Out of curiosity, I went to look at the Mugnaini page to see what their ovens are made of. This is what they say:
Quote:
|
Cotto Refrattario is Tuscan "refractory terra-cotta clay". For superior thermal efficiency, the Mugnaini ovens are made of 100% naturally quarried cotto refrattario.
|
This is good, because they seem to be made of fired refractory ceramic. They specifically say they are 40% alumina content, the same as low-duty firebrick. The curious thing is the phrase "100% naturally quarried" - to my best knowledge the alumina content of firebrick is a by-product of making bauxite into aluminum, and didn't exist in any quantity before the invention of electricity. Maybe the bauxite is so quarried.
But to answer the question: Poplar and birch ARE hardwoods, just not very dense ones. It will take more of those woods to fire an oven, but they will work just fine. Pine is a different story. It is so resinous that smoke from it can clog chimneys, and cause flue fires when used in a wood stove, which uses a constricted oxygen smoldering fire to keep going long periods of time. I don't think this would be a problem in an oven, which uses a hotly burning fire at all times. It might leave a slight turpentine taste in the food, I don't know. I tend to use pine (in the form of scrap lumber) just to get the fire going, and use hardwood logs later.
If fir, pine or spruce were an absolute prohibition for ovens, they couldn't be used in places like Colorodo, places where ALL the firewood is pine.
The one thing I don't know is how thick the Mugnaini ovens are. The FB ovens are about 2 inches thick. If your oven was much thinner there might be a question of thermal shock.