then take any abuse you throw at it for the next 20 years.

What you'll need

Almost nothing fancy:

• Kiln-dried hardwood — oak, ash or beech are ideal. Avoid softwoods like pine.
• Kindling and natural firelighters
• A long match or wax taper
• An infrared thermometer to check dome temperature (optional but very helpful)
• Patience

A complete pizza oven tool set covers everything you'll need for the curing process and your first proper cook.

The six-day curing schedule

Here is the schedule we recommend for any handmade wood fired oven. If you've got time and want to be very cautious, stretch it across more days. If you absolutely have to compress it — say, four days — you can, but never less than that for a new oven.

Day 1 — The whisper fire

Target dome temperature: 90–120°C

Start small. Place a single firelighter and a small handful of kindling in the centre of the oven floor. Light it and let it burn out naturally. You're looking for a flame about the size of a candle, no more.

Let the fire burn for 30 to 45 minutes. Don't add any more wood. The dome should feel warm to the touch on the outside but you shouldn't see any colour change inside. Close the oven door (or use whatever closing mechanism the oven has) loosely — you want some airflow, but you also want the heat to dwell.

Let the oven cool naturally overnight. Don't be tempted to peek every five minutes — you'll lose heat and slow the cure.

Day 2 — The small fire

Target dome temperature: 120–180°C

Slightly bigger today. Start with the same single firelighter and kindling, but once that's burning steadily add three or four small pieces of split hardwood, no thicker than your thumb. Let the fire build slowly.

You should see a small but steady flame for an hour. The dome will reach 120–180°C. The cooking floor will feel hot, but the exterior of the oven should still be only warm. Look inside — if you see any darkening of the dome from white to grey, you're at the right temperature.

Let it burn out. Cool overnight.

Day 3 — The proper small fire

Target dome temperature: 180–230°C

Step it up again. Build a slightly larger fire — four or five pieces of hardwood, slightly thicker than yesterday. You should see a steady flame for an hour and a half to two hours.

If you have an infrared thermometer, point it at the dome interior. You're looking for 180–230°C. The exterior of the oven will be warm but not painful to the touch.

This is the point at which you might see some condensation or steam escaping from the dome's exterior or the chimney. That's exactly what you want — it's the moisture leaving.

Day 4 — The medium fire

Target dome temperature: 230–300°C

A meaningful fire today. Build a small pyramid of kindling and add three to four pieces of hardwood. Let it burn down to embers, then add another two or three pieces. Keep it going for two to three hours.

The dome should reach 230–300°C. At this temperature, any soot inside the dome from the previous days will start to burn off — you may see the inside lighten in colour as the carbon deposits combust. This is good. This means the oven is reaching proper cooking temperatures and self-cleaning the dome.

The exterior will be hot now, but the structure should be solid. No visible cracking, no movement.

Day 5 — The hot fire

Target dome temperature: 300–400°C

Today the oven gets close to pizza-cooking temperatures. Build a larger fire, let it burn to embers, then add another batch of hardwood. Push the fire toward the back of the oven and let the flame curl across the dome.

You're looking for 300–400°C on the dome. The inside of the dome should turn from grey-black back to pale grey or white — the visual signal that the oven is properly hot and self-cleaning. The cooking floor should be too hot to touch (obviously), and a drop of water on it should evaporate in under a second.

This is the temperature at which the moisture cure is essentially complete. But we do one more day for insurance.

Day 6 — Full heat

Target dome temperature: 400°C+

Go for it. Build a proper pizza fire — a roaring blaze with logs stacked across each other, plenty of airflow, flame curling across the entire dome. Push the fire to one side after 20 minutes and let the dome equalise.

Once you hit 400°C on the cooking floor, you're cured. Cook a pizza. You've earned it.

What to look for during curing

A few things to keep an eye on across the six days:

Steam from the exterior: Normal, especially days 2–4. It's the moisture leaving. If it persists into day 5 or 6, your oven probably needs another day of medium-heat curing.

Small surface hairline cracks: Almost universal. Refractory cement and stone naturally develop fine surface cracks as they expand and contract. As long as they're hairline (less than 1mm) and on the exterior render or stucco, they're cosmetic. They will not affect performance.

Large cracks (3mm+) in the dome interior: Bad news. This usually means you cured too fast. Contact the manufacturer or retailer. With XclusiveDecor ovens from Nuovo Luxury, get in touch with us directly — we'll diagnose and advise.

Smoke escaping from somewhere other than the chimney: Some smoke seepage through the dome render is normal on the first one or two fires as binders burn off. Persistent smoke escaping by day 4 means there's a structural gap that needs addressing.

Common curing mistakes

Rushing it. 'I'll just do one big fire' destroys ovens. The whole point is gradual.

Using softwood or treated wood. Pine and other softwoods burn too hot and too fast for curing, and they leave heavy creosote deposits. Treated wood releases toxic chemicals. Always use kiln-dried hardwood.

Curing on a wet day. Ambient humidity slows the moisture-release process. Pick a dry stretch of weather if possible.

Closing the oven door fully. You need some airflow for the moisture to escape. Either leave the door slightly open or use the chimney damper to maintain a small draft.

Skipping days when the fire seems to die quickly. If the wood burns through faster than expected, add a small amount more and keep that day's fire going for the full duration. Don't compress the schedule.

After the cure: looking after your oven

Once cured, a properly built wood fired oven needs very little maintenance. The main things:

• Brush out ash after each cook. Let the oven cool first — cold ash is easier to handle and you won't risk a smouldering ember in the bin.
• Cover the oven when not in use. A fitted weatherproof cover like the Royal pizza oven cover protects the render, the chimney and any stainless steel exterior from UV, rain and frost.
• Re-fire occasionally in winter. Even if you're not cooking, a small fire every 6–8 weeks through winter helps drive out any moisture that's worked its way back into the structure.
• Inspect annually. Look for any new cracks, check the chimney is clear, and re-tighten any external fittings on stand-mounted ovens.

Re-curing if you've left the oven outside uncovered

If you've left the oven exposed to rain for a full season without firing it, do a short three-day re-cure before any high-heat cooking. Same principle: gradual fires, days 1, 3 and 5 of the schedule above, then full heat.

One final tip: don't waste the cure

You're going to be running fires for almost a week. Use them. Once you hit day 3 or 4, the oven is plenty hot enough to cook something. We've roasted vegetables on day 3, slow-cooked a shoulder of lamb on day 5, and baked bread on day 6 — all before the first proper pizza session.

The cure isn't dead time. It's a week of free meals while you bond with your new oven.

Ready to fire up?

If you've just bought one of our pizza ovens — the Royal, the Royal Max or any of the Premier range — follow this schedule and you'll be cooking proper Neapolitan pizzas inside a week. Take your time, enjoy the build-up, and don't let anyone rush you into a fast cure.

Got curing questions? Email us at the address on the contact page. We've helped hundreds of customers through their first week with an oven and we're happy to help you too.