Wirecutter supports readers. When you make a purchase through a link on our website, we may receive affiliate commissions. learn more.
Pizza oven is not a necessity, but it is really fun to use. It can also do what your home oven can't: reach the extreme heat required to bake perfect pies. If you really want to make the best pizza at home, the Ooni Koda 16 gas-powered pizza oven is an excellent portable pizza oven that can help you achieve this goal. After baking 70 pizzas in four outdoor pizza ovens and one indoor countertop oven, we like Ooni Koda 16 the most because it has the largest baking surface of all the models we tested, as well as excellent heat distribution.
This convenient portable outdoor pizza oven can be lighted by just turning the dial, and can bake a large number of pizzas with a can of gas.
*At the time of publication, the price was $500.
The Ooni Koda 16 is the most convenient and user-friendly portable outdoor pizza oven we have tested, and it can also bake top-notch pies. This 16-inch, propane-fueled oven has the largest baking surface of all ovens we have tested, which allows us to fire, rotate, and move pizzas more flexibly while baking. And the fact that it uses propane (rather than wood pellets, charcoal or hardwood) means that as long as there is fuel in the tank, you will have a constant flame. In our tests last winter, we raised the temperature of Koda 16 to 890 degrees Fahrenheit, which is enough to bake a crispy, bubbling pie. For $500 (at the time of writing), Koda 16 is an expensive professional cooking appliance-you can get a great gas grill for more general outdoor cooking needs at roughly the same price. But for anyone who focuses on making delicious pizza, Koda 16 is better to use than standard grills, and its versatility and ease of use make it of high value compared to the competition. If you want to save some money and don’t mind sacrificing oven capacity (but still prefer propane ovens), we think the smaller Ooni Koda 12 gas pizza oven is usually about $150 cheaper than the Koda 16, which can serve you well—but We have not tested that model.
This wood pellet pizza oven is small but powerful (and hot) to bake perfect pizza with a hint of smoky flavor.
*At the time of publication, the price was $300.
If you want to pay a little less, or if you like to use more fuel and want a bit of smoky flavor (and don't mind dealing with some quirks), the Ooni Fyra 12 with wood pellets is a good choice. Fyra is as hot as Koda 16 and produces pizzas of the same quality, but it is about $200 cheaper-and smaller, lighter, and smoky. Fyra uses wood pellets (the same pellets as the fuel pellet grill) instead of propane. A bucket of pellets is roughly equivalent to 15 minutes of cooking time, so if you want to bake a lot of pizza, you have to feed that funnel while walking. Compared to Koda 16, Fyra's smaller stones and oven openings make you feel more cramped to manipulate the pizza while cooking. And, as mentioned above, it has its quirks: the hopper is easily clogged, and when you remove the door to launch or spin a pizza, it is normal for flames to shoot from the back of the fire box. Still, it is much easier to make a fire (and keep) in Fyra than in Ooni Karu 12 Multi-Fuel Pizza Oven (run on hardwood or block charcoal), making Fyra the price of a solid wood burning pizza oven.
The oven can be fully preheated in 15 minutes, and a pizza can be cooked in just over 90 seconds. This is the Ferrari of the countertop oven: stylish, expensive and fast.
Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is designed and made for one thing: baking pizza. It does a good job, with a temperature of up to 750°F-much hotter than a household oven. Unlike our portable oven picks designed for the backyard, Breville Pizzaiolo is an indoor countertop appliance with preset cooking functions. It also has precise temperature control, timer and accompanying accessories (metal skin and deep-dish pizza pan with detachable handle). The price of Breville Pizzaiolo is twice that of Ooni Koda 16, which is an expensive special purpose equipment. However, if you really like making great pizzas at home and don't want an outdoor oven, then this is a good choice.
This convenient portable outdoor pizza oven can be lighted by just turning the dial, and can bake a large number of pizzas with a can of gas.
*At the time of publication, the price was $500.
This wood pellet pizza oven is small but powerful (and hot) to bake perfect pizza with a hint of smoky flavor.
*At the time of publication, the price was $300.
The oven can be fully preheated in 15 minutes, and a pizza can be cooked in just over 90 seconds. This is the Ferrari of the countertop oven: stylish, expensive and fast.
Before becoming a reporter, I worked as a chef for nearly ten years. For two and a half years, I spent 10 hours a day maintaining a wood-burning grill in a restaurant. To this day, I still like to cook with fire.
As a senior staff writer at Wirecutter, I have been writing about kitchen utensils for nearly eight years. Between the testing and research of this guide, our guide to the best pizza stones and baked steel, and our review of Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo, I made more than 100 pizzas.
Until recently, if you wanted an oven that could be hot enough to bake pizzeria-quality pies, you had to pay thousands of dollars and make room for a brick oven. But this is not the case anymore. Benchtop ovens, such as the Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo, and portable outdoor ovens from Ooni and Gozney are cheaper, and they do not require permanent residence in your kitchen or patio. These models allow more people to realize the idea of better homemade pizza.
The Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is the only indoor countertop pizza oven we have tested — we reviewed it for the first time in 2019. Although we found other countertop models in our research, Breville Pizzaiolo belongs to its own category involving performance and heat output. It is well-designed, feature-rich, and it excels in its main function: to bake very good homemade pizzas. If you do not have a patio or yard space for an outdoor oven, we recommend that you use it.
The portable outdoor pizza oven is exactly what it sounds like: a small free-standing oven that can reach stratospheric temperatures (above 900°F) needs to bake Neapolitan-style pies. Prices for these models range from US$250 to US$500. Regardless of the manufacturer, most portable pizza ovens have a similar skeleton: wide, low-key, equipped with cordierite baking stone (cordierite is a ceramic commonly used to make unglazed pizza), and located on three legs. These ovens use propane, wood pellets, hardwood or charcoal as fuel and transfer a lot of heat into a short and wide cavity. The result is a very hot and fast pizza pan. Although they are called portable, they still weigh 30 to 45 pounds-considering storage and movement restrictions. However, if you have an outdoor space, they are more versatile than Breville ovens due to their larger openings, and they are also much cheaper.
Pizza ovens are rarely essential items. However, if you really want to make the best pizza at home, but don't have the budget or space to install a backyard brick oven, then you might want one. If you are ready to play a homemade pizza game, this will definitely help you do that.
If you have ever tried cooking a pizza in your home oven - even with pizza stones - the resulting pies may lack the crunchy, chewy but soft crust that the best pizzerias seem to achieve effortlessly Perfect balance. That's because your home oven has a maximum temperature of 500 °F (if you are lucky, it may be 550 °F). And it’s not hot enough to completely bake the pizza with the crust dry. However, cooking a pizza at a temperature of 750 to 800 °F for a few minutes will result in pies with fluffy edges, leopard-print crust and steaming melted cheese.
These ovens are not a magic machine that can turn you into a professional pizza overnight. The superheated oven is only the last key step in making high-quality homemade pizza. As many people who read this article may know, your dough (recipe and technique), sauces and ingredients are as important as your heat source. And it takes practice to make it all go well. Some of my favorite resources include Peter Reinhart's American Pie: My Exploration of the Perfect Pizza and New York Culinary Magazine's "How to Make a Pizza".
All our selections can bake high-quality pizzas. The trick is to find the best oven for your space and budget. Portable pizza ovens are better value for money and more versatile than Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo, provided that you have enough outdoor space and leave at least 3 feet of clearance around the oven. However, Breville is equipped with preset cooking functions, which makes it particularly easy to use, and it fits on the kitchen countertop-no terrace is required.
The portable outdoor pizza oven we tested can not only cook pizza. You can bake flatbreads such as pita bread or naan, or grill fish, vegetables, ribs and steak. (However, we do not recommend cooking high-fat meats in these ovens, because the high temperature and grease splash will produce too much smoke and flames.) I even made some delicious Rockefeller oysters in Ooni Koda 16 for Christmas Eve dinner. When I don't want to deal with the conventional oven heating in half of my apartment, I will definitely activate one of them in the summer. In other words, these ovens are too hot for baking pies, cakes, biscuits, and other recipes that require a more moderate temperature.
In contrast, the countertop Breville Pizzaiolo does not have many uses. Its low ceiling cavity is 3.5 inches from the stone to the upper heating element, providing enough space for pizza or cut vegetables. Fatty meat may spill grease on the heating element and produce larger smoke than we have seen when baking pizza at the highest temperature of the oven.
Although there are many types of pizza ovens, and we tested the indoor Breville Pizzaiolo separately in the past, in this series of tests, we mainly focused on portable outdoor pizza ovens. If you have outdoor spaces, we find that they are an amazing value for what you can do with them.
Since the portable outdoor pizza oven category is relatively new, we don’t need to screen hundreds of models when researching this guide. Of all the companies we studied, the most famous brand Ooni had the highest sales. At the time of writing, it offers five different models on its website (the sixth model, Ooni Pro 16, has been replaced by Karu 16 and will be discontinued soon). But Ooni is not the only game in town-we also found ovens from Gozney and Camp Chef. We tested the Gozney Roccbox for this guide, but due to space constraints, we had to limit the number of ovens we tried, so we did not include Camp Chef in this round. We hope to test Camp Chef Italia Artisan Pizza Oven and other new famous models when we update this guide in the future.
Here are the factors we considered when looking for the best portable outdoor pizza oven:
Portable pizza ovens use propane, wood chips, hardwood or charcoal (or some combination of two or more of them) as fuel. We found that the learning curve and ease of use of the pizza oven mainly depend on the type of fuel it burns. Let's break down the advantages and disadvantages of each method.
