How Do You Light a Fire for Wood-Fired Cooking?

Top Down Method: Fire lighting for wood-fired cooking.

At the base, have a layer of larger logs with a 2nd layer of smaller logs.

Place a natural fire lighter on top of the logs, then build a small tower of kindling around it and light.

Top Tips

🔥Make sure there is good spacing around the logs to enable air flow when starting up and reduce smokiness.

🔥Use hard wood logs with a moisture content of less than 20% - Happy fire = happy neighbours!  

🔥Don’t use big logs, the aim is to get down to embers as quickly as possible, big logs take a long time and waste a lot in the process. 

🔥Give about 1hr to build up a good bed of embers, after that aim to have the fire going in one corner of the ember maker so you have new embers entering the ember bed every 20 mins or so. 

🔥Wood is natural product so sometimes it will drop down from the ember maker on its own and other times the logs in the ember maker will need a prod with the ember rack to drop down. 

🔥For temperature you’re looking to be able to hold you hand over the fire at the cooking height for 10 seconds. 

Click here to find more about what wood to use for wood-fired cooking.