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 Whether you are using convection ovens, brick ovens, conveyor ovens, or deck ovens, the most crucial aspect to an effective pizza oven is cleanliness. Most people tend to push away the thought of cleaning their pizza oven because of how daunting it can get. However, for a functional oven that gives you good tasting pizza, cleaning is an absolute must.

How often you do your cleaning will determine the time each session takes. If you do it regularly and as part of your routine job, you won’t have to spend hours per cleaning session. The following tips can help you do your cleaning without stress. 

1. Wait for the Oven to Cool

Immediately after cooking your pizza, don’t rush to clean the oven. Give it time to cool down. The dangers of cleaning a hot oven are many including the risk of injury and even damage to the oven.

Ovens that have pizza stones are especially difficult to clean when hot and any attempt to force a clean up may cause the stones to crack. The damage may be costly to repair. Another disadvantage of cleaning a hot oven is the fact that some fragments of stone may end up in your pizza. This is the last thing that you would want to happen to your pizza. 

2. Clean Oftentimes

Even if you have the best pizza oven, you cannot afford to allow a build-up of dirt. When this happens, it causes many other problems including a strange taste in your food. There have been reports that dirty pizza ovens are at a high risk of causing fires. This endangers everyone working around or operating the oven. The best way through this is to get into a routine where you constantly clean your oven. 

3. Use the Right Tools

This cannot be emphasized enough. Some people out of convenience and time constraints use pieces of cloth or sponge to wipe off the dirt. This is not right and will affect the effectiveness of the oven. During the cooking process, some pieces of food get churred and stick in the oven. The proper way to get this out is by using a scraper and a brush.

If the dirt is heavy-layered, a heavy-duty brush is ideal. Cleaning isn’t always easy, and you need to put strength in the scrubbing if you want a quality finish. 

4. Clean Up Any Spilled Toppings

Part of the dirt in an oven is a build-up of old food. Getting rid of this first makes the remaining task lighter. Once the pizza is cooked, use appropriate tools to pull out the spilt toppings. If you don’t do this, they will overcook, burn, and get stuck on the inside of the oven.

A simple trick to contain the spilled toppings is to use a baking sheet or a foil under the heating element. The shiny side of the foil should face downwards. This will help you catch any toppings that would have otherwise fallen right on the oven. 

5. Fire Up the Oven

However, contradictory and drastic this may look, it is one of the best recommendations in cleaning up your oven. When you start a 370 degrees Celsius fire, it can effectively help you clean the inside walls of your oven. It burns away any accumulated soot making the rest of the cleaning process much easier.

6. Clean the Other Parts of the Oven as Well

The oven is a mechanism with different parts all linked together. When cleaning, you can easily forget about the other areas of the oven and concentrate on the actual cleaning area only. Parts such as the air intakes and the bearings require attention as well. They end up getting clogged with grease and this affects the overall performance of your pizza oven. 

7. Follow the Manufacturer’s Recommendations

The manufacturer is best positioned to help you maintain your oven. They do this through recommendations they give you in the form of brochures and booklets. Instead of taking maintenance into your own hands, follow the advice of the oven manufacturer. They may recommend certain cleaning methods or products.

An outdoor pizza oven can serve you up to 25 years, but if you don’t clean the oven regularly, this lifespan reduces.