Propane: Just like the gas grill in the backyard, propane-fueled pizza ovens are ignited and heated by turning the dial, so they are the easiest style to use. In our test, the propane oven heats up the fastest (within 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the oven and the external temperature), and as long as there is gas in the tank, it can provide the most stable heat. Compared with solid fuel combustion models (wood chips, hardwood, and charcoal), propane ovens are much less sensitive to environmental factors such as temperatures below freezing, wind, rain, and humidity. The only disadvantage of propane gas is the tedious work of towing a 20-pound propane tank home (be sure to check local regulations on the transportation or use of propane tanks). According to my best estimate, I found that running a propane pizza oven at medium to high temperature for two and a half hours uses less than a quarter of the fuel tank. I made eight pizzas during that time. Five bucks of fuel can cook eight pizzas, which is not bad.
Wood pellets: We found that the pellet-burning pizza oven we tested (Ooni Fyra 12 Wood Pellet Pizza Oven) is the most convenient of the solid fuel models. Hardwood cooking pellets are nothing more than compressed sawdust. They ignite quickly and burn very hot. In our test, the preheating time of Fyra is about 5 to 10 minutes longer than that of propane oven, but unlike charcoal and hardwood, charcoal and hardwood need to burn for up to 30 minutes to cook on hot coals, and the pellets can be used once they are ignited . It is also easier to use pellets to maintain a stable temperature because they are located in the funnel above the combustion box and are gradually fed into the fire as they burn.
The biggest disadvantage of the particle model is that it is a bit too sensitive to the high wind conditions. The wind naturally draws heat from the fire box at the back, passes through the oven cavity, and upwards into the chimney. A violent breeze will stir up these flames and burn the particles faster, making the oven too hot. Wood particles are also very sensitive to moisture and humidity, which can cause them to expand and clog the hopper. Put your wood pellets in a dry place and seal them in a container with a tight lid.
Lump Charcoal: I like hardwood lump charcoal because it is available in most hardware stores and is easier to ignite than solid wood (see below for more details). But the biggest problem with portable pizza ovens that burn charcoal and hardwood is their small firebox, about 6 x 9 inches. This means you must continue to add fuel to preheat and keep the oven hot, and then wait for the charcoal to ignite and ash before putting the food in the oven. If you only make a few pizzas, it is not a terrible inconvenience. However, if you are hosting a pizza party for a group of people, you may find the delay time after each refueling is annoying. Together with hardwood models, these models have the longest heating time (less than an hour).
Hardwood: People who want to replicate the flavor of pizza baked in the Italian wood-burning brick Forno might think of a portable pizza oven using hardwood fuel. But the small 6 x 9 inch fire box in these ovens provides very little headroom, so you need to find a quality hardwood supplier that sells 6 x 2 inch long wood fires for cooking. This is not an easy task. We found that the only wood cut for a portable pizza oven costs about $70 (10 lbs) or $190 (45 lbs). This is a lot of dough (pun intended). If you have a table saw at hand, you can always choose to cut the wood yourself. These ovens also have the longest preheating time (up to nearly an hour, compared to 30 to 40 minutes for propane ovens).
In addition, just like with block charcoal, you need to constantly refuel the oven with hardwood to keep it at the correct cooking temperature. Before you start or continue cooking, you still need to wait for the wood to ignite and turn into embers. While trying to stretch, top, launch, rotate, and take out the pizza, there is a lot of work to manage.
We have produced excellent pizzas in every oven we tested. But we have to work harder in some ovens than in others. As long as there is gas in the tank, the propane fuel model will heat up at a consistent rate. The same argument applies to the wood pellet oven we tested: if you keep the hopper full (and flowing), you will get constant heat. We prefer propane models because they allow us to focus on baking the best pizzas. (If you need to take the indoor route, so does the electric countertop Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo).
On the other hand, once the oven is at the perfect pizza baking temperature, the hardwood and charcoal models provide a shorter time window to add more fuel. More importantly, when you use solid hardwood and charcoal for cooking, you must wait at least 10 minutes after adding more fuel for it to ignite and become embers before you can make more pizzas. Otherwise, your pizza will turn black.
An oven with a wider opening makes it easier to push out the pie and rotate the pie while cooking. You must rotate the pizza during the baking process so that the crust is evenly browned and crispy when it comes out of the oven. And you have to work fast, because an 800 ºF oven can cook a pizza in about two minutes. Compared to a wider oven, a narrower oven opening does not allow you the flexibility to move and twist the baked pies. The size of the baking surface is also an important factor: a 16-inch oven gives you more working space than a 12-inch oven. However, please note that the size of the opening may not match the inside. When we compare the 12-inch models we tested, the opening of one oven (Gozney Roccbox) is 1 inch narrower than the other two. This may not sound like much, but this inch makes a big difference to our handling when baking pizza.
Most importantly, you need a removable stone so that you can clean under and around it from time to time. Every pizza will leave burnt flour or corn flour on the stone after you take it out of the oven. You need to remove these crumbs so that subsequent pie will not taste like an old fireplace.
