Gas pizza oven… Ooni or other brand?

[Random102]

Do I need to spend £300 on the Ooni or are there other brands that are as good?

Needs to be gas not wood fired.

I think the echoing silence is all you need to know.

I have an Ooni (pellet) and it has made me absolutely hate pizza. I’m finding it impossible to get the damn pizzas off the peel and into the oven.

We’ve used the blasted thing three times now and have had ONE edible pizza out of 9.

I’m competent in the kitchen and just can’t get the knack of it and neither can DH.

the amount of flour/semolina needed to get the pizza into the oven renders it inedible.

It’s going on the very short list of banned items likely to cause a divorce. (Uno card game and a tandem bicycle are the other things on said list)

if you insist on getting one, spend as little as possible on it.

Save your money and treat yourself to good pizza when you can. Totally agree with everything that @Feedmeallthebbq said, we just can’t get the hang of it either which is so disappointing as DH and I are generally competent in the kitchen/on bbq but this has defeated and deflated us 😫😫

Oh, we've got a wood/charcoal Ooni and love it, it took a couple of goes and the purchase of an infra-red thermometer to get the hang of it properly but ever since then it's been great, has easily paid for itself.

I’m not sure why you are both struggling? We have a Karu dual fuel and have used ours dozens of times with wood / pellets or the gas attachment and not had any issues. It sounds like your dough is too wet, you’re not putting enough flour / semolina underneath or taking too long to do the topping (or your tomato base isn’t reduced enough and too wet) so it is getting soggy and sticking to the peel. We encountered these on our first couple of goes but it was quickly remedied. Are you using a decent non stick peel?

OP we absolutely love our Ooni, use it most weekends when the weather is good, and the pizzas as are far better than anything we can buy around here and SO much cheaper!

We've got a 16 inch gas Ooni. There was a bit of trial and error to start, but we now make reliable, delicious pizzas. We had a look at a local pizza company that sells equivalent pizzas from a van and we have definitely more than broken even on our Ooni. The only issues for us is that DH tends to burn garlic bread pizza (the butter sets fire sometimes) and you can probably only cook for about 10 people on it, so really large gatherings are out. We use it more than our BBQ as it is much less faff and probably less unhealthy.

We have the Ooni gas model and love it. Took a couple of goes to get it right, enough cornmeal on the peel, quarter turn every 20-30 seconds. We makes 6 pizzas worth of dough in the bread maker and freeze the excess. Being able to have a really thin crust pizza makes it all worthwhile.

Seems like an absolutely bonkers thing to spend hundreds of pounds on something that only cooks pizzas

i don’t understand it either @TheFlis12345

we have the ooni peel which just feels like we’ve thrown good money after bad.

we’ve used flour/semolina/combo of the two in varying amounts. Too much and the flour just burns and two little and it sticks. The sweet spot is elusive.

we’ve baked a plain base just fine (once) - it’s almost like the weight of the toppings holds it down too much. So we’ve gone sparingly with the toppings to the point of it being ridiculously pointless and still no dice.

I just made a calzone because that was the only way to get it off the peel after it being on there for less than a minute and the crust texture was just awful after getting it out of the oven - all I could think of while I was eating was I was chewing on a cats tongue. Rough and grainy yet claggy 🤢

hats off to you (and others for getting it right!)

I make all sorts, including macarons, without difficulty but this is just madness 😫

Can't comment on any others but we have just got an ooni and it's amazing! Have only used it twice, both times using gas but can be wood. First attempt was a bit messy but second ones were fab, haven't had any problems putting them in/getting them out at all. Would definitely recommend them.

Not sure what those who are having problems getting pizza off the peel are doing. Sprinkle of cornmeal, dough on peel, topping on dough then straight in the oven - are you putting the dough on the peel and leaving it for more than the time it takes to spread the sauce and whack a few olives, mushrooms, nduja and mozzarella on the top?

Nope @Oblahbla i don’t hang around. On the peel, toppings and then straight to an attempt at getting it into the oven 😫

the ooni peel has holes in it so most of the cornflour(semolina) goes through the holes and onto the counter anyway 😂

But at least @Random102 has gotten some answers after a week of 🦗 🦗🦗

We love our wood pellet Ooni.
Again, it took a couple of attempts to get it right, but never had a fail since.
To the PP that wondered why you'd spend so much on something that only cooks pizza: I make marinated chicken kebabs and griddled king prawns, minted lamb chops, to name but a few.

We have a gozney roccbox. Best gadget we've bought and would never eat any other pizzas now. They're amazing. I guess it depends on what you like and if you enjoy making dough etc. it's definitely cheaper and easier to just buy one or get takeaway.

Wow, we obviously need way more practice as so many of you have sussed it ! Our oven is actually doing the rounds with the family now, to see if they fare better.
It always looks like we’ve come back from the beach there’s so much semolina everywhere…..and it feels like the canapés circulating at a wedding, blink and you’ve missed the one mouthful before you wait ages for another 😂

We were given a wood pellet ooni and absolutely love it.

We use it a lot, it is AMAZING for steaks and the most people we've made pizza for is 15.

I'm not sure if I can share any hints and tips on using because we just followed the instructions! We do have a thermometer abd we have two peels (without holes) so we can let them cool between pizza's.

Feedmeallthebbq, wonder if the holes make the difference - our peel is flat. I also shoogle (technical term) the pizza on the peel a couple of times to make sure it's not sticking.

We've also reduced the amount of cornmeal we use too, we were definitely using too much at the beginning.

Our Ooni peel is flat metal, no holes. I use a mix of semolina and flour to dust it and we have a scraper to push any excess off the stone with in between pizzas. I also give the pizza a little shake on the peel before launching it into the oven. We have a smaller turning peel too.

I have the ooni koda and love it. No problem getttimg it into the oven. We use it a lot more than I thought we would and the pizzas are lovely. Now also use a skillet for steaks and salmon teriyaki and so quick and easy.

We only used our BBQ once last year such was the popularity of the Ooni.

Corn flour and semolina are not the same thing…. Are you using fine corn flour or proper semolina that has the texture of fine sand?

We have the peel with holes in and it works fine.

Sorry, @TheFlis12345 i meant corn meal not corn flour. I know Semolina is made of wheat. The tips I’ve read up are saying the rougher texted of these helps with dislodging the dough so I’ve tried using both.

We did actually get two edible offerings from the last lot, so we are now on a 3 out of 12 but it’s really not great pizza. Well, not great pizza yet. Undoubtedly we’ll try again!