Anyone own a pizza oven?

[ReeseWitherfork]

Are they worth buying? What sort of features should I look out for? How much am I likely going to need to spend? Are they just a big old gimmick or something we are actually likely to use?

DH and I don’t eat meat so a BBQ is a rad pointless. But quite like the idea of whipping up a pizza on a summers evening.

We were given one. It's DH's new pet. Had to buy all the things for it - the right spatula and the right pellets and then the right firelight - now he'll spend hours playing with his pizza dough, then heading off to set up the oven and get it "going well." Then generally we get one tiny soggy pizza that's been set on fire on one or more edges and isn't cooked in the middle. Then 5-10 minutes later the next tiny pizza arrives, possibly slightly less burnt on the outside and slightly more cooked in the middle.

We have the ooni pizza oven and love it. We started off using it with shop bought fresh pizzas and now make our own dough.

If you go for the ooni the starter bundle will set you back about £350 but includes everything you need. I would say the best it is the heat gun our friends didn't get one and had loads of burnt pizza when getting used to it.

I have an ooni, the one that uses small logs not pellets or gas. It's brilliant, so much fun and so much yummy pizza!

I bought the heat gun and peels from eBay as the ooni own brand stuff is silly money. And I have become very good at making pizza (if I do say so myself!) And really enjoy having little parties where I can feed all of my friends. It's a nice thing to have.

The ooni Facebook group is a font of knowledge

We have a big wood fired one, it was about £500.

Fantastic, but a novelty item i'd say. Used every day/multiple times a week to begin with, then every couple of weeks and now it's been in the garage since the end of last summer.

Its fun when guests come over, but there is a knack to it.

We have one and probably use it three or four times a year. It's a bit gimmicky IMO and nice every so often but a massive faff if you want to cook multiple pizzas as I find you have to get everything prepped in advance and really have two people on it with one loading up the peels with pizzas and the other manning the pizza oven.

Things that have helped us are using the heat gun to check the temperature inside the pizza oven before we start cooking.

Buying extra peels so you can make and build the pizzas directly on the peel and then slide them in.

Using semolina on the peels to ensure the pizzas slide off the peel easily.

This is great feedback! Thanks everyone. I can’t work out how often we’d actually use it.

@Grumpybutfunny is it the Karu 12 inch?

Theres also one called the Woody Oven which looks good. That one comes in at £360 and includes quite a lot.

Yes we have the gas Ooni! It was a present for DH a couple of years ago and he loves it. It makes really good pizza but it takes a bit of practice to get it right!

I take the piss out of him as he’s joined various Ooni fb groups which talk a lot about flour and the right type of dough. 🤣

We have the Ooni gas oven. We use it once a week and it’s saved a fortune. It does take some practise. We got the 16” one but the smaller 12” one would be more than adequate. I make my own dough and sauce now, both of which can be made in bulk, portioned up ad frozen - saves a lot of faffing about. Being gas we’re able to use it year round indoors and out. I would have difficulty buying takeaway pizza now as ours are so good.

We have the Gozney and absolutely love it! We probably use it once every six weeks or so and sometimes when guest come over. The price tag is pretty hefty and it takes a while to get the hang of making the pizzas. We also had to buy the peel. Once you've perfected it though, it is truly amazing. We hardly ever order pizzas because nothing can beat the taste of freshly made homemade pizzas.

I also ensure we buy good ingredients, 00 Italian flour, San Marzano tinned tomatoes and good quality mozzarella.

We've had it for a couple of years (bought during the 2020 lockdown) and for us, it was a great investment. Totally worth it!

I could have written this, exactly my experience.

We have two peels. Apparently one for putting in and one for taking out. You need semolina to put on the peel to stop it sticking and don’t put on too much topping or it will fall into the oven.

Definitely 00 flour, Tesco was selling it for about 40p recently.

Can also make good garlic bread too.

@eightyeightmilesperhour @signsofsafety

Gozney Roccbox? Do you have the gas or dual fuel? The gas one doesn’t work out too much more expensive than the Ooni (£400 versus £380 if you buy the gas burner for the Ooni).

I have gone down a rabbit hole!!

We have a Ooni witht the pellets and its the best thing we have ever bought. Had pizza every weekend last summer and are having our first one this year, tonight :-)

We’ve got a 12 inch gas Ooni one. I got 20% off in the Black Friday sale at the end of Nov. We already had pizza pretty much every Friday night but now we use this and the pizza is great, we love it! We buy their dough balls online and they work really well. So I think if you love pizza then it’s worth the money.

@PollyDarton2 we have the dual fuel but if doing it again we'd go for gas.

@PollyDarton2 sorry, yes, the Roccbox

Buy a pizza stone. You can use it on a barbecue with a lid. Doesn’t take up much room when you get bored of pizza and you will!!

I have 12 large homemade pizza doughs in the freezer and 12 pots of pizza sauce. They have been in there for more than 6 months! We went through the other 12 in about 6 weeks, got bored of pizza. There are 3 of us.
We’ll have pizza for dinner tomorrow!

DH bought one, used a few times now gathering dust, I hate it. Pizzas nowhere near as nice as those made in oven. You can cook lovely fresh pizza from scratch in the normal oven!

Pizza oven = takes forever, garden stinks of smoke, creates loads of pollution, pizza tastes of ash/burnt on one side and soggy in middle, etc etc.Tears cos not cooked on pizza tray too. Meanwhile the manly chef will poke fire a bit then pat self on back while leaving a ton of clear up for others.

But if you want to waste £1000 on something messy that you’ll rarely use and gathers bird droppings then by all means go for it.

I’d highly recommend the gas one to avoid most of the issues the last poster just described - I got dh an ooni for Christmas, we have only really started using it so getting to grips with it but it’s lovely, far better than normal oven. Very quick too.

We've had one for 3 years. We use it at least once a week.

We love it and we use it.

You have to love pizza and be prepared for the effort of making the dough (we have a mixer which I use if making it, but DH usually makes it and makes it by hand).

Genuinely wouldn't be without it and don't view it as a gimmick. We've just taken it camping and done pizzas for 17.

However I totally appreciate that its not for everyone and can well imagine it gathering dust for those who can't be arsed.

It makes the best pizzas if you know how to use it properly (unlike the bunch of students we witnessed this weekend). This isnt our view alone - we have many happy friends....

DH's friends all have different models. The consensus of the group is the basic gas model is actually probably the best. The pellets etc are gimmicks and a faff. The larger ones are pointless - you can't get extra large paddles...

And yes DH makes pizzas in snow, gales and rain even in middle of winter...

We have an Ooni and love it, takes a few tries to get it perfect but once you’ve nailed it then it’s easy and quick (and fun, the children love pizza night!). Comes into its own in the summer and we’ve taken ours camping, to friends etc.

We've debated it on and off for years. In the end, we went for a pizza tray from Sainsbury's. Cost £12 and you get lovely crispy bottoms I laugh every time I say that 😆😆

I bought DH ooni gas last year and we love it. Use it regularly still and it's the best pizza.
Took a while to get the technique re dough and using it but it's been a good buy for us.

We have a Gozney multi fuel but have only used it with gas so far.

It has only been used once or twice during the winter months but gets a good amount of use in summer - we have even taken it camping (portion out the dough in advance and freeze it).

It's useful to have two peels so you can be making up pizza on one while the other is being used for the pizza being cooked.

You need to use less toppings I find as the bases are so thin.