Pellets, hardwood and charcoal models do need to be carefully cleaned because their chimney pipes will accumulate soot. You can burn off the excess chimney soot by heating the oven for an additional 15 to 20 minutes.
The portable pizza oven is a new device for most people, so we think the instruction manual is particularly important. The manuals of the models we tested contain plenty of illustrations and stylish layouts, making them easy to navigate. But the most important information—safety and fire management—is installed on the front, in small print. It's easy to slide through this section, but we recommend that you read (and reread!) the safety guide. Here you can find important tips, such as not to use certain models in windy conditions (as suggested in Ooni Fyra's manual). Gozney Roccbox does not include the hard copy manual of the oven itself, only the burner. This means turning on the computer or mobile phone when outdoors, and covering your hands with flour and sauce to solve possible problems.
The main accessory required to use these ovens is the pizza crust (video), but not all pizza ovens come with pizza crust in the box. Like the two we picked, pizza crusts are sometimes sold as an extra accessory. Although a bit annoying, this is not a spoiler for us. For example, we don't want the grill to contain tongs and spatula. However, if the pizza oven does contain peels, that would be great, because unlike grills that fit almost any grilling tool, many pizza ovens have small openings and require no more than 12 inches of peel.
We say "crust" is a plural form, because if you have two pizzas, your pizza making job will be more enjoyable: a veneer for flavoring and rolling out the pizzas, and a metal crust for rotating them while baking. In our tests, we used Ooni's wooden and metal skins (sold separately) and the aluminum skins that come with Gozney Roccbox. Ooni's peel is more expensive than what you find on the Internet, and it is often out of stock. There are more affordable peels to choose from-such as this wooden one, which has a 12-inch model with various handle lengths, and this aluminum commercial grade model-but we haven't tested any of them. (For more information on the peel, please check the Pizza Oven Tools section you may need.)
We also studied additional fuel burners for portable ovens that support them-for example, wood-burning attachments for propane ovens, and vice versa. In the end, we think they are not worth it. These additional burners cost about $100, and in our tests, we found that their performance is not as good as the main burner that comes with the oven. It is best to choose the fuel source that you think is most suitable for you and go all out.
Before I launched a pizza, I ran each oven several times to see if they burn easily and how fast they heat up. For the first pair of models I tested, I used an infrared thermometer to measure the temperature of the stone, and a high-temperature probe thermometer (for the furnace) to measure the temperature of the air in the furnace cavity. After using the two thermometers for about four rounds, I found that once the stone reached 730°F-all the way to 850°F-the air in the oven stabilized between 750 and 800°F. So I gave up the probe thermometer and insisted on using infrared light from then on, with great success. I find that a stone temperature of 750 to 830°F is the best point for baking pizzas with crispy crusts and fluffy, bubbly edges. Any hotter shell will be burned.
We tested these ovens in New York City between December and March. During that time, none of them reached the highest temperature advertised, but it was cold outside, so there was only so much they could do with these little things. In other words, they all reach the temperature required to cook satisfactory pizzas at temperatures below and close to the freezing point. We will start our selection this summer to see how fast they heat up and whether they can exceed the maximum temperature in winter. We suspect that these ovens will get hotter in the hot summer.
The rate at which ovens heat up depends on the type of fuel they burn. Propane ovens heat up the fastest (30 to 40 minutes, depending on their size and external temperature), followed closely by wood pellet ovens (up to 45 minutes on the coldest day). Wood and charcoal ovens need nearly an hour to heat up, and they need to be refueled frequently.
I use the same dough ratios, sauce recipes, and ingredients to make pizzas using the same dough ratios, sauce recipes, and ingredients that I used when testing the baking stone and Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo. This provides consistency for all our pizza tests. Once the stone reaches between 750 and 850 degrees Fahrenheit, I cook pizza, observe the general heating zones in each oven and identify hot spots. I also noticed how the size of the stone and the oven opening make the pie easier or more difficult to rotate and move during baking.
As a bonus (for me), when the work day came to an end, I made some extras in the oven and I had dinner on my brain. I made Rockefeller oysters in the Ooni Koda 16 gas-powered pizza oven for Christmas Eve dinner, and grilled salmon and broccoli with the skin on the Ooni Fyra 12 wood pellet pizza oven-all of which were a huge success. I love that these portable pizza ovens can do more than just pizza.
This convenient portable outdoor pizza oven can be lighted by just turning the dial, and can bake a large number of pizzas with a can of gas.
*At the time of publication, the price was $500.
If you want a convenient and portable outdoor pizza oven-just turn the dial to ignite and heat-Ooni Koda 16 is it. This propane-fueled pizza oven is the largest model we have tested. Koda 16 has a 16¾-inch cordierite ceramic baking surface with a spacious 21 x 4½-inch opening on the front, giving us enough space to launch the pies, and to rotate and move them around the oven while baking. Ooni claims that Koda 16 can reach 932 °F, which is close in our tests. The highest temperature we measured on the stone was 890°F-still impressive, and definitely hot enough to light a pizza. (Please also remember that we tested this oven in Brooklyn in the middle of winter.)
