Do I want a pizza oven?

There is absolutely no advantage to wood for cooking pizza,

More so . We get demonized on here for heating our houses with wood . How’s the PM2.5 release on a pizza oven.

And you get them for waiting 40 mins for usable heat ?

There is absolutely no advantage to wood for cooking pizza

Thought I was jokey enough with my wording to not rub people up the wrong way, apparently not, I am fully aware that given the time it cooks for no wood flavour is imparted to the pizza.

I enjoy cooking with fire and wood, the OP has no gas adaptor at present so wants to cook it today so I thought it’d be useful to tell them how long the stone takes to get to temperature.

As for the harm of particulates in the air, I balance this by having cycled to work when I did go into the office and having no wood burning stove in my house. I will continue to punish my neighbours with wood smoke when bbqing and pizza cooking though, hate me for it if you must 🙂

Lol, I seem to rub them up the wrong way too, having a wood burner and toon gas! 🙈

Despite same folks having a dozen bikes, 4 cars and a motorbike. 😂

I’m not actually being serious about pM2.5s and a pizza oven…… But I know there will be much tutting going on at my poking fun at pm2.5s

Hah, sounds like we all enjoy what we want how we want to then. Have a good weekend all 🙂

My ambitions are more modest – would a pizza stone help me avoid soggy bottoms (fnarr)? Or are they a useless gimmick?

Pizza stones are good and will sort your soggy bottom DrJ!.

Used one in a standard oven for years before I started buggering about with weber bbq and then the koda.

Go for it.

People reckon you can get pretty good results with a heavy cast iron frying pan and then finished off under the grill also

People reckon you can get pretty good results with a heavy cast iron frying pan and then finished off under the grill also

You can . It’s more of a bread than a pizza though.

Used to do this in Angola when all we had for cooking was a braai

Heavy cast flat bottom pan with a lid preheated to as hot as it would go . Not top notch pizza…but better than anything we could buy locally.

And less chance of dysantry…

Or are they a useless gimmick?

It’s all about the stone (very high heat from underneath)

If you’ve got a pyrolytic cleaning oven you can bake brilliant pizzas at 500c+ by hacking the lock mechanism. Might invalidate your warranty though.

Well my first attempt didn’t go great. I did manage to borrow the gas burner adapter but struggled to find anywhere to sell me a bottle of gas. Finally managed to nick one from my mums bbq. With all this we decided to just get the ready rolled bases from tesco… kin ell. Could not get it off the parchment at first, then we just plucked it off and re rolled it. Eventually I stuck one in the freezer for a bit I’m and this was a revelation.

When I came to cooking tho, they were all too soft & doughy in the middle and charred and crispy round the edges. I like the charred edges but nobody else did.

Having said all that tho they were bloody delicious. Just need to refine my technique and definitely make our own dough in future.

I think that ready made based are “designed” for normal ovens so they require a longer, lower cooking time.
Hence burnt around the edge and uncooked in the middle.
Also cooking from frozen will simply not work.

You can get frozen dough balls in some places – just defrost them carefully in the microwave.

It’s best to make batches of dough yourself though…obvs.

I do this using 1kg flour at a time then individually wrap the dough balls in cling film and freeze.

The thread is a little hefty now though. So what is the ‘drac’s iPad’ of the Pizza Oven world?

Ooni Koda

I like a charcoal bbq for smoking stuff while cooking it but the convenience of the Koda is really brilliant – I got one because it was the only model available at the time but it’s great.

It is easy to burn the outsides even with homemade dough, but I’ve got much better at not doing it.

Ooni are pushing the price up by all account but John Lewis has some Kodi 16 in for £400 just now.

https://www.johnlewis.com/ooni-koda-16-gas-fuel-portable-pizza-oven/p5049055

How is everyone storing theirs in this damp cold winter.
Mine is in the shed and unlikely to be used till spring. I don’t want to damage it by leaving it in the shed. But if it makes no difference then it can stay.

Oooh I get John Lewis discount too. Jesus….I really can’t afford this currently 😂

Just read through some of the thread, very entertaining! Although I’ve stopped on page 6 as it’s got a bit ‘troll’.

So to clarify….could I use the Koda in place of a normal oven? We’re veggie so don’t do steaks etc, but do some nice veggie tray bakes etc….would they still work?

