Ooni Pizza Oven: A Mediocre Review
Welcome, everyone, to the blog post where we flex our mad stacks. (If you’re new here this is a joke, we don’t have mad stacks.) We never thought that we’d be the owners of a pizza oven, but here we are. It only took us 7 years of blogging (time is a flat circle, y’all).
At the beginning of the year we each chose a kitchen appliance that we wanted to buy. Trevor opted for a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. For Brittany, she knew she wanted a pizza oven.
Why? We wanted to see if a pizza made in a pizza oven is really all that it’s cracked up to be. (Spoilers: it is.)
We also wanted to see if we were any good at cooking things at 850°F. (Spoilers: we're getting better, practice makes perfect.)
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Our Tests
Well, we certainty can’t review a pizza oven without testing it out. For context, the pizzas below were cooked using the Ooni Koda 2!
We originally wanted to have a PIZZA PARTY for all of our friends who are long time supporters of our blog. However, life got in the way so instead of doing it in Brittany’s backyard like we originally planned, we decided to treat our friends to pizza while camping, since we were all going to be together anyways!
Rounds 1 & 2: Cooking Pizza for 2
But of course, before we cook for a crowd, we needed to practice first. So we went to the Italian Centre, bought pizza dough and toppings, and decided to give it a go.
Our first pizza: a margherita!
Our first few attempts were alright. The big problem we had was timing everything correctly. When you’re used to an oven going up to a maximum of 500°F, a pizza oven at 850°F is s c a r y. It cooks so fast!
We were so worried about burning our pizzas, so we slightly undercooked a few of them. And when we say we, what we really mean is that Trevor slightly undercooked his pizzas.
Once we got a hang of the timing, though…
Brittany’s Favorite Test Pizza: I’m a sucker for a margherita pizza. It’s simple. Timeless. So good. Melt mozza and fresh basil? YES.
Trevor’s Favorite Test Pizza: Gotta be the prosciutto and arugula pizza I made. I didn’t use a red sauce, instead I opted to do olive oil with some crushed garlic. After taking the pizza out of the oven I topped it with arugula and balsamic vinegar. Shit was mad tasty.
This is the prosciutto pizza with red sauce, we forgot to take a pic of the olive oil/garlic base. Oops.
Overall, we’re super proud that our first pizza wasn’t a charred burnt mess. 🔥 All of the first few pizzas we made were edible and delicious. Maybe we aren’t Mediocre Chefs after all?
Round 3: Cooking Pizza for a Crowd
Because we’re overachievers, we decided that we wanted to bring our pizza oven along on the yearly camping trip we have with our friends. We brought the dough, sauce, and cheese, and any other toppings were on our friends to bring. We ended up with an assortment of pepperoni, basil, pineapple, bell peppers, onion, and leftover meatballs (D, we love your mom’s balls).
We gave each of our friends a ball of dough and told them to go nuts. Below are some of their creations. Yes, one of them required us to blur it. Subscribe to our OnlyFans to see the uncensored version (We’re kidding…or are we? 👀).
After coaching our friends through making about 15 pizzas, we feel much better about our pizza making abilities. Something about practice making perfect.
Mediocre Chef Approved Pizza Making Tips
We know that not all of you have a pizza oven. But if you’re ever lucky enough to own one, or if you ever use one that a friend or family member owns, we have a few tips that you might be interested in based on all of our experimentation.
Definitely use semolina flour to coat the pizza peel. If you can’t shimmy your pizza off the peel, you’re going to have a bad time. The tricky thing is to use enough semolina flour to make it not stick, but not so much that you end up setting it on fire in your pizza oven.
Let the pizza oven come up to temperature fully before you cook. For us we checked with a fancy infrared thermometer. If you don’t have one of those, then we recommend turning the oven on high, and letting it go for around half an hour. That should bring it up to temperature. (Also don’t confuse Celsius and Fahrenheit like we did at first. We are dummies.)
You do in fact need to put your whole back into launching the pizza. You want it to end up near the back of the oven where it is hottest. (Again, if it can’t slide off the pizza peel easily, you’re going to have a hard time.) Many people on reddit recommended launching off of the bamboo peel instead of the metal one, so that’s what we did.
