Wood Fired Oven Tools
Pizza Shovel - also known as a Pizza Peel
You don’t know us very well yet, but we’re quite modest people and it’s hard for us to tell you this, but our pizza shovel is just THE BEST... It’s long, it’s strong, it’s beautiful, it’s the essence of pizza shovel-ness. As soon as you hold it and feel the strength and quality you’ll know you won’t want to use anything else in your wood fired oven.
If you like to bare bake (cook your pizzas and bread directly on the wood fired oven floor without using a tray underneath them) the thick stainless steel plate and the chamfered edge are great for sliding your dough exactly where you need it to go. Stainless steel has a much finer grain and greater heat and dint resistance then alumininum and you’ll quickly become really confident moving your dough about. We have also included some fairly extensive info on our BARE BAKING page to make doubly sure you look professional!
Oven Tool Features:
Completely Weatherproof
Food grade stainless steel, Australian hardwood, solid brass; not only are these components the best quality available, they're really tough and durable and they age beautifully. Hang ‘em outside, neglect them. In ten years time, your oven tools will look even better than they do today…
Totally Practical
These babies are designed for use – we've thought long and hard about what works best and how to ensure they're easy to hang, easy to hold, easy to clean and maintain. Big hooks, long strong handles, the right sizes for your oven, the right shapes for your food and wood…
Really Stylish
Out in the paddock or looking out over the harbour, our tools belong at your place. They’ve got a classic feel (even though they’re very contemporary) that makes them timeless. And they’ve got balance. The hardness of the stainless works really well with the strong dark wood, and the soft glimmer of the brass really lifts them to another level because brass, well it’s a chameleon. It can be classic, nautical or rustic – it all depends on the look you’ve created around them…
Care Instructions
See our simple Care Instructions at the bottom of this page.
When you ARE using trays (for pizza or roasts or whatever) the actual plate is a whopping 31cm wide, 35cm long and 1.6mm thick – making it large and sturdy enough to ferry the biggest and heaviest baking trays around.
The 100cm long and 32mm thick handle keeps you well back from the heat and gives you good control and that length and strength and the angle from the handle down to the plate means you can even push big logs around or load your whole fire onto the plate and lift it out of the oven with ease – try doing that with an alumininum paddle!
P.S. If your one of those people who just has to know (how something starts, I mean) then we’ve included a bit of a story for you in About Us that explains how we first started making wood fired oven tools.
Pizza Shovel Features:
- Large stainless steel ring, suits a wide variety of hooks and hangers
- Solid brass etched nameplate
- Fire hardened spotted gum or qwilla hardwood handle
- Food grade 1.6mm thick stainless steel plate
- Solid brass 25 mm screws for good grip - no wobbly handles, ever
- Brass capped stainless steel rivets
- Chamfered and slightly sharpened working edge for easy sliding
- As well as the standard size referred to here, Shovels (and all other tools) can be made to your specifications AND/OR personalised with wood engraving or metal etching – see the Customise Tools page
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Standard Dimensions: | |
| Handle: | 100cm x 32mm | |
| Plate: | 35cm long x 31cm wide | |
| Plate Thickness: | 1.6mm | |
| Ring: | 6.5cm x 8mm | |
| Hanging Clearance: | 2cm | |
| Total Length: | 137cm | |
| Net Weight: | 2.5kg | |
Trowel
The trowel is for close work – lifting up the edge of your pizza to see if it’s done, nudging a pan two inches to the left, turning a loaf of bread so it browns evenly – those kinds of things.
It sounds a bit decadent and like we’re encouraging you to 'tool up' (which, of course, we would NEVER do!) but if you do buy a trowel, you’ll find you use it all the time for a wide variety of tasks.
These tasks may sound really petty when said out loud or written down, but they’re exactly the sort of annoying little jobs that tempt you to use your hands or a tea towel or something else that’s going to burn or melt (like our plastic salad servers did in about 2 seconds) because you’re too lazy or impatient to get the shovel down or put your 10 kilo asbestos oven mitts on just to do that one little thing…
Things like – playing with your naan or flat bread, pushing at your roast or lifting it up and transferring it out of the tray so you can make gravy, popping a little breakfast-y, pizza-y, muffin-y thing in the oven when you just want a quick snack, turning over a whole pile of roast potatoes or other vegetables, cutting into meat to see if it’s done, pulling sausages apart; the trowel’s small enough to just sit there quietly on the bench, nice and close and handy and just generally useful.
