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.

@PollyDarton we have the dual fuel Roccbox but one ever use gas. Pizzas still taste amazing.

We've also made naan bread and the most delicious crispy buffalo wings in it too. I think you can also do steaks, but not tried this. If you have a look at Gozney's YouTube channel, there are so many recipes!

We have the ooni pizza oven and love it.

We do too. Great buy. Easy to use and move around. Didn't want to set up a permanent one with the space it takes and unable to be relocated so the ooni suits us fine and works well.

We have a gas Ooni koda and it brilliant.

A family member of mine got one a couple of years ago and started doing pop-ups locally selling his pizzas, and now has won awards and is opening his own restaurant this year. He still uses Ooni Koda 16 models for events as they are so good.

We have an Ooni with wood pellets but it doesn't seem to hold the heat well / burn steadily so wish we'd gone for gas

I have a big wood fired one. We use it in the summer probably once every fortnight. It's good but whoever is manning it has a lot to do.

Get one if you want OP but don't kid yourself that it's a fun, relaxing experience for your guests. I have never been more stressed in my life as at my various ooni-loving pals' pizza nights. The hosting woman (for it is always the woman) is in the kitchen rolling stuff out, the hosting man (for it is always a man) standing anxiously in front of the oven with a stopwatch. Then you all fall on the pizza before it gets cold, eat one slice, start the whole thing over again, go home and realise you didn't see your pal (who probably didn't even get anything to eat) and all the boys talked about was sourdough starter. Shit laugh. Feels good to get it out though as obvs you can't tell anyone

I've been trying to decide whether to get one too.

Do you get the same wood fired/ sort of burnt taste with the gas ovens or just the pellets?

Soggy pizza! Wow.

Someone definitely needs practice. Use less dough.

They are not soggy if you do them properly.

We love our ooni though it did take a bit of trial an error. Whenever we have family/friends over with kids they love getting involved in shaping/topping their own pizzas (though that does result in the entire kitchen and a bunch of little people being covered in flour!)

We got one in the first lockdown as could not face no takeaway pizzas. DH makes georgious pizza dough and each one takes about 4 mins to cook. He puts them in a tray to cook. They work as they cook the dough very quickly so very hot. Ours cooks at 350. Best buy we made during lockdown. Cost £340 on offer. Makes 4x 12 inch pizza for about £4. Downside it is large and takes up lots of space on work surface. It lives in garage and comes put about once a month.

I'd say that you can't feed more than 10 people without it turning into a pita. But we still love our pizza oven. We've got a 14 inch Ooni gas one. We had pizza for dinner tonight and it makes a lovely, relaxing evening outside.

We make our own dough (using a mixer) and the lurpak garlic butter is a great way of making garlic bread.

Ooni gas, purchased during lockdown along with seemingly the rest of the world! Most useful things I've learned...

• speed gun (digital thermometer) essential...cheap one from amazon not ooni one
• Big decent metal peel essential...again not the fancy one
• in terms of hosting/ avoiding the sweaty/absent pizza chef set up...I try to put mine on a table at the end of our garden table...maximum prep done ahead of Time...or depending on the guests, done by them at the table! Teens like helping with this bit! Then you can fire pizzas in and out while still chatting. A couple of drinks and you're a pro/not caring

We have an ooni pizza oven (pellets) & dh perfected homemade pizzas over lock down but not without MUCH trial & error.

Then once restrictions lifted we hosted friends for some pizza nights but they were a bit faffy as it's hard to keep the wood burning ones at the right temperature. We got the thermometer etc but still was slower & more work than expected. Plus weather dependent.
It's still a great thing to have & we must fire ours up again - except I'm on a diet at the moment!

We’ve got a Chadwick Oven but the price has gone up massively since we bought it 4 years ago. We bought it because we eat pizza every week & it goes on a gas hob, so no need to go outside etc in winter & rain.

We love it, but we’d still like to build a big one outside.

Our favourite local pop up pizza uses two gas powered Gozneys, if we had a covered area outside I’d be tempted by one.

chadwickoven.com

You can. Its just prep and practice.

Serve with sides and dips. Have an interval. Easy peasy.

