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Compare the Top 8 Pizza Ovens
Tips and FAQ
Who We Are and How We Tested
WIRED reviewer Adrienne So has tested galore pizza ovens and made much than a 1000 pizzas implicit the past 7 years. WIRED reviewer Matthew Korfhage is simply a longtime nutrient writer who's written astir pizza connected some coasts implicit 15 years, from sausage slices successful Portland to the communicative of Mexican pizza successful Philadelphia.
We trial each pizza oven implicit the people of a fewer weeks, utilizing homemade dough (Adrienne likes Ooni's classical pizza dough recipe), caller dough balls procured from section pizzerias, store-bought caller dough, and frozen pizzas. We usage infrared thermometers to marque definite the somesthesia of the cooking aboveground is accordant (and is what the built-in thermometer says it is). Where relevant, we besides cross-check built-in thermometers connected each oven against our ain ambient thermometers.
Pizza ovens are besides rather a spot much versatile than you mightiness think. Over years of testing, Adrienne has utilized her pizza ovens to sear steaks, quick-cook salmon, and pan-fry broccoli. Matthew has air-fried wings successful a pizza oven, grilled pork chops, charred asparagus, and blackened chicken.
It's taken maine galore years, and galore thousands of pizzas, to refine my pizza-making technique. And to beryllium honest, my Neapolitan-style pizzas don't truly conscionable the modular acceptable by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the satellite authorization connected Neapolitan pizzas. (Ooni pizza ovens, including erstwhile models of our top-rated Karu 2, are the lone models we urge that the AVPN has besides recommended.)
But implicit the years, I person accumulated a fewer tips for those of you who find making a pizza to beryllium a small spot awkward oregon intimidating. If you've refrigerated your dough, bring it to country somesthesia first. Sprinkle flour lightly connected the peel earlier you agelong the dough crossed and assemble your pizza, to support dough from sticking. (Some usage cornmeal, but enactment that cornmeal tin pain and go bitter successful a blistery oven.) Be diligent and agelong your dough from the wrong out. It is cheating, but I besides americium blameworthy of utilizing a tiny rolling pin ($10) to assistance maine get the dough arsenic bladed arsenic possible.
An authentic Neapolitan pastry volition usage a fewer circumstantial ingredients. When you're making your ain dough, scope for 00 flour, which is milled specifically for pizza and pasta. Fresh mozzarella volition marque your pizza damp, truthful I usage a premix of caller and shredded, low-moisture food for the cheesiest, meltiest pie. If you're not sticking to a strictly Neapolitan recipe, we besides person a fewer favourite pies we'd similar to recommend. Senior manager Martin Cizmar and I similar a bully Buffalo pastry with Frank's Red Hot and pickles. I besides precocious tried Brightland's Pizza Oil successful a compression bottle; portion it's bully arsenic a finishing condiment to drizzle implicit pies, you could marque your ain for overmuch cheaper by putting olive lipid and herbs successful a compression bottle.
Besides 'zas, I navigator everything from salmon to steak to chickenhearted thighs successful my pizza oven by preheating a formed robust cookware successful a blistery oven and popping the nutrient close in. For much guidance, Ooni has a cookbook; cook Francis Mallmann's books are besides a bully root of inspiration. —Adrienne So
Is your patio already occupied by a elephantine Traeger? Your grill oregon smoker astir apt has a pizza attachment that you tin bargain for little than a caller oven. Cizmar's favourite is the Yoder Smoker wood-fired oven attachment ($499), which has saved him from galore a nighttime of pellet occurrence flameouts. It sits nether the smoker’s hood, atop a alloy expanse that sits implicit the firebox. The expanse is simply a diffuser and has holes of expanding size arsenic you determination distant from the fire, truthful that the conception farthest from the occurrence gets much exposure. The plan provides a accordant somesthesia on the oven’s floor, and it works well, with the farthest corners of the oven inactive cresting 650 degrees Fahrenheit.
You tin besides crook your normal, indoor oven into a pizza oven. While astir ovens max retired astatine 500 degrees Fahrenheit, 1 mode to impart much vigor to your pizza is by preheating a baking aboveground with a precocious thermal mass, which maintains somesthesia stableness and straight delivers its stored-up vigor energy. An casual mode to bash this is by preheating a cast-iron cookware oregon baking steel. A classical Lloyd cookware is 1 preferred instrumentality for Detroit- oregon Sicilian-style cookware pizza, which works good successful accepted ovens.
Several of our favourite grill and pizza oven manufacturers, similar Kamado and Weber, besides marque ceramic pizza stones. Check retired our usher to the Best Portable Grills and Grill Accessories for more.
Honorable Mentions
We've tried a batch of pizza ovens. Here are a fewer that we liked that didn't rather marque our apical picks.
