Kashering a Pizza Oven

Q. I bought a used pizza oven. How should it be kashered?

A. It may be assumed that the oven was used to bake pizza with non-kosher cheese and meats. Since pizza is a dry food and is in direct contact with the surface of the oven, a pizza oven requires libun. If the oven can reach 900º F, it can be kashered by burning out the oven at this temperature. Otherwise, it might be very difficult to kasher (e.g., blowtorches, charcoal).

Some have suggested that perhaps there is room to be lenient based on the position of the Rama MiFano (siman 96) which we quoted in a previous Halacha Yomis. The Rama Mifano maintains that a pot can be kashered with hagalah, because there is no direct contact between the pot and the non-kosher meat. The meat flavor is first absorbed into the water and the water is absorbed into the pot. Similarly, regarding pizza, the cheese and meats in a pizza do not directly touch the floor of the oven. The meat and cheese first get absorbed into the crust, and only the crust makes direct contact with the oven. Accordingly, hagalah would suffice. However, the Minchas Yitzchak (3:66) rejects this leniency. Rishonim write explicitly that a pan that was used to bake a knish made with non-kosher meat requires libun, even though the non-kosher meat is wrapped inside the dough (see Aruch Hashulchan YD 121:11). As such, a pizza oven would require libun as well.

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The Gerald & Karin Feldhamer OU Kosher Halacha Yomis is dedicated to the memory of Rav Yisroel Belsky, zt"l, who served as halachic consultant for OU Kosher for more than 28 years; many of the responses in Halacha Yomis are based on the rulings of Rabbi Belsky. Subscribe to the Halacha Yomis daily email here.