Trowel Features:
- Large stainless steel ring, suits a wide variety of hooks and hangers
- Fire hardened spotted gum or qwilla hardwood handle
- Food grade 1.6mm food grade stainless steel plate
- Solid brass 25 mm screws for good grip – no wobbly handles, ever
- Solid brass etched nameplate
- Brass capped stainless steel rivets
- At 18 cm wide, the plate is large enough to hold pizza trays and even move baking pans about, but small enough not to be ‘overkill' on a muffin
- Pointy end for lifting up pizza edge to check underneath, also easy to slide under and flip pita and naan bread, etc
- As well as the standard size referred to here, Trowels (and all other tools) can be made to your specifications AND/OR personalised with wood engraving or metal etching – see the Customise Tools page
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Standard Dimensions: | |
| Handle: | 30cm x 32mm | |
| Plate: | 28cm x 18cm | |
| Plate Thickness: | 1.6mm | |
| Ring: | 6.5cm x 8mm | |
| Hanging Clearance: | 2cm | |
| Total Length: | 60cm | |
| Net Weight: | 700gm | |
Coal Scoop
The coal scoop is a brilliant idea. Unfortunately, we can't take the credit. Our friend Mark, who makes Marco's Wood Fired Pizza Ovens [see Our Links] made one of them for his roof. Not that he was making pizzas up there, but he cut down an old shovel to clean his gutters with and then a light bulb went off over his head (not literally) and he thought "I reckon this might be good for the oven".
He was right. If you're still poking logs around with a stick or nudging them with another log or loosing your arm hair prodding at them with tongs YOU NEED A COAL SCOOP.
Ten minutes with one of these babies and you'll be directing your fire like an army general and moving it from zig to zag like an ice hockey player…
No more burnt arms, no more burnt (and shrinking) sticks laying about looking like the tribe came to visit and left all their spears behind, no more tong brands on your palms. Instead, calm, clinical, fire surgery – thanks Doctor Mark!
Coal Scoop Features:
- Large stainless steel ring, suits a wide variety of hooks and hangers
- Long, fire hardened spotted gum or qwilla hardwood handle for cool, easy, safe manoeuvrability
- Food grade 1.6 mm thick stainless steel plate
- Solid brass 25 mm screws for good grip - no wobbly handles, ever
- Solid brass etched nameplate
- Brass capped stainless steel rivets
- Curved face allows you to encircle and move the whole fire
- Flat end allows you to direct individual logs
- As well as the standard size referred to here, Coal Scoops (and all other tools) can be made to your specifications AND/OR personalised with wood engraving or metal etching – see the Customise Tools page
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Standard Dimensions: | |
| Handle: | 96cm x 32mm | |
| Plate: | 32cm x 10cm | |
| Plate Thickness: | 1.6mm | |
| Ring: | 6.5cm x 8mm | |
| Hanging Clearance: | 2cm | |
| Total Length: | 130cm | |
| Net Weight: | 1kg | |
Pan Hook
Last but by no means least is the pan hook. It's not rocket science and it won't change your life (well not majorly anyway), it just is what it is – a hook for your pans.
It's a pretty good pan hook though, nice and strong – it's never going to wobble or let go.
Also, the pan hook isn't 'down' from the end of the pole, it's centred on it, so you've got a lot more control and don't need to jerk around trying to lasso your pans from over the top; you can kind of 'sneak' up on them and catch them quietly.
And the pan hook itself is deep, so you can get a decent grip on your pan and both 'pull' and 'push' the thing around.
We should probably also mention that the sides of the pan hook are really steep so you can get into really tight corners and through all sorts of funny handles, though you probably don't want to get me started on stupid handles!
Oh, nearly forgot, the pan hook's also got a kind of point at the end that means you can put on and take off lids without fear of disaster and even get under those really stupid handles and the matching really stupid lids (and you really don't want to get me started on stupid lids!) that fall back flat against the pan...
Like we said, it's not rocket science, but how does what you're using measure up?
