Cook with wood or charcoal

The right wood and charcoal

The manual (pp. 53 to 56). Never burn gas and wood together, and never use the gas burner to light wood: it can seriously damage the oven (the manual).

1. Use kiln-dried hardwood about 14 × 2 to 5 × 2 to 5 cm: ash, alder, oak, beech, hickory or fruit woods.
2. Aim for 16% moisture; 10 to 20% is good.
3. Or use restaurant-grade lumpwood, hardwood charcoal or binchotan in 5 to 10 cm pieces, completely dry.
4. Light it with 1 natural, odour-free firelighter. Never spirits, petrol or lighter fluid.

Never: pine, fir, cedar, redwood, spruce, fatwood, painted, stained or treated wood, sappy or freshly cut wood; briquettes, self-lighting, damp, reclaimed or softwood charcoal. Soft woods make creosote (a tarry soot) in the burner and oven.

Light and feed the fire

Outdoors only for home use. Never in a building, garage, tent, vehicle, boat, or under a balcony or deck. Never cover the oven mouth while it is lit, and never cover the slots and holes in the base or the dock (no foil): the fumes contain carbon monoxide (the manual).

1. Check the gas is off and the duct grate is fitted.
2. Build a small stack of kindling with the firelighter in the centre, light it and let it take.
3. Push the fire to the right, over the duct grate.
4. Keep feeding for about 30 minutes, until the oven is saturated, then keep a rolling flame across the roof.
5. Add wood onto a good bed of glowing embers, or add kindling first, to avoid heavy smoke.
6. If flames come out of the mouth, step away and let them die down: there should never be any.

The optional Wood-Fire Control Kit (AM1998 / AM1999) clips into the right-hand dock hatch and needs its wood rack.