Pizza ovens

We have eaten plenty of pizzas in Italy, and they are different from the run-of-the-mill pizzas from Costco, but we have no preference of one over another. Maybe we have peasant taste, but I know we are no pizza connoisseurs.

Anyway, it does sound like a pizza lover would really appreciate an Ooni oven. I look on the Web out of curiosity. Ace Hardware store has a gas powered one for $399. Not too bad for someone who likes to make a lot of pizza.
 
I just built my own .............. great for parties (approx 20 people) . Took me a very slow (gentle) 2 weeks to build it outdoors.
Cooks a pizza in 90secs at approx 380 to 420 C (yes - Centigrade !!) Pure wood burning , easy so long as you put the inlet to the flue at the correct height (NOT at the top !!!) - 63% of your inside diameter. (towards front - door, is "normal)
 
daylatedollarshort said:
We don't make our own pizza and just buy frozen ones on sale.
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Please, those aren't pizza. They are right [-]up[/-] down there with American cheese product slices and pesto made with (Ugh, I can hardly say it) cotton seed oil. :sick:

My apologies. Enjoy your pizza as you like. Who am I to judge anybody else.? The other day I bought frozen blintzes. May my Jewish friends forgive me.

:D
 
I have had the Ooni Karu 12 for a couple of years and use wood chunks as fuel. There is a learning curve since the oven can get to 750 degrees and the pizza can go poof quickly. It is small. You can turn the pizza but not move it towards or away from the flames, so you need constant turning almost as soon as it lands. It is good for thin pizzas with minimalist toppings (you can't overload it) and has a tasty char.
I make a lot of pizza in many styles and also use stones and steels in my kitchen oven. The Ooni is a lot of fun for those thin, crisp slices. When I want to make thicker crust or deep dish pizza, I use the kitchen oven.
BR
 
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We like our perforated aluminum pizza pans. We have a propane convection oven so they cook pretty quick, about 10-15 mins.
 
My wife bought me a Breville Pizzaiolo Oven for my birthday last year on the advice of a friend. It's a bit pricey, but it is an effortless, wonderfully designed electric pizza oven with an upper and lower heating element and integrated pizza stone that I use all the time.
It is the highest rated countertop pizza oven online and is a breeze to use whenever the mood strikes. I just turn it on and wait for it to heat up to temp - about 5 minutes. It has preset settings to make pizzas up to 12" in diameter of all different types and can reach 750F! (but somehow the outside always stays cool enough not to burn to the touch) A thin crust pizza takes between 4 and 5 minutes to cook.
It's not for everyone, but if you love pizza, this is a well-designed professional kitchen accessory that will last a very long time and help elevate your pizza game to a whole new level. Highly recommended.
legal_262926_bpz800_lifestyle_breville_master_proxy_jpeg_high_res_1.jpeg
 
Ordered a Ooni Pro about a year ago, took 3 months to arrive. Ordered son one for this Christmas, arrived in a week. It was on sale 20% off (from Ooni), the container with the pizza ovens must have landed.

I have had a Green Egg and used it for pizza for a few years but gave it up for the oven because it was just dangerous getting it that high, opening the lid, and trying to land a pizza right on the stone. I've been very happy with the Ooni; use lump charcoal and throw a chunk of wood on to punch up the temp before the pizza goes in. It does take some learning. I got a propane kit but just didn't like the experience as well. My routine is to start it about 45 min before cook, let the stones heat. Having had some incinerator refractory experience, I take care of the stones (there are two) and bring them inside once cold, oven stays outside w a cover on it. Took it to the beach and did a dozen pizzas for the family last summer.
 
Chuckanut said:
Please, those aren't pizza. They are right [-]up[/-] down there with American cheese product slices and pesto made with (Ugh, I can hardly say it) cotton seed oil. :sick:

My apologies. Enjoy your pizza as you like. Who am I to judge anybody else.? The other day I bought frozen blintzes. May my Jewish friends forgive me.

:D
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We're not really foodies and don't eat pizza that often. Spending a lot of time making pizza for us falls into the "life is too short to stuff a mushroom" category. One of our adult kids like to cook and makes their own sourdough pizza crusts. The pizza tastes great, but not worth the extra time for us as it isn't our kind of hobby.
 
daylatedollarshort said:
We're not really foodies and don't eat pizza that often. Spending a lot of time making pizza for us falls into the "life is too short to stuff a mushroom" category. One of our adult kids like to cook and makes their own sourdough pizza crusts. The pizza tastes great, but not worth the extra time for us as it isn't our kind of hobby.
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Of course. It was more a comment on my issues than anybody else. I am sure I take some short cuts here and there that others would find worrisome. And I don't stuff mushrooms either. :)

I've even been known to buy a frozen cheese pizza and 'dress it up' with my own toppings. But, don't tell anybody. :D
 
After messing around with my bread maker to make pizza dough, I discovered that my local market carries pizza dough. All I have to do is give it the second rising, then roll it out.
 
Chuckanut said:
I've even been known to buy a frozen cheese pizza and 'dress it up' with my own toppings. But, don't tell anybody. :D
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Eh, we are guilty of that too.

By the time we are done with our "amendments", the cheap pizza looks like a deep dish one.