Don’t rotate the pizza until it releases from the stone. Much like searing a steak, the pizza will let you know when it’s time to rotate. Use a turning peel to rotate your pizza (we find it easier than using a big metal peel).
Don’t put too many ingredients on your pizza, or you’re going to have a bad time when launching. (Some will fall off.) Also, the more ingredients the longer it will take to cook. And the longer it takes to cook, the more likely that you will burn your crust.
Sometimes there will be flames on your pizza stone. This will either be from the flour on the bottom or cheese falling from your pizza onto the super hot stone. Use the pizza peel to quench the fire. In an emergency, shut off the gas supply, or use a fire extinguisher if things really get outta hand. (They shouldn’t!)
Ideally, you want the pizza oven to be at about chest height. We found that it was much easier to work with when you aren’t bent over or crouched trying to peer into the mouth of hell itself.
The dough is key to making a good pizza. If you aren’t confident in making your own dough, then start by purchasing dough. We found some at our local Italian grocer!
Why We Like Ooni
Well, for starters, it makes damn good pizza. 🍕
What we like about the Ooni Koda 2 in particular is that it is portable (so we can take it camping, to our friend’s backyard BBQ) and lightweight (only 35lbs!) It’s easy to move from the garage to our deck when it’s pizza time.
The Koda 2 also is one of Ooni’s 2nd generation pizza ovens which uses G2 gas technology. What’s that? It’s a fancy patented tapered flame gas burner system that provides even better heat distribution, so you can make a better pizza a lot easier. (We’re mediocre at cooking and can make amazing pizza, so you can too.)
If you want to make personal sized pizzas, the Ooni Koda 2 is the perfect size.
Their customer support is also super active on reddit. Unfortunately, a few people have had their pizza stone arrive broken (ours was in perfect condition), but they’re quick to respond and send out a new one.
On r/ooni you’ll also find a lot of people sharing their pizza wins (and fails, but mostly wins) as well as dough recipes and tips. We highly recommend checking it out before launching your first pizza!
This pizza got a little crispy. It still tasted great!
Can an idiot make pizza with an Ooni?
Yes. We took our pizza oven camping and had our friends each make their own pizza. They turned out great!
Will pizza making become my entire personality if I get an Ooni?
Yes, but is that a bad thing?
Is buying an Ooni worth it?
If you have the spare cash then yes — get in a pizza oven. If you’re a pizza fiend, and are ordering a lot of pizza, then it probably makes sense to invest in one. Otherwise a pizza stone and a conventional oven cranked to its max is an okay substitute (but don’t expect the same results).
Our Hot Take 🔥
Buy an Ooni pizza oven. It’s high quality and will cook better than cheaper ovens.
Buy the infrared thermometer, you’ll need it to check that the stone is at your desired temperature, especially if slinging multiple pizzas.
Skip the rest of the accessories. They’re overpriced. Buy them if you want an easy one-stop-shop (we did), but many things are $$$ that you can get for cheaper and similar quality elsewhere.
Do you need to spend $60USD on a digital scale to weigh out your dough ingredients to 1/10th of a gram? NO. (Unless you’re a professional baker, you absolutely don’t need a scale that’s precise to 0.1g. And if you don’t have a food scale and are in the market for one, here’s a cheaper one). $55USD for a metal pizza peel is also pretty steep.😬
Top: turning peel. Bottom: metal peel.
You also don’t need their expensive tables, although they do look nice. Their cheapest metal table starts at $275USD, which is nuts. We had a metal camping table that we could use, so we didn’t end up buying it. You can easily thrift a metal or wooden table to use with your Ooni. Just don’t use plastic or other materials. The oven gets hot!
THAT BEING SAID. You can get cheaper pizza ovens. But, some things are worth shelling out a bit more cash for like the mattress you sleep on or the computer chair you sit on all day. We’re going to say that a pizza oven is also falls into that category. Spend a bit more and get much better results! Don’t cheap out on the oven.
Final Thoughts
We are very happy with our purchase and are excited to add pizza to our weekly meal rotation. Brittany could probably eat pizza for every meal, so she’ll be firing up the Ooni often! 🍕
Do you have a pizza oven? (Doesn’t have to be an Ooni!) Let us know your pizza-making tips in the comments below.