On Koda 16 alone, I made at least 30 pizzas. It's not because I'm playing favorites; I just used it for a month before other ovens arrived, and I would love to start using it. This oven makes a perfect homemade pizza with a speckled crispy bottom and chewy crust, dotted with bubbles the size of golf balls. As we mentioned, we managed to do this in every oven we tested, but Koda 16 stood out from the competition because it is the easiest to use and has the largest cooking surface.
We found that the Ooni Koda 16 consistently performed best among all the models we tested, even in very severe weather conditions: sub-freezing temperatures, moderate winds, and even light snow (within the covered area). Its L-shaped burner extends along the left and back sides of the oven, and the heat map provided is unique among competitors, which burns only from the back of the oven. Koda 16 is the hottest in the back left corner and gradually gets colder as you cross the surface to the front right. Other models have the hottest back and the coolest front.
Koda 16's larger cooking surface and wide opening not only allow you to make larger pies, but also give you more flexibility in the oven. Its square baking stone measures 16¾ inches, which is 3½ inches wider and deeper than the other models we tested on average. This may not seem like much on paper, but in reality, these extra inches give you more space to rotate and move the pizza to achieve even baking. This is not to say that we did not use other ovens to produce evenly baked pizzas-we absolutely did. But other ovens are a bit cramped inside, which makes us appreciate the extra swing space provided by Koda 16.
As an interesting personal experiment, I also made a dozen Oyster Rockefellers with Koda 16 for Christmas Eve dinner. I grilled two batches of six oysters on a grill pan covered with rock salt in a restaurant. I know they can withstand the heat of Koda 16, because they are used for professional salamander broilers. The resulting oysters turned brown on top and steamed under the cheese crust. No other cooker in my kitchen can provide such excellent dishes.
The first time I used Koda 16, I melted part of the down jacket on the top of the oven, and then—waiting for it—put my face too close to the opening and scorched my eyelashes. Don't be me
Koda 16 uses 30-pound liquid propane tanks, which you can find in most hardware stores. Setting up the oven and getting started went very smoothly, although you may need a friend to help unpack and lift the 40-pound oven onto a stable surface. No tools are required to set up Koda 16-just unfold the three legs, insert the cordierite baking stone, and connect the gas hose to the propane tank. To light the oven, make sure that the valve on the propane tank is always open, and then turn the dial on the right side of the oven until you hear a click. If you don't see flames, turn off the dial and repeat the process until you see the port ignited. This may take two or three attempts, for the sake of God, don't put your face in the oven! You will know it was lit from a safe distance.
I got your parents there because this thing became very hot. The first time I used Koda 16, I melted part of the down jacket on the top of the oven, and then—waiting for it—put my face too close to the opening and scorched my eyelashes. Don't be me
In terms of fuel consumption, Ooni stated on its website that Koda 16 uses 1.3 pounds of propane per hour, which seems to be correct in our experience.
Ooni also made Koda 12, a small version of this pizza oven. Its dimensions are roughly the same as the other Ooni ovens Fyra 12 and Karu 12 we tested. (We did not test Koda 12 this time, but we plan to update this guide in the future.) Compared with Koda 16, 12 has a burner on the back end instead of the left side, which makes sense to us-Koda 12 Smaller, any more burners may be overkill.
All Ooni ovens come with a three-year limited warranty, covering defective parts (abnormal wear and tear), and a 60-day repurchase guarantee, giving you several months to decide whether to regret your purchase. Although Ooni’s oven does not contain any accessories, you can buy peels, lids, and almost any other tools adjacent to the pizza on its website. However, Ooni brand accessories such as pizza crusts and cutting wheels are often out of stock. They are also more expensive than the non-Ooni versions of those items, which (except the oven lid) are easily available elsewhere. (For more information on the peel, see Pizza oven tools you might need.)
The word "portable" is accurate for this oven because it is not built into your patio. But the 40-pound Koda 16 is very heavy, and its wide shape makes the oven difficult to carry. You don't want to drag it around on long walks. But it is still suitable for backyard and recreational outings, such as trailing and car camping-basically any situation where you don't have to take it too far.
Koda 16 is the most expensive portable outdoor pizza oven we have tested. We know that spending $500 on niche cooking appliances is a lot of money. But its price is half that of Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo, and it is more versatile because it has a larger oven cavity, giving you more space to cook things other than pizza. If you want a more affordable option-one that is equally hot but with its own quirks-check out our budget option, Ooni Fyra that burns wood pellets. (Although we haven't tested it yet, you can also consider Ooni Koda 12, which is a smaller version of 16 and usually sells for about $350.)
