A few tips from Grandma for your wood-burning oven

Did you know that you can eliminate dust mites or dry herbs in your wood-fired oven? The team at Four Grand-Mère shares some of its secrets, passed down for over 40 years, for determining the temperature of the oven floor without a thermometer or using your oven in unexpected ways...

• Share
• Print

To determine the temperature without a thermometer

To estimate the temperature of the oven floor without a thermometer, you can throw certain foods onto it and observe the result:

• A pinch of flour thrown onto the floor burns and smokes at temperatures above 270°C. It gradually browns and blackens at 220°C.
• Sugar browns and blackens at temperatures above 170°C.
• If a few drops of water wet the brick and evaporate quickly, the temperature is slightly below 100°C. If, on contact with the oven floor, the water crackles and scatters into fine droplets, the temperature is well above 100°C.

To clean the sole

After grilling, simply remove the embers from where the grill was placed: the juices and fats will burn off the next time you heat it up.

To remove all traces of ash from the hearth after sweeping, use a long-handled brush with brass bristles. Dip it in cold water beforehand to prevent it from catching fire and drain it to avoid thermal shock.

Other more unexpected uses for wood-fired ovens

In the past, after being used for cooking, the oven was used to sterilise preserves or sanitise bedding and clothing for sick people.

Once cooled, it was turned into a pantry, preventing the risk of mould and insects.

Today, you can also use your Grand-Mère oven to:

• Warm plates. Be careful, this process is very quick. Mittens or gloves are therefore necessary to remove the plates from the oven without burning yourself !
• Dry children’s salt dough, plaster casts and pottery in an oven heated to less than 50°C.
• Eliminate dust mites from woollen blankets and feather pillows. Bedding made from natural materials stored in the oven at 70°C until completely cooled will be rid of these parasites!
• Dry aromatic herbs. Two days after using the oven, the bricks, which will be cold but very dry, will absorb the water contained in these plants. Protected from air and light, these quickly dehydrated herbs will retain all their properties.