Pan Hook Features:
- Large stainless steel ring, suits a wide variety of hooks and hangers
- Fire hardened spotted gum or qwilla hardwood handle for cool, easy handling
- Solid brass 25 mm screws for good grip - no wobbly handles, ever
- Solid brass etched nameplate
- Brass capped stainless steel rivets
- Long, 8 mm thick food grade stainless steel rod handle and hook for both strength and manoeuvrability
- Steep sided and centred hook gives great control and allows you to move pans in any direction
- Pointed end lets you deal easily with all sorts of lids and handles
- As well as the standard size referred to here, Hooks (and all other tools) can be made to your specifications AND/OR personalised with wood engraving or metal etching – see the Customise Tools page
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Standard Dimensions: | |
| Wooden Handle: | 50cm x 32mm | |
| Metal Handle & Hook: | 85cm x 8mm | |
| Hook Clearance: | 3.5cm | |
| Ring: | 6.5cm x 8mm | |
| Hanging Clearance: | 2cm | |
| Total Length: | 137cm | |
| Net Weight: | 900g | |
Ash Pan and Brush Set
'Natural' bristle or 'Wire' bristle brush:
Those of you who’ve been with us from the start know that this pan and brush set has been a long time coming – we’ve been playing around with the idea of it for couple of years now – but finally, we think we’ve got it right…
The big hold up has always been because of the brushes. No matter what you do or how careful you are, if they spend time in the fire, inevitably, your brush heads wear out. So, we wasted a year or so trying to make indestructible brushes. This proved pretty difficult, particularly since, while metal brushes were great with live coals, when you want to move ash or sweep your oven floor, you need something finer – like natural bristle.
Anyway, seems pretty obvious now, but it took us a while to accept that over six months or so of use, a bristle brush was always going to burn down, but that was OK if you let go of ‘indestructible’ and instead, just made sure the heads were ‘replaceable’.
Of course, if something is to be replaceable, we reckon three things are mandatory: it’s got to be easy to do and the replacements need to be inexpensive and readily available.
In the end, the best choice was an Australian owned company (don’t ya love it when that happens?!); Oates cleaning products are available from most hardware and hospitality stores across Australia and if you have any difficulty getting them, we always keep a stock ourselves and are happy to on-sell them for what they cost us to buy (currently $15 - $18).
As an extra special bonus, as well as their durable and inexpensive bristle brush, Oates also make a wire brush the same size. This means that our brush handle will take both bristle and wire brushes and that they can be interchanged – so you can buy just one handle and use both sorts of brush heads on it!
So, a bristle brush for cleaning up your ash and also for cleaning the floor before you bare bake and a wire brush for sweeping hot coals and cleaning up melted cheese and other messes; AND you can either have two handles if your feeling extravagant or one handle and change the heads over in an instant – told you I think we’ve cracked it!
The Brush/s Features:
- Large stainless steel ring, suits a wide variety of hooks and hangers
- Solid brass etched nameplate
- Fire hardened spotted gum or qwilla hardwood handle
- Food grade 1.6mm thick stainless steel plate
- Solid brass 25 mm screws for good grip - no wobbly handles, ever
- Brass capped stainless steel rivets
- Brush is made to be used in the horizontal/near horizontal position
- Handles fit both natural bristle and wire heads
- Heads are easy to change and replace – to release, simply press on holding spring bar at back
- Between the two heads everything from hot coals to burning logs to fine ash can be moved and the floor made completely cleaned for cooking
- Heads are made by an Australian owned company and are readily available and well priced
- Even given fairly constant use, bristle heads should last 3-6 months and wire heads around a year.
- As well as the standard size referred to here, Brushes (and all other tools) can be made to your specifications AND/OR personalised with wood engraving or metal etching – see the Customise Tools page
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Standard Dimensions: | |
| Handle: | 109cm x 32mm | |
| Brush Head: | 21cm x 7cm | |
| Stainless Steel Plate Thickness: | 1.6mm | |
| Natural Bristle Version | 6cm bristles x 5 rows | |
| Wire Bristle Version | 5cm bristles x 5 rows | |
| Ring: | 6.5cm x 8mm | |
| Hanging Clearance: | 2cm | |
| Total Length: | 127cm | |
| Net Weight: | 1.5kg | |
The Ash Pan:
Oh, better tell you a bit about the pan too!
The pan is great. Because of the wide front, you can scoop up everything from fine ash to big, live coals and bits of wood without spilling it everywhere or loosing half of it on the way out of the oven and then, because of the raised sides, everything stays in place on the trip to your coal bucket or ash container, where it just slides out.