Photograph: Stove Pi Prime
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Gozney
Ooni Karu, First Edition for $349: Ooni is inactive selling the erstwhile procreation oven of WIRED's apical pick, the Karu 2, for astir $100 less. Like different Ooni pizza ovens, OG Karu is an fantabulous oven—light, portable, and casual to clean—and WIRED reviewer Adrienne So couldn't halt utilizing the happening aft archetypal investigating it. Nonetheless the newer Karu 2 heats much evenly, and holds much substance than the first-generation oven.
Ooni Koda 12 for $399: The archetypal Ooni Koda 12 is simply a specified 21 pounds, making it the astir airy and portable Koda. Its thin, powder-coated alloy ammunition insulates good capable that it remains chill to the touch, adjacent erstwhile the occurrence is burning. Just descent successful the baking stone, screw connected the propane tank, and you're acceptable to go. The doorway fits 12-inch pizza peels and 10-inch cast-iron skillets. However, you should not store it outside.
Photograph: Breville
Photograph: Adrienne So
Ninja Wood-Fired Oven for $300: If you're looking for a remarkably sturdy and versatile outdoor oven, this is simply a beauteous bully prime with a apical somesthesia of 700 degrees Fahrenheit. The doorway is simply a small sticky, which makes baking pizza astatine precocious vigor a small tricky, but if you privation 1 instrumentality that tin bash everything from smoking a pork enarthrosis to making muffins to cook a pizza pie, this is your pick.
The Piezano for $100: This TikTok-popular oven is affordable, small, and convenient. It looks a small similar a waffle iron, and comes with useful treble paddles for easier placement. Astonishingly, its claims of heating the apical and bottommost elements to 800 degrees Fahrenheit are accurate, and it takes astir 15 minutes, which allows for abbreviated navigator times. But enactment the heating constituent astatine the apical doesn't screen the full aboveground area, truthful you person to rotate your pies beauteous frequently. Also, opening the apical similar a waffle shaper means that it doesn't clasp vigor precise well. It dropped by 100 to 200 degrees betwixt pies and requires a spot of betterment time.
Also Tested
Photograph: Matthew Korfhage
Current Backyard Model P for $699: No little a TV nutrient personage than Alton Brown has signed connected arsenic an endorser of this 1,750-watt electrical indoor/outdoor pizza oven, which volition vigor to 850 degrees Fahrenheit utilizing a modular powerfulness outlet. Heat is comparatively adjacent crossed the oven, and it'll get up to apical temp successful astir 30 minutes. But navigator settings are constrained to a fewer preset levels (New-York style, bladed crust, Neapolitan, frozen), whose temps and cooking times tin beryllium a spot fussy to fiddle with. The app and on-device controls thin to connection much quirks than functionality. Display temp and existent temp don't ever match, and its apical thermal elements crook connected and disconnected similar the lights successful a David Lynch movie, according to what the institution calls a proprietary algorithm. Still, you tin marque a large pizza connected this thing, and you tin marque it indoors. Current says it plans to adhd much functions and cooking modes successful aboriginal updates, and we'll support testing. But it feels little than afloat baked astatine the moment, particularly astatine its price.
Pizzacraft Pizzaque for $130: This oven is adorable and affordable, and you tin basal it successful your driveway and navigator a bully pizza portion sitting successful your campy chair. However, it conscionable doesn't get arsenic blistery oregon navigator arsenic evenly arsenic a better-insulated oven does.
The Best Accessories
Some pizza ovens supply you with proprietary accessories to acceptable you connected your pizza path. But we've besides recovered a fewer extras to beryllium adjuvant on the way:
A handheld infrared thermometer for $11: Even if the oven has a built-in thermometer, a handheld infrared thermometer is simply a large mode to cheque the somesthesia connected antithetic areas of the pizza stone. It's besides important to marque definite the chromatic has clip to reheat aft each pizza. For pizza purposes, this affordable 1 should beryllium close capable to suit your needs.
A woody pizza peel for $34: If you ain aggregate peels, it's speedy and casual to prep 1 pizza portion different is baking. WIRED reviewers Adrienne So and Matthew Korfhage each ain respective peels, including a utile tiny turning peel. But for launching, the dough is overmuch little apt to instrumentality connected a woody peel, particularly if you archetypal sprinkle connected immoderate semolina oregon flour.
A cast-iron skillet for $25: You tin besides usage a cast-iron cookware successful your pizza oven to sear steaks oregon pan-roast broccoli. Lodge's pans enactment conscionable arsenic good arsenic overmuch much costly options.
Heat-resistant gloves for $20: That formed robust gets extremely hot, truthful you'll besides request a bully brace of mitts. (Even these won't support your hands for long, truthful you'll request a spot adjacent the oven to acceptable the cookware down.)
Fire starters for $20: If you've ever been intimidated by the thought of cooking with wood, don't be! These occurrence starters marque it speedy and simple. Just airy the extremity with a match, driblet it successful the substance tray, and enactment up a fewer oak sticks connected top. Be definite to support your wood adust if you don't privation to make a fume stack successful your backyard.
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