This wood pellet pizza oven is small but powerful (and hot) to bake perfect pizza with a hint of smoky flavor.
*At the time of publication, the price was $300.
If you don’t want to spend $500 on niche cooking appliances, then the Ooni Fyra 12 pizza oven is a good choice. Fyra uses wood pellets as fuel to become as hot as our top choice pizza, making pizzas of the same quality, smaller, lighter, and cheaper. Fyra has a 13¼ inch square cooking surface and a 13 x 20 inch footprint. If you have limited outdoor space, or you just don’t want to use a larger model, this small oven is fun and can bake some great pies. But this fireball does have some quirks that make it more difficult to use than the propane-fueled Ooni Koda 16.
Fyra is the only wood pellet model we have tested. Wood pellets burn fast and burn hot. We found that although pellets are not as convenient as propane as fuel, they are more convenient than charcoal or hardwood. You can find pellets online and in most hardware stores that sell barbecue accessories. Be sure to look for pellets made of 100% hardwood, without fillers or additives. You can try different brands and types of wood to find the wood that best suits your taste and budget. For our test, we used Pit Boss Competition Blend Hardwood Pellet (no other reason, just local Lowe's inventory).
Ooni Fyra makes great pizzas, but compared to our first choice, it requires more attention to fuel and fire maintenance-enough for us to add an extended user manual below, and what we learned in the test Some extra tricks. Fyra is the most cost-effective of all the ovens we have tried, but it has its own unique quirks. First, when you remove the door, the airflow in the oven will reverse, causing flames to spray from the back. As the manual explains, this is completely normal for this model and it is a strong visual reminder that you should keep Fyra (and any other portable pizza oven) away from any flammable materials. Speaking of airflow, we do not recommend using Fyra in windy conditions. Pushing air into the fire box will cause flames and cause the fire to become too large. If you live in an area prone to strong winds, please consider our top choice Ooni Koda 16.
Another quirk of Ooni Fyra: the hopper is clogged. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, every time we use a Fyra oven, the hopper will either get stuck or it will not be able to naturally supply the fire at least once. We have theories about why this happens, but there is no specific explanation. When we first encountered this situation, we thought it was the cold pellets that were air-cooled in February to be the culprit, but next time the pellets were at room temperature, the hopper was also clogged. Maybe when we removed the door and fired the pizza, the particles in the hopper absorbed the moisture in the air sucked in through the oven opening. So far, we still don't know why the hopper gets stuck-we only know that this is a real problem and it is easy to fix.
Like Koda 16, I made a few extra dishes in Fyra, this time roasted broccoli and salmon with skin. It is important to note that I will not make anything other than pizza and other breads directly on the baking sheet. Fortunately for me, I have a small oval cast iron oven, which is perfect for these low-key ovens. (I mentioned the oven because it absorbs enough water from the cauliflower. When the top of the corolla is blackened by the fire, it absorbs enough water from the cauliflower.) The salmon from Fyra is soft and has a crispy skin. Foaming-perfect.
Like our first choice, Fyra does not require a setup tool. Unlike our first choice, Fyra burns wood pellets, so more components need to be assembled: a two-part chimney tube, pellet hopper, fire box, oven door, and a double chimney cover as a wood pellet spoon.
We estimate that Ooni Fyra consumes approximately 1.5 pounds of pellets every 15 minutes (a barrel), and at the price we pay for pellets, it consumes approximately US$2.56 of fuel per hour. In comparison, our first choice Koda 16 costs about $1.90 per hour for heating. In other words, the price difference between the more expensive Koda 16 and Fyra 12 is equivalent to more than 300 hours of pellets. The real price is that Koda 16 is larger and easier to use. (If you are worried about the cost, or are not sure whether a wood pellet oven is right for you, the propane-burning Ooni Koda 12 is similar in size to Fyra and only costs $50.) Fyra 12 also has the same three-year warranty and 60-day return as Koda 16. Purchase guarantee.
It takes some time to get used to starting Ooni Fyra. The manual says to start with two pellets in the firebox. I used one of the spoons on the chimney lid that came with the oven mentioned earlier. Then, the manual instructed me to put an "all natural igniter" on top of the pellets and ignite it with a lighter. I couldn't find an all-natural lighter that I thought was safe for food, and Ooni lighters were often sold out, so I used a propane torch. (Since then, I have found an igniter comparable to Ooni, which should be usable.) After the first batch of projectiles were fully ignited, the manual said that more projectiles should be used "less often" in order to keep the fire alive. Build gradually (and avoid stifling it). Okay, but what does "rarely and often" mean? After several runs, I learned that this means adding a scoop about every two minutes until the hopper is full.
