THE INDEPENDENT PIZZA OVEN BUYERS GUIDE 

or how to choose a pizza oven

I’m coming to you today from my office because this is not one of my regular pizza videos/posts! This is the ultimate independent buyers guide to your new pizza oven if you’re in the market search. 

People ask me all the time hey Hinze, tell me, is this oven better for me or that one… with this video/post I just want to give you a tour de horizon through pizza ovens available for home and what are the pros and the cons of the many different oven categories out there.

there are in fact so many ways of cooking your pizza pies - actually it is a real pizza oven jungle - so it can be hard to choose your best pizza oven - so let’s get started!

IMPORTANT NOTE: this is no payed content I do not have any connection to one or more of the companies named here. So this review is totally independent and just based on my years of experience with the ovens and pizza. so like share and subscribe in any case to get my regular pizza and tec updates!

Now guys since you've clicked this post I assume you know, why you buy a pizza oven. Home ovens usually do not get up to that high temperatures of 350°C plus for the good Neapolitan Pizza.

I’d like to divide this video/post into the different oven types and so I just separate the video/post into chapters so you can hop between the parts easily!

Guys this video is long so I do have it posted on my blog for you to read it once you get tired of me talking to you with my memojy. 

These categories are the many ovens you can choose on the market for domestic use right now (we’ll not cover professional ovens in this video).

We’ll start over with outdoor or indoor ovens and cover the outdoor ovens first. We’ll then get to the domestic stone ovens, head over to the mobile stone ovens. After this I’ll cover the big mobile stainless steel ovens and we’ll get to the smaller ones like the Ooni and the Roccboxes and all the other stuff afterwords. I’ll finish this video/post up with the electric indoor ovens and some important things to take into account when your shopping around for a pizza oven! So stay tuned until the end of this video or read through the post. I’ll of course have my recommendations at the end of that video/post. 

If you’re just looking for an ooni oven I recommend  checking out my one year ooni pro video vs. 2 months koda 16 video. I’ll link all these in the description below.

Outdoor or indoor oven

If you plan to use your oven indoors you’re basically limited to electric ovens or pro ovens with an indoor permission.

The easier way to go for sure is an electrical oven since you’ll have to consider many details when using a pro oven in your home. 

So I’ll give you a little overview of the electric models at the end of this video/post because I assume most of you guys are looking for a non-electric outdoor or bigger oven.

So if you have the space for an outdoor oven this is definitely the way to go since cooking outdoors with wood or gas is just great fun especially in the warm season. It is not that funny in the cold season - you’ll know that if you’ve ever tried to prepare a pizza pie at 5°C outside for the oven - check out my snow pizza Neapolitana video if you’re interested in this.

So we’ll go through the different kinds of ovens here starting with the biggest and going down to the smallest

Domestic Stone ovens 

with 

• custom built
• fixed built
• assembly kit (need to be finished up with insolation and cover …)

Now the reason why people build or buy such an oven is simple. They just do have an incredible thermal mass you can and have to heat up for an amazing equal heat that cooks your pizza pies or whatever you through it. And this is beside the right dough, the perfect ingredients and the right handling the whole trick to the perfect pizza. So these ovens are - if properly built - the holy trinity of pizza ovens. Their thermal characteristics perfect radiant, conduction and convection heat are unmatched and simply the benchmark for a pizza oven. You’ll compromise on these characteristics in the other categories but of course you do gain some advantages in other ways such as handling or movability. But the hard fact is that you’ll trade in the pizza cooking quality for this convenience. 

Prices vary a lot here you can get em cheap or very expensive if custom built

Pros’

• great technically and visually, if built from a pro
• pizza cooking standard
• thermally stable due to multiple layers
• can cook multiple dishes other than pizza as well
• most have some kind of dome

Cons’

• fixed in place
• risk of cracks high
• hard to repair/replace
• very heavy 
• high fuel demand
• need to make weather proof
• usually wood only
• need to cure
• need lots of additional work like insulation and finish

There are countless manufacturers for such ovens even like the big names Valoriani or Zio Ciro - you’ll best find a local one close to where you live, to keep the setup simple. Generally if you go down this road and want to build such an oven you better get some additional know how. There are literally hundreds of books and videos dealing with building and finishing up stone ovens.