And, of course, the broom fits in the pan neatly, so when you’re sweeping the floor or clearing out the coals, everything works really well together.
Ash Pan Features:
- Large stainless steel ring, suits a wide variety of hooks and hangers
- Solid brass etched nameplate
- Fire hardened spotted gum or qwilla hardwood handle
- Food grade 1.6mm thick stainless steel plate
- Solid brass 25 mm screws for good grip - no wobbly handles, ever
- Brass capped stainless steel rivets
- Pan is made to be used in the horizontal/near horizontal position
- Pan is wider at mouth than at back for easy loading and unloading
- Pan mouth edge is chamfered and slightly sharpened for good pick up
- High sides keep load in place but do not prevent you moving logs
- Fits easily into most fire boxes and ash buckets
- As well as the standard size referred to here, Ash Pans (and all other tools) can be made to your specifications AND/OR personalised with wood engraving or metal etching – see the Customise Tools page
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Standard Dimensions: | |
| Handle: | 94cm x 32mm | |
| Ash Plate Measurements: | 25cm long x 26 cm wide at front, 21cm at back | |
| Ash Plate Depth: | 3cm at front, increasing to 5cm at the back | |
| Stainless Steel Plate Thickness: | 1.6mm | |
| Ring: | 6.5cm x 8mm | |
| Hanging Clearance: | 2cm | |
| Total Length: | 131cm | |
| Net Weight: | 2kg | |
Damp Mop
This is one for the Bakers. If you’re a serious bread maker, usually you use a damp mop either to clean the floor or to create steam and control the floor temperature (see our Bare Baking section.)
What we’ve done is take what we learnt from the Pan and Brush Set (above) and apply it to a mop – of course the mop head is going to wear out with use, but the heads are cheap and readily available, so we’ve made a nice Slow-Foody-looking handle for them and when they wear out, you can change ‘em.
Again, we’ve gone with an Oates mop head because they’re so readily available and we’ve chosen a nice, big, industrial sized one – a number 16 in fact. (Did you know mop heads come in over 20 sizes?) If you aren’t near a hardware or hospitality supply store, or if the ones near you don’t stock this size; don’t worry, we’ll keep plenty here and we’re happy to on-sell them at cost price (currently $10).
After due consideration, we have decided against stocking mop buckets – having too many cleaning tools around the house makes me nervous (did you see Fantasia?!) and, the buckets are just too big to send around the country when they’re already available everywhere - so if you want a bucket, get your own!
Also, a bucket is not essential (though, if you’ve come this far...!), because an oven mop is usually only used damp, not dripping; it is quite possible to just spray water on from a spray bottle and/or, if you do need it wet, to squeeze it out with your hands or an old towel.
PLEASE NOTE THOUGH: Whilst our mop is pretty sexy and you may already have a bucket for the floor, if you’re thinking of doubling up and using one set for both purposes, our mop doesn’t make a good floor mop (it’s made to use horizontally, not vertically) and sharing buckets is chancy – AJAX flavoured pizza isn’t nice!
Damp Mop Features:
- Large stainless steel ring, suits a wide variety of hooks and hangers
- Solid brass etched nameplate
- Fire hardened spotted gum or qwilla hardwood handle
- Food grade 1.6mm thick stainless steel plate
- Solid brass 25 mm screws for good grip - no wobbly handles, ever
- Brass capped stainless steel rivets
- Mop is made to be used in the horizontal/near horizontal position
- Mop Heads are easily replaceable – simple unscrew the D clamp holding the existing head in place, insert a new head and do the two screws up again
- Mop heads are made by an Australian owned company and are heavy duty, readily available and well priced
- Even given fairly constant use, mop heads should last at least a year
- As well as the standard size referred to here, Damp Mops (and all other tools) can be made to your specifications AND/OR personalised with wood engraving or metal etching – see the Customise Tools page
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Standard Dimensions: | |
| Handle: | 108cm x 32mm | |
| Mop Holder: | 10cm long x 9cm wide | |
| Mop: | 20cm long x 24cm spread | |
| Stainless Steel Plate Thickness: | 1.6mm | |
| Ring: | 6.5cm x 8mm | |
| Hanging Clearance: | 2cm | |
| Total Length: | 125cm | |
| Net Weight: | 1.5kg | |
Ember Rake
Again, an Ember Rake is a bit of a speciality tool. In use, it falls somewhere between the Coal Scoop and the Pan and Brush and is really only for those people who do big bulk and/or staged cooking and really want to move their fire about a lot.