Sometimes the wood particles in the hopper will expand and get stuck in it. If you find that the funnel jam is too late and your fire goes out, it would be a shame. The Fyra manual does not explain what to do if the hopper is blocked. The Ooni customer service representative suggested via email that we "use your pellets...a spoon to get a good faucet on the top of your pellet hopper" every time we add pellets. They wrote: "This will avoid any interference" and "It can be said to help'light a fire'". But this doesn't always work for me. Contrary to the recommendations in the manual, when testing Fyra, I used a long metal tool to push the particles down into the combustion chamber, thus solving several stubborn hopper clogging issues. (This is by no means a suggestion; I am just saying this is what I did.)
The oven can be fully preheated in 15 minutes, and a pizza can be cooked in just over 90 seconds. This is the Ferrari of the countertop oven: stylish, expensive and fast.
If you don’t have outdoor space for a portable pizza oven, Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo can bake pizzas just like our other selected pizzas, just on your kitchen countertop. This $1,000 oven has a pre-programmed function that can automatically set the time and temperature for almost any type of pizza, eliminating most of the guesswork about baking the perfect pie. And because it runs on electricity—instead of using propane or wood pellets like our outdoor picking—you can make any number of pizzas without worrying about running out of fuel. However, Breville is an expensive single-use device that is twice as expensive as our most expensive portable pizza oven.
Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is a fast and powerful luxury appliance for people who want to bake professional style pizza at home.
Compared to our portable oven picks, Breville is not that hot, with a maximum temperature of 750 °F. This is about 100 degrees lower than the temperature we measured in the Ooni Koda 16 and Fyra 12 models. In other words, the pizza baked by Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is perfect and only takes 15 minutes to preheat. This is about half the time it takes for our portable paddles to reach temperature (depending on weather conditions).
The Breville pizza oven is not as versatile as the portable outdoor pizza oven we tested. Its small oven cavity is perfect for baking 12-inch pizzas and other small breads, except for flatbreads like pita and naan. If we were cautious about cooking a piece of fat in a portable outdoor pizza oven, we wouldn't even try to do this in Breville Pizzaiolo, because it emits a lot of smoke at high temperatures. When we tested it in 2019, the Pizzaiolo oven triggered the smoke alarm twice.
Nevertheless, the only function of Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is to bake top-notch homemade pizzas. If you have $1,000 to burn a hole in your pocket and extra counter space, this is a fun little oven fireball. (However, Breville’s warranty is shorter than our other options—compared to Ooni’s three-year warranty, which is two years.)
Although portable pizza ovens are designed for outdoor use, they are not immune to these elements. If possible, store the pizza oven in a garage or shed. If you don’t have that kind of free space, buy a special lid for your pizza oven (or wrap it in a tarp) and store it in a covered area.
Clean inside and around the pizza stone occasionally. Remove the stone and wipe it with a dry cloth, then brush or wipe off all debris on the bottom of the oven. (I tried to use canned air, but it didn't help much other than throwing the residue around in the oven.)
If you have an oven with a chimney, you need to check for soot accumulation every three times or so. You can clean it in several ways. You can heat the oven for 20 minutes to burn extra soot. Or, if you want to give it a good check from time to time, wipe the chimney tube with a dry cloth or some paper towels-but you should understand that this is a dirty job and is not necessary at all.
It is best to buy two 12-inch wide pizza crusts: a wooden or bamboo crust to decorate the pie and put it in the oven, and a metal crust to rotate and remove the pie. Raw pizza dough is less likely to stick to dusty wood veneer than metal dough, assuming your dough is not super sticky and your working speed is fast. You will notice that after only a few uses, black scorch marks appear on the front edge of the veneer, even if you are only using it for decoration and pizza delivery. This is fine and normal, it will still last a long time-but be sure to use the metal crust to spin the pizza when baking.
The metal crust is thinner than the wooden crust and can easily slip under the pizza. This makes them perfect for spinning and moving pizzas quickly while cooking. Metal skins will not burn, so they can handle the hottest corners of the oven. In theory, you can use metal crust to decorate and roll out pizzas, but the dough sticks to the surface more easily. (Yes, you can use more corn flour to wipe the dust off the peel, but once it hits the hot stone, all the excess will turn into carbon, giving your shell a burnt smell.)
Both Ooni and Gozney make aluminum skins with slotted holes to minimize the amount of corn flour on the bottom shell. The idea is to let excess corn flour fall through the gaps. But in our tests, we found that the perforated peel leaves the same amount of blackened powder as the wood peel on the cooking surface.
The Ooni Fyra manual clearly states that the company recommends the use of "natural igniters"-basically bundles of hardwood shavings coated with wax-to initially light the oven. You can buy a pack of 50 from the Ooni website for $20; however, they were sold out when we tested them. I went to a large local hardware store to look for something similar, but I was hesitant to buy an igniter that did not specifically mark "100% hardwood" on the package. So I left empty-handed. Since then, I have discovered these Kingsford launchers. They are very similar to Oni launchers and should work fine.
