The Wood-Fired Blog
Proper Seasoning. Seasoned Wood That Is.
May 02, 2012I don’t think you can overstate just how important dry wood is to an enjoyable session of wood-fired cooking. Damp wood is hard (dare I say impossible) to light, it smokes when it burns (that’s because the fire needs to bake all the moisture out of the wood before it actually combusts) and it takes much longer to fire your oven for cooking. It can take all of the fun... Read More
The Napoli — Pizza Napoletana Made Simple
May 01, 2012I’ve thinking about simplicity recently. When done right, a simple product can make your life easier, maybe a little better; it can solve problems; and it can free you up to think about what you want to do—not the device you use to do it. A simple product can be relaxing to look at and a joy to use. A simple product makes innovative design, craftsmanship and sophisticated technology feel... Read More
Pizza and Food Trucks
Apr 27, 2012There was a nice article on a Food Truck with a Forno Bravo oven the other day, it is got me thinking about Food Trucks, pizza, France, rolling pins and the feudal system. Pizza Amore Food trucks are hot. The best foot truck companies have loyal customers who track their movements on Twitter and follow them where ever they go. There are food truck maps on the Web that will... Read More
A Red Andiamo70 in Action
Apr 24, 2012Check out a fun customer posting on his new, red Andiamo70 in www.pizzamaking.com. If you haven’t read it before, pizzamaking.com is an enthusiast web site dedicated to high-end pizza making. We do not read the site, because I think that pizza lovers should be able to enjoy their hobby without any input (or selling) from equipment manufacturers, but I got this link from a friend. I think this is interesting... Read More
How Do You Price a Pizza Oven?
Apr 13, 2012As a manufacturer and retailer, how do we price your products? It’s an interesting question and there are a number of different issues that come into play. As I wrote earlier, I believe that a higher degree of business transparency is an appropriate strategy in the Internet age, and it occurred to me that sharing our pricing strategy would make sense—both for us and for our customers. If you have... Read More
New Third Generation FB Castable
Apr 12, 2012This is the original version of the article I wrote on the new third-generation FB Castable. A shorter version of this appeared in the March 2012 Wood-Fired Newsletter. James We have developed a great deal of expertise at Forno Bravo over the years with refractory materials and insulators, and we have worked hard to continually improve. We are proud to introduce the third generation of FB Castable, the material we... Read More
Innovating a 2,000 Year Old Product
Apr 10, 2012The word innovation usually conjures up images of semiconductors, Internet software and green energy. But at Forno Bravo, we keep innovating around a 2,000 year old product. I have written a lot over the years about the ovens in ancient Pompeii, and how remarkable the design, the materials and the craftsmanship were on the ovens. How do you improve on something that has been so well known and understood for... Read More
Am I Drying-Out or Curing My Oven?
Apr 10, 2012One interesting aspect of the modern brick oven is the degree to which it shares technology with industrial equipment—including furnaces. As designers, we use both raw materials and manufactured products to build ovens that are light weight, that are resistant to thermal cycling (heat up and cool down cycles), that are resistant to thermal shock (putting cold, wet pizza dough on a very hot ceramic surface), that hold high heat... Read More
Made in the USA
Apr 06, 2012Every Forno Bravo oven (other than the Artigiano) is made in our own factory in Marina, CA (Northern California). I am extremely proud of our manufacturing team and their commitment to high quality, American-based manufacturing. Over the past three years, we have continually added new manufacturing personnel, capacity, capability, equipment, and experience. In terms of we pure real estate, we have tripled our footprint in a little more than two... Read More