As I posted above, we’re living in a motorhome currently,and expect to be in here for 2 years whilst doing a barn conversion. I’m thinking that as time moves on (we’re only a month in!) being able to shift more of the cooking outside, especially over the summer, will be a really good thing. The 16 seems a bit spendy though. Is the 13 literally just smaller version, or is it a lower spec?

How is everyone storing theirs in this damp cold winter

Be interested to know too. Ours is in the summerhouse and showing some signs of discolouration. Still being used weekly- have just cooked lunch with it.

@Tom-b the normal koda is just smaller I think

You can use it like a regular oven but it’s hot – probably minimum 200c ish once it’s going. Also quite small vertically. I’ve done great roasted veg in mine, not tried much else yet apart from using pizza dough to make garlic/zatar flatbread 😋

How is everyone storing theirs in this damp cold winter.

Outside, under a porch, hooked up to a gas bottle getting used 1-2 times a week.

Cheers @grum. Sounds like it’ll be suitable then.

Yes Koda is just a smaller version it’s what I have it’s very good I’ve cooked for 6 people on it before with no issues. Yes you can turn the temp down easily as it’s has adjustable flow on the back. It would a very handy oven in your situation.

We had no kitchen for 6 weeks in the summer.

Koda worked fine as the oven to supliment the camper hobs/microwave and our BBQ

For us and the builders (family)

It’s definitely on the Spring shopping list….I think that I’ll get 25 percent off at John Lewis so need to wait for it to come into stock there!

@tom-b

Something like a Weber go anywhere might be better for outdoors cooks, unless you want just one thing rather than 2. Other brands of portable BBQ are available of course.

Ooh I’ll check it out. Fairly sure we could take the smaller Ooni Koda away with us in the motorhome for ultra middle class top trumps, so that’s obviously a consideration 😂

I didn’t appreciate quite how difficult it would be to get gas. Had my koda for a couple of weeks after a black Friday purchase and one thing is stopping me firing it up. The guy in the local garage almost laughed when I told him I needed a bottle as well as gas.

Ah yes! Haven’t they stopped selling bottles nationwide? Luckily we’ve got a decent stash and variety here. I’m still pondering rigging up a 43kg butane bottle for the mojo whilst were parked up. Works out at around £1.50 p/kg rather than £4.50 p/kg that we pay for our 6kg bottles to be refilled. We’re getting a month out of a 6kg bottle currently though so not sure it’s worth the hassle.

As above, if you’re near to Congleton, I can probably loan you a bottle.

Get a used bottle off eBay, I got a gaslight one for a tenner.

Late to the party, and haven’t read the previous pages.

I have an Ooni Koda, (the smaller one) and gas powered.
Its great, gets up to temp in 15 mins, easy to use, just need a little practice whipping the raw pizza in, and turning it.
Takes no more than 2 minutes to cook.

Recommend.

You do need gas, and Calor have had an embargo on for the last year, however other companies exist and I have FloGas canisters (I got one, and when i thought it might be running out, i bought another, so have 2 on the go, when one is empty i refill but still have the spare)
Not sure you can get them refilled anywhere, but they do a free delivery service and have been swift when i used them

Loads available again now caravan parks have shut and BBQ season has ended.

Aye, no issue with gas now.

out of interest, how easy is it to clean a koda if you have a disaster? (or are you all artisan pizza makers now?)

we still have the odd er…. mishap, usually when my wife (not me, natch) takes too long to put the toppings on or puts too much base sauce onto it and it starts sticking to the peel (even with polenta underneath). you never know with those how its going to go until you try slipping it onto the plate, and we’ve had a few right calamities 😀

ive got a firepod, which has a removable lid which has been invaluable for such situations, just wondered how the oonis fared in that respect?

Mid cook let the scraps burn push the lumps back with the launcher. After cooking flip the cool stone over and it’ll burn of the next cook.

My Ooni Koda 12 just arrived!

we still have the odd er…. mishap, usually when my wife (not me, natch) takes too long to put the toppings on

Educate her that less is more – and don’t put topping right up the the edge of the pizza.

Less really is more when it comes to pizza toppings.

Spilled stuff does burn off pretty easily at max temp but I also got the Ooni wire brush/scraper which works pretty well.

My Ooni Koda 12 just arrived!

Congrats!

Enjoy @ogden!