-2

A house hold oven tops out at just 550 Fahrenheit or 288 Celsius , but lower than average temperature wood fired pizza ovens operate at about 650 Fahrenheit and average ones at 752 Fahrenheit or 400 Celsius and high average ones at 900 Fahrenheit . with the hottest restarting chain baking their pizzas at 1000 Fahrenheit or 538 Celsius . With one person reportedly baking them at 600 Celsius or 1112 Fahrenheit for 45 seconds .some steak broilers reach 1800 Fahrenheit or 990 Celsius . But what I’m curious to know what is the ignition temperature of a thin crust pizza made with special flour . And what’s the maximum temperature it can theoretically be baked at for 30 to 35 seconds without igniting or being way to charred to eat , would 700 Celsius or 1292 Fahrenheit be too high ? If so or not so , what is the maximum .for reference a piece of bread bursts into flames instantly when exposed to an open candle flame at about 2000 Fahrenheit or 1093 Celsius . And quickly chars beyond recognition , if you don’t watch carefully .it but takes a very long time to ignite when exposed to the small embers of a dying wood campfire at 760 Celsius or 1400 Fahrenheit Only answer if you are confident you know !

Thomas Barnable
  • 1
  • 3
    You may want to also consider water content when estimating “time until burning”. Just a thought. – Stephie Sep 12 '21 at 07:38
  • 2
    Tandoors are run at about 480 C/900 F and cook naan within a few seconds. Very difficult question to answer as it has a lot of variables - thickness of dough, hydration, toppings, exposed area, heat conduction surface etc. – bob1 Sep 12 '21 at 08:30
  • Of course, another variable...the internal temp. of a pizza oven may be 900 F, but the surface, where pizza is cooked is significantly lower. – moscafj Sep 12 '21 at 11:21
  • 1
    Is there a practical aspect to the question ? you want to cook something at very high temp. without having to keep an eye on it ? – Max Sep 12 '21 at 11:48
  • Stephie is right, as long as there is any water not yet vaporated in the pizza it wont ignite. Also you need to take the time of the heat transfer into account. Even if a Neapolitan Pizza is baked at around 500°C the Mozarella on it is not even getting much warmer than 60-70°C which is enough to melt it but not to burn it. It is much more important to choose the **right** temperature to yield a thoroghly cooked pizza, than striving for the temperature most closest to ignition as it would leave you with a meal that is charcoaled on the outside and still raw on the inside. – J. Mueller Sep 15 '21 at 20:18
  • You can find the math for calculating the heat energy transfered to the pizza from the refractory oven in *The Neapolitan Pizza - A scientific guide about the artisanal process* by Masi, Romano et Coccia. (Doppiavoce, Napoli, 2018) – J. Mueller Sep 15 '21 at 20:21

1 Answers1

6

This is not an answerable question. The most precise answer you'll ever get is "it depends". The most practical answer is "when you have installed your oven, use trial and error to find out".

First, to clear up an important misunderstanding. The auto-ignition temperature of pizza shouldn't be that different from pure flour - the first reference I found gives 311 C for a 5 mm thick layer. It may be that for a pizza, it is a couple of dozen degrees more and less, but it doesn't really matter. But that temperature is something entirely different from the oven temperature.

You seem to define the maximum cooking temperature as "the heat source temperature at which a pizza will char within 30 seconds". Such a temperature can only be defined with respect to a given oven. For example, the sun is at 15,000,000 C, and it heats the pizza, but cannot char it, while a paltry wood fired oven can do it, simply because of the different geometry of the pizza-"oven" setup. Oh, and it is also not about "any food" but specifically about a pizza, because the food's physical properties also matter.

Also, if you do have a specific oven in mind and want to know its maximum temperature for a 30-second pizza, it is not at all worth trying to calculate it theoretically. "Not worth" as in, the calculation would probably take up a full research group's time several years, and still require multiple empirical tests just to calibrate the models needed. So in practice, anybody who needs that information just bakes a few pizzas.

rumtscho
  • 134,346
  • 44
  • 300
  • 545