You can check out this guy here (thewoodfiredchef.com), he fires one of the most impressive ovens I’ve ever seen out there. 

Mobile domestic stone ovens

You’ll get one of these ovens if you want a little more flexibility to move your oven around in the garden but still want the perfect heat characteristics of a stone oven.

I’ll list some here

• Zio Ciro
• Valoriani
• Agrieuro Cibus 80/100 (no gas option)

Pros’

• usually very reliable 
• still maneuverable with tools like crane or so
• thermally stable
• usually available with gas and wood
• and you can cook other dishes than pizza as well

Cons’

• still heavy
• quite expensive 
• heat up slowly
• still high fuel demand
• need to cure

Big Mobile domestic stainless steel ovens

You’ll get one of these if you don’t want the weight of a mobile stone oven but still want good insulation and a little more flexible handling.

I’ll list some here

• Clementi
• Alfa Forni
• Fontana fori
• Agrieuro Cibus
• Pizzaparty
• Edil planet

Pros’

• still reliably ovens
• mostly weather proof 
• usually big door
• usually quite easy to handle
• lower weight as stone ovens
• no need to cure

Cons’

• usually low working hight due to small size of trolly with wheels
• Stainless steal main material
• thermally not that stable as their stone brothers and sisters because of inox 
• loss of heat while firing through big oven door
• usually nearly as expensive as mobile stone ovens
• most available only in wood OR gas
• still relatively high fuel demand
• only some do have the indirect flue flow system (like the Alfa Forni)
• no real dome

Small mobile domestic stainless steel ovens

I’ll list some here

• ooni (Pro, Koda 16)
• Roccbox
• Alfa one, 5 Minutti
• Pizzaparty Ardore

You’ll get one of these ovens if you want a reliable partner for getting started with pizza making on a lower budget with no effort.

Check out this super long pros and cons list guys, this says it all… this oven category has so many ups and just some downs that of course do make a difference on the thermal side of these units. But great overall - there are reasons why these ovens are so popular.

Pros’

• heat up quickly
• lower fuel demand (also due to smaller size and no stone dome)
• mobile
• affordable
• usually sold and shipped online 
• delivered via regular mail
• not really a risk for damage 
• spare parts available
• no need to cure
• good to get into pizza cooking quickly

Cons’

• high temperature gaps between front and back of the stone
• do not keep temperature lang (only important if you cook bread and so on as well)
• not really a risk for damage 
• usually spare parts available online if you need
• no indirect flue flow
• wood option more or less useless with most of them
• no real radiant and convection heat like in a dome

The very small mobile domestic ovens like the Fyra are not really a class of it’s own since they are just shrieked down versions of their bigger brothers. But these are actually more like toys as real pizza ovens. it may sound strange but the smaller such an oven is, the more experienced you have to be to handle the pie correctly - so it may be easier as a beginner to get something like the Koda 16, the Ooni pro, or the pizza party Ardore (the latter has become very expensive over the last two years.. it was available for 350,- EUR or 400 Dollar once and now is more than double the price.

Some remarkable issues before buying a pizza oven…

Cooking surface

One problem these ovens all share is that you have to decide on the size of the cooking surface. The key factors for this decision are:

• do you use gas or wood (much lower space required with gas)
• do you have a big or large oven door (more heat lost through a big door and so more heat inconsistance)
• What is your preferred pizza size? You can cook small pizzas perfectly fine in almost any of the ovens named here… but it gets harder with bigger pizzas like 16“ or so.
• Do not take into account cooking two pies or more at once. You’ll not be quick enough as a beginner and even as a experienced hobby pizzaiolo - just leaf this up to the pros

so a surface of 80x60 cm or 32 x 23 inches is okay when you use wood (and gas) and 60 by 60 cm or even 45x45 cm is enough if you have gas only. If you choose a round oven take at least 75 cm if you use wood and 60 cm of diameter is okay if you just use gas.

In general round ovens provide a better radiant, conduction and convection heat as square ones. 

if you use wood as a fuel source you may find the indirect flue control like in the Alfa Forni ovens or in the Valoriani or Zios’ helpful for a better flow of flue.

Other gear you’ll need for being a Pizzaiolo

When planning your budget keep in mind that you’ll need some really good equipment for your pizza journey to really enjoy it. 