The other people who buy these particular tools are those smart souls who’ve actually built in an ash-tray in front of their oven door – they can use the rake to just scrape all their coals and ash up and drop it in. If your one of these people, we can actually make your ember rake exactly the size of the mouth of your container and, seeing as you’re so clever, you’ll probably appreciate that level of precision...
Ember Rake Features:
- Large stainless steel ring, suits a wide variety of hooks and hangers
- Solid brass etched nameplate
- Fire hardened spotted gum or qwilla hardwood handle
- Food grade 1.6mm thick stainless steel plate
- Solid brass 25 mm screws for good grip - no wobbly handles, ever
- Brass capped stainless steel rivets
- Rake is made to be used in the horizontal/near horizontal position and to either push or pull items
- Because the blade is really deep and the handle higher again, large logs can be moved with ease and good visibility maintained at all stages of move
- As well as the standard size referred to here, Ember Rakes (and all other tools) can be made to your specifications AND/OR personalised with wood engraving or metal etching – see the Customise Tools page
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Standard Dimensions: | |
| Handle: | 109cm x 32mm | |
| Blade: | 31cm wide x 10cm high | |
| Stainless Steel Plate Thickness: | 1.6mm | |
| Ring: | 6.5cm x 8mm | |
| Hanging Clearance: | 2cm | |
| Total Length: | 125cm | |
| Net Weight: | 1.5kg | |
Oven Tools Care Tips
These fire tools and wood fired oven accessories are made from high quality food grade stainless steel. They are tough as nails and can be left outside in all weather. The only thing you need to do is to oil the handles occasionally (i.e., once or twice a year) to maintain the timber colour.
The tools can be washed just like any other kitchen item, but usually a wipe over with a damp cloth will suffice.
If you manage to really burn food onto them (and that takes a fair bit of effort) remember that, just like any other stainless steel items, they can be scratched by harsh abrasives. Resist getting out the steel wool and just soak the burnt gunk overnight – it'll just fall off then.
If your one of those people who like to be able to see your face reflected in the stainless surface, the occasional polish with one of the commercial stainless steel products or a stiff paste of bi-carb and water, will bring it back to a nice, shiny finish.
Please note: Obviously, care must be taken when using any natural/flammable product in the oven. Do not leave these tools in the oven longer than necessary to perform their particular function and as you finish using each tool, check that no live ash or coals adheres to the surface or underside.
Specific Brush and Mop Care Tips
Please Note: Occasionally, strands or bristles may come loose from the brush or mop head during use. Please check the oven floor thoroughly before placing food directly on the surface. Also, obviously, care must be taken when using any natural/flammable product in the oven and the natural bristle brush and mop in particular should never be put directly in, or held directly over, the fire.
To change the brush heads: Pete puts the broom handle between his legs with the brush head facing upwards and sticking out about a foot from his clenched thighs(!). He presses the little lever-y bit of the clip back towards him with one hand and grips the brush head by the bristles in the other hand and pulls it out as the clip raises up (My God, it's like writing porn!). To put a new head in, you pretty much do the same (clench thighs, brush holder facing up) and then insert the new head under the front edge first and lift the clip back enough to get the rear end in. Don't worry, it's both easier and less lewd to do then it is to write about!
To change the mop head over: Your replacement mop probably has a plastic head piece on it (it is not possible to buy one without it these days). Obviously, this needs to be removed before the new head is attached to the handle. If you have bought the mop head directly from us, you may wonder why we have not done this for you in advance, but during product development, Pete beheaded many, many mops and we discovered that, despite his best intentions and several ingenious suggestions from me, once undone, the mops tended to get untidy no matter how you tied them up and that it’s best to just get them straight on the clamp rather than leave them lying around with their hair loose, getting all bedraggled! Anyway, what we do is just cut or snip the plastic piece away (we like garden secateurs) then undo the d-clamp fitting on our handle, take it off, 'drape' the mop-hair over the 'd' part and then put the ends of the 'd' back through the handle piece and do them back up.
Hangers & Racks