OK, not quite. But it looks richer than the Costco Supreme pizza. :)

When we were in Chicago some years ago, took the trouble to go to a place that claimed fame for its deep-dish pizza. I have to say that we'd prefer the "normal" one. Like the Costco one.
 
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If you read the fine print...no changes.

Besides, truffles in olive oil would be better - :)
 
If you have the bucks to BTD then a pizza oven might be nice as long as it is wood fired. Otherwise I can't see it being worth it. Wood fired gives a great flavor to the pizza crust. I would prefer to build my own and have exactly what I want but would not want the extra time and work involved in preparing it to use. The best I can do is in the oven. My experience with pizza stone has been that they break too easily and for a lump of flat clay they are IMO expensive. So I went to Home Depot or Lowes and bought a half dozen unglazed quarry tiles. You know those reddish 8"x8" quarter inch tiles you can buy for 50 cents each. After washing a drying I placed 4 on a rack for a baking pizza or bread and leave them there permanently. If one breaks it is easy to replace. Works perfectly and been good for the past 6+ years. They also help get the oven temperature back up faster when you open the oven door for more even cooking temperatures.


Cheers!
 
Badger said:
If you have the bucks to BTD then a pizza oven might be nice as long as it is wood fired. Otherwise I can't see it being worth it. Wood fired gives a great flavor to the pizza crust. I would prefer to build my own and have exactly what I want but would not want the extra time and work involved in preparing it to use. The best I can do is in the oven. My experience with pizza stone has been that they break too easily and for a lump of flat clay they are IMO expensive. So I went to Home Depot or Lowes and bought a half dozen unglazed quarry tiles. You know those reddish 8"x8" quarter inch tiles you can buy for 50 cents each. After washing a drying I placed 4 on a rack for a baking pizza or bread and leave them there permanently. If one breaks it is easy to replace. Works perfectly and been good for the past 6+ years. They also help get the oven temperature back up faster when you open the oven door for more even cooking temperatures.


Cheers!
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I've been using the same pizza stone for 20 years.

When we get a pizza oven it will be wood/pellet fired. Yes it's a BTD item but we can afford it and like homemade pizza. If it improves my pizza game I'm all for it.
 
In WI, I don't like to heat the house half the year, so I have a cheap pizza oven for outdoors with frozen pizza.

I bought what's now the Bertello oven when it was a kickstarter project. It works quite well but is:
-Another thing to store
-Kind of a pain to bring out and then put away (+ the gas tank option which I use)
-Definite learning curve as it's about 30s and turn x4
-Mine's a bit small so you're usually dealing with about 10" pies but you make lots of them

In cooler weather, I have a 1/4" steel for the house oven which works great and I vacillate between cooking it straight and doing a 2 minute par bake of the dough and then adding the toppings to make sure the dough is cooked through.
 
Kids bought me an Ooni Pizza oven last Christmas. It is a true gem. 12" pizzas take a little over a minute to bake -- huge stone and a screaming burner in the back that makes the oven around 900 degrees. It is propane driven and extremely portable. The Ooni legs fold in and it has a nice carrying case making it easy to move from place to place just like a overnight bag size case
 
Thanks for the steel! I'mma gonna order one of those - :)

Set the electric for 500 and let 'er buck!
 
We bought an Ooni Karu 12 last Christmas as I wanted some of that great pizza I had during my 2 years of military service in Italy many years ago.

As others have said there is a learning curve and we are still learning. I use wood and lump charcoal heat source and have figured out the fire\heat side of things. My wife is the dough\pizza maker and she still can't get the Neapolitan style in her head, she wants to load the pizzas down, American style, no matter how much I tell her you can't do that. Our biggest challenge has been getting the pizza off of the peel into the oven. When you load them down they stick to the peel. We actually just fired the oven up yesterday with the wife trying new ideas on getting the pizza off the peel which was mostly a failure.

So experience after a year is mixed but we have only probably cooked with it 8-10 times and still need more experience....but I do love that taste when we get it right. I burn wood in the house so have plenty of access\experience\tools needed for wood, city folks would probably have to find a wood source. Getting oven out, setting up, starting the fire and getting oven to temp is probably a 30 minute experience. A lot of the dough recipes need to be made a day ahead of time. A low chest level spot for the oven is much nicer for tending fire and you need a high ceiling if you want to be under roof. I am glad I did not go for the bigger oven, 12" is plenty big and the bigger pizza I think would be much harder to make and cook.
 
^^^^ Would putting some corn meal (fine grind) on the peel before the pizza help it slide off ?

Otherwise I'd try dusting the peel with flour.

I'm assuming you don't make the pizza on the peel, but make it and load it and then put it on the peel.
 
^^^^Coarse corn meal is your friend. Use LIBERALLY. I thought I'd been using enough for years and struggled until DS informed me to load it up. I have an spice jar with the plastic top with holes in it I keep filled w corn meal. Good way to spread it on the peel. Also, try not to let too much time from placing on peel. I also give it a shake every now and then while building to keep it free; if it gets stuck somewhere I'll carefully lift up w a narrow spatula and throw some more under.
 
I wasted a few pizzas before discovering cornmeal. That is the best advice! And let it set in the oven at least a minute or two (depending on oven temp) before trying to rotate it.
 
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