No less hassle than feeding 10 people any other way tbh.

(We've done Christmas dinner for 17 before).

Yep, same here word for word!

We have a wood fired pizza oven (logs not pellets) and it's great! We don't often use it over the winter, but we use it at least once a fortnight once the weather is good enough - we've used it about 4 or 5 times this year already. We've had it for about 3 years, so I don't think it's a novelty that's going to wear off.

We use Jamie Oliver dough recipe, which is super easy to do - this makes 8 bases, so we freeze half if its just us 4. We roll the dough out with a rolling pin, and then put it on a well floured wooden pizza board for prep. Then DH cooks them one by one in the oven - they take less than a minute each to cook to perfection. Superb smoky taste, bottom of the base browned, but not burnt, lovely melty toppings.

We've been experimenting with toppings. My favourites are gorgonzola, pear and walnut or goat's cheese, red onion and proscuitto, both done on a bianca (garlic oil) base, and served with a big handful of rocket on the top. Teenagers tend to stick to more traditional tomato base, mozzarella, olives, pepperoni etc.

We have an Ooni (wood pellets) and it is great. Completely agree with PP it puts us off buying pizzas out because our home made ones are so good. We've only hosted one proper pizza part, feeding 6 - it was fine, but we had prepped everything beforehand to make it easier.

@MaChienEstUnDick thats so funny because it’s so true! I think there must be a better way to do it but anywhere I’ve gone for pizza from a pizza oven for the meal you’re all eating one after the other. If I hosted people for pizza it would be exactly the same too! It’s something you think would be a great sociable way to eat but maybe isn’t.

I adore mine though!

We’ve got a big stone wood fired pizza oven. It cost, er, thousands. We use it for so much, pizza, bread, meat, all kinds. We can do 4 pizzas in there at a time, they take about 90 seconds. Dh does all the cooking (indoors and out!) but we’ve never once had a soggy based pizza. We love it, it’s an integral part of our outdoor kitchen 😂

Started out with an Ooni one but replaced with one of these to save cooking outside in winter. www.blackrockgrill.com/products/effeuno-p134h-459-pizza-oven?variant=42847233081577&currency=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&ppc_keyword=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpcOTBhCZARIsAEAYLuVy9QqITsp4ODZ5jgUDH2QDbckYgtR5vzzCDRLPcephTuF9Z1aNEfwaAoEEEALw_wcB
With practice not a problem to cook for 20 people. Pizzas take about 80 seconds and you can prep the next whilst it cooks. Great for kids birthday parties too.
Was cheaper when I bought it (more like £600 including shipping) and totally worth it given we haven't eaten pizza in a restaurant since.
Downside v ooni is it takes up space in the kitchen but fits in corner of worktop that otherwise wouldn't get used much

Oh I should have said we use ours about twice a month and DH does everything, he’s really into it and he’s one of those people on Facebook groups about dough 😆

We also hardly ever order pizza now as we find it too salty compared to our dough.
DH gets very stressed if his dough’s not perfect so while I don’t have to do anything it’s not exactly a relaxing evening!

We have the Gozney too, couldn’t decide which one to get but plumped for the Gozney as it was a Which Best Buy.

we love it and use it multiple times a week. We used to make pizzas in the oven and thought they were ok, but in a Gozney they are the absolute best, remind me of Franco manca pizza's. Truly excellent.

Definitely use 00 flour, dry (not wet) mozzarella, i would never buy a pizza again, doing them at home is so eaSy and they taste amazing.

A good pizza dough will help, can recommend Ken Forkish's recipes. Lovely. I have a Sage mini-oven thing & it's really versatile for daily use. Obv not as fun as flames but perfectly good.

We have two from Alfa forni one in gas and other in wood . They are really expensive but they are incredibly sturdy, very well made.

first we bought the wood fired oven and although it’s amazing it’s such a faff to set up and keep temperature high enough for Baking , not to mention the amount of wood needed!
so we got the gas and I wish someone told us to get gas in the first place, so much easier to just set up , controlled temperature and pizza is done in couple of minutes and no need to keep feeding wood specially when you are making pizza for a crowd .