The Wood-Fired Blog
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
Olive oil and bread at the San Francisco Ferry Building
Apr 22, 2012We went to the San Francisco Farmers’ Market at the Ferry Building this weekend, and had a good time. It was a balmy, sunny day with the temperature hitting 79ºF (hot weather seems to be following me), and it was nice walking down around the city—we also have fun taking BART across town at one point. The market at the Ferry Building is an interesting cross between a traditional farmers’... 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
April 2012 | No. 37; Made in the USA & Kohlrabi Gratin
Apr 10, 2012Welcome! This April 2012 issue of the Wood-Fired Newsletter is packed with content, including an article on Forno Bravo’s commitment to producing high-quality, Made-in-the-USA ovens, a recap from Peter Reinhart on his recent adventures in NYC at the IACP conference, and a recipe for kohlrabi gratin. So we’ll get right to it. But first, I’d like to quickly mention that on Monday, April 16, I reached a personal achievement: At... 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
Wood-Fired Pizzerias in the U.S.
Apr 05, 2012I wrote this article in 2005 for consideration by one of the Restaurant trade magazines. They decided to not run my article, but looking back at it seven years later, I think the points that I made were true then, and are still true today. There are more wood-fired pizzerias in the U.S than there were in 2005, but still not nearly enough. We need to fix that. James Authentic... Read More
