February 2014
No. 58; Winter Photo Contest and Roma Oven
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Welcome!

As mentioned in the previous newsletter, 2013 marked our 10th year at Forno Bravo. We ended the year with a bang: Last year marked our biggest sales year ever and our 10th consecutive year of year-over-year growth. I'm really proud of that, and for helping people fall in love with the world of wood-fired cooking.

We have now been in our new factory for a little over a year, and we are getting more efficient all the time. I am happy to say that our quality and craftsmanship have never been better. I am a huge believer in continual improvement, and after 10 years of building the world's best pizza ovens, we are always getting better.

Looking forward, we have a lot of fun things in the works: new products, recipes and cloud-based services that we think will help you get more than ever out of your oven – or maybe become a happy owner of a wood-fired oven for the first time.

Out of the gate, we are announcing a new commercial oven – the Roma. We also just posted a new set of pizza oven photos on pages 56 and 57 of our residential photo gallery. You'll see some stunning ovens (including international ones) and nice snow shots.

Speaking of snow, if you are getting hammered this winter, you have my condolences. Our daughter goes to college in Boston, and she has seen it all. To help everyone through the final tough days of winter, we are holding a new photo contest. Details are to the right. Please note that we will be partial to snow photos in support of our friends in the central and eastern U.S. (Sorry Australia.)

To round out the newsletter, you'll find an oldie but goodie from Pizza Quest, a video instructional in which PQ host Peter Reinhart and The Fire Within's Joseph Pergolizzi cook up a provolone pizza.

Stay warm. Spring and a lot of wood-fired cooking are ahead.

James

P.S. We hope you will stay in touch through the Forno Bravo Forum, Facebook, Pinterest and our other online sites. Of course, you can always just call us at (800) 407-5119.

Introducing the Roma

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Attention restaurants, pizzerias, cafes, resorts, caterers and professional food service organizations: the Roma oven is here!

The latest addition to our collection of commercial assembled ovens, the Roma features an attractive, rugged and waterproof painted stucco enclosure, making it the right choice for either a traditional indoor kitchen setting or outdoor entertaining area. The oven can be easily moved with a forklift or hand truck, providing authentic Italian wood/gas-fired cooking and Pizza Napoletana wherever you want it. The ovens are available in two sizes: 44" (room for six 11" pizzas) and 48" (seven pizzas).

These igloo- (or dome-) shaped ovens are built using the popular Forno Bravo Professionale oven core, providing a heavy-duty 3" cooking dome, 2.5" firebrick tile cooking floor and extra-thick 4" to 6" ceramic insulation for excellent high-heat cooking, heat retention and fuel efficiency.

Like all Forno Bravo ovens, the Roma D-Series ovens are designed with optimal proportions, including the perfect oven dome height and oven opening size for baking serious Pizza Napoletana.

They are fully insulated and fully finished with a smooth stucco enclosure that has been sealed, painted and glazed. For outdoor use, the ovens are vented with a UL103HT chimney system, and include the chimney and spark arrester. The ovens can be vented indoors using either the UL103HT system or a Listed Type 1 hood with grease duct venting.

Each Roma oven can be fired using either wood only or with the Forno Bravo burner, which provides both gas-only and gas/wood-combo operation. The Roma ovens are internationally certified to UL and NSF standards for restaurant use.

View the Roma datasheet (PDF) for more photos and information.

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Peter's Corner: Joseph's Provolone Pizza

Pizza QuestPeter Reinhart, our Pizza Quest host, baking instructor and baker extraordinaire, shares a popular video instructional from the archives.

In this video instructional, Joseph Pergolizzi, founder and owner of The Fire Within, makes a simple yet beautiful pizza with pesto, two kinds of cheese and local cherry tomatoes. We also talk about the oven rigs (and oven tools) themselves. (For more details on The Fire Within's mobile pizza ovens and upcoming workshops, visit mobilewoodfiredpizzaovens.com.)

Watch: Joseph's Provolone Pizza

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Now back to the pizza: Note that the crust is a little puffy in this version, almost like a round Sicilian or focaccia-style dough, but you can always make the crust as thin or thick as you like when you do it. The dough was so delicious (recipe here), and the combo of fresh tomatoes, pesto and cheeses is so perfect that, when the cameras stopped running, we devoured this little pie in about 30 seconds. – Peter

Note: The photo in the newsletter header, right side, is from Brad English's recent Pizza Quest instructional: Wood-Fired Bo Ssam Miracle