If you use wood in a stone oven or big stainless steal oven you’ll need an 

• ash scraper
• a copper brush
• a fire separator
• a tool to maneuver the glow around in the oven

anyway you’ll need

• working surface (wood and stone are great)
• a peel for loading your pizza into the oven
• a turning peel
• a laser thermometer for the temperature check
• Dough boxes 
• Dough scraper
• exact scale

Since these tools can be really expensive if you buy quality it may well be a few hundert bucks that you pay on top of your ovens cost. There are only a few companies that sell quality stuff here. The pro pizzaioli more or less all rely on a company named Gimetal. Their online shop offers a good variety of all the stuff you usually need in a pro pizzeria environment but sell it to individuals as well. I can really recommend them.

Fuel options

The bigger the cooking surface, the internal space or the dome of the oven, the thicker the stone is, the more fuel you’ll need to heat it up. So if you want a big oven be prepared to get a lot of quality hard wood that is quite expensive or some big bottles of propane. The small and very small ovens do have an advantage here of course. The usually need about up to half of the fuel you’ll need for the big ones.

So finally we’ll get back to the 

Electric ovens 

here for home use.

 I list them in the order of how much I would recommend them. 

EFFEUNO P134H

GMG PF4040

GFF MICRO

SAGE PIZZAIOLO

Check out my pick for the worlds’ best electric indoor pizza oven - the effeuno p134h.

A quick look into the pizza oven future…

maybe the most anticipated and hard expected unit in this year is the Gozney Dome.

Originally they have been announcing this one for spring 22. Now their website says spring 21 for availability in US and UK. This unit is a dual powered wood and gas oven that fits into the category of mobile stainless stell ovens. From what you can see from the add images so far it looks somehow like an oil drum. It seems bigger on the images as it actually is in reality. The cooking surface is only 60cm or 23 inches that further decreases when using wood. The thermometer is more or less a toy that you can get cheaper on amazon or in your local bbq shop. We’ll see how this thing matches the expectation. People go crazy online over this thing. I do not quite share this euphoria. Gozney have raised the bar quite high with their own rocking add campaign. I assume that the dome will have a rather low thermal stability due to size and weight regulations; so it is somehow a pimped Ooni pro with double the price tag… 

Maybe Ooni will get out an oven with a turning pizza stone that of course makes it very easy to cook and more convenient. For now you can check out my easy hack to get that convenience. 

My recommendation

Yeah guys! This is the hardest part for this video/post!

My Pizzaiolo freak recommendation is to get 

• an electric indoor oven
• a small stainless steel outdoor oven and
• fixed or mobile stone oven

If you can’t go this far due to space or budget or female limitations guys right now the hottest picks are the ovens mentioned above. 

My picks

I do not have a pick for the big domestic ovens but you cannot go wrong with the big names here like Valoriani or Zio assembly kids if (and this if is important) you do have the knowledge to finish them up properly! Just get a book or a pro for this!

Pizzaiolo Freak Pick :)

Electric oven for the winter, 

Small stell oven for occasional 1P Pizzaparty

Big (mobile) stone oven for extended cooking joy

Wood only mobile stone oven

• Zio Ziro 80 
• Great value for price
• rather heat efficient

Gas only mobile stone oven

• Valoriani Baby 60 Gas
• unbeatable gas option with the Millberg burner
• Incredible level of craftsmanship

Big mobile stainless steel oven (wood or gas)

• Alfa Forni 5 Minuti
• Very well made
• Still good insulation
• indirect flue flow system
• Available as top only version without trolly
• weather proof

Small mobile stainless steel ovens (wood or gas)

• Ooni Pro (the Koda 16 is good to learn because it has a big and bright interior but falls back due to very inconsistent heat delivery ((150°C+ heat difference from the front to the back) and some other issues .... check out my video here..)
• Very flexible oven with door
• great for not only pizza 
• can put other Biscottos in
• Pizza door
• hackable
• fuel efficient
• We’ll have to see how the gozney dome does in this category once it is released!

Very small mobile Pizza oven (wood and gas)

• Roccbox
• Thermally stable with good insolation
• super mobile
• Dual fuel option
• fuel efficient
• Well made
• good value for money

Very small mobile pizza oven (gas only)

• Ooni Koda
• super mobile
• well made
• hackable
• good pyrolysis for the stone