Since I was unable to use a firearm at the time, I used a propane blowtorch to ignite the pyrotechnic pellets. (I don't recommend this; I just keep it transparent.) I took a different approach to Ooni Karu 12, which burns charcoal and hardwood blocks. I used a small chimney starter to ignite several charcoal blocks, and then added hot coal to the fire box. Then I added fresh fuel to the hot coal and started from there. (Again, I don't recommend this. Buy natural lighters; they are easier and safer to use.)
Infrared thermometers are the best (if not the only) way to measure the temperature of these pizza ovens. In our tests, we found that once the stone reaches around 730 to 750 °F, we can start cooking. You don't need to spend too much on an infrared thermometer. We used a model with a price of $20 (similar to this model). When measuring the temperature of the oven, be sure to hit a few points on the stone: the middle, the rear corners, and the front. Of course, this will show you the location of the hotspot, but over time you will also learn about the natural heat map of the oven. Soon, you will instinctively know where to roll out the pizza and how to manipulate it around the oven to get the best results.
We want to test more portable pizza ovens and update this guide as soon as we get back to the office (the office is still closed due to the pandemic). The models we plan to test include Ooni Koda 12 (our preferred smaller version), the new Ooni Karu 16 and Camp Chef Artisan Outdoor Oven 90. In addition to the pizza oven, we are also interested in testing the BakerStone Original series pizza oven box, which is actually an accessory suitable for a three-burner propane grill, such as our top gas grill choice, Weber Spirit II E-310. We are also studying Bertello Outdoor Pizza Oven, but have not yet committed to testing it.
The Ooni Karu 12 multi-fuel pizza oven uses hardwood fire and lump charcoal as fuel (standalone or in combination). First, let's talk about the wood needed to provide fuel for this event. The firebox on Karu measures 9⅜ x 6 inches and requires wood that is specially cut to fit-6 x 2 inches is ideal. This is not the usual shape and size of cooking wood. Fortunately, Karu also burns lumpy charcoal, which is easier to ignite and put in a fire box. But whether it is charcoal or wood, the heating time of Karu 12 is longer than our Ooni picks, and it takes about an hour in cold weather (the warm-up time will vary with the outdoor temperature).
After a few dry runs of heating the oven and maintaining the temperature, I finally have enough confidence to really cook in Karoo. During testing, I found that once the oven reached temperature, I could bake two pizzas and then add fuel. In summer, you may be able to make more pizzas between fuel additions; I work in 30 to 40 degrees weather surrounded by snow. I think Karoo pizzas are good, but my partner thinks they are too smoky. After all, baking a pizza in Karu 12 takes more effort than any other oven we tested.
The Gozney Roccbox is a compact, propane-fueled pizza oven that can become super hot and bake delicious pizzas. It also has a super cute circular design that reminds me of a happy space robot, and includes a convenient strap with handles. Roccbox is the only portable pizza oven with peel and built-in thermometer that we have tested. However, the thermometer measures the temperature under the stone, so it is only used to check when the oven floor is hot. After the oven is preheated, the pointer will stay at the highest temperature mark (932 °F).
There are several reasons why Roccbox is not a choice. One is that it is a 12-inch oven that costs as much as Ooni Koda 16. At 12¼ x 3¼ inches, the opening of the Roccbox is also the smallest of all the ovens we have tested, which makes it more difficult to rotate the pizza during the baking process. In addition, the cordierite baked stone cannot be removed and cleaned. We tested the Roccbox using the included propane and Gozney's separately sold wood burner accessory ($100). (We prefer to use propane burners; wood burners have never made the oven hot enough for cooking.) Even after an hour and a half of continuous hardwood fire, the temperature of the stone never exceeds 400°F. Maybe it's because we tested it in the cold winter, but we didn't have this problem on the wood-burning Ooni Karu 12. Our recommendation is to stick to the propane burner that comes with Roccbox for best results.
Lesley Stockton is a senior writer responsible for covering all things cooking and entertainment for Wirecutter. Her expertise is built on a lifelong career in the culinary world-from restaurant chef and caterer to Martha Stewart's food editor. She is very happy to leave it all behind and become a full-time kitchen nerd.
Cuisinart Chef's convection oven is a versatile and powerful mini oven, disguised as a toaster.
We think FibraMent-D baking stone is the best universal baking stone for making crispy pizza, crusty bread and golden pastries.
Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo is a fast and powerful luxury appliance for people who want to bake professional style pizza at home.
We have been testing toaster ovens since 2015 and have two favorites: the compact Panasonic FlashXpress and the large Cuisinart Chef's Convection.
You can also send us a note.
© 2021 The New York Times Company Wirecutter, Inc.
Choose a plan or click here for more information
Provide Wirecutter subscription. For monthly subscriptions, your payment method will automatically charge $5 in advance every 4 weeks, and $40 per year for annual subscriptions. Your subscription will continue until you cancel. The cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. Annual subscribers with a Vermont billing address will be asked to agree to renew via email. Does not include the New York Times print edition, digital news content, cooking or games. May be taxed. The terms of the offer may change.