I tried the popular Ooni pizza oven to see if it's worth the investment

A portable pizza oven that instantly turns your backyard into a pizzeria - yes please! 

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With the launch of Ooni’s portable pizza ovens in Australia I was curious to know if they were as good as I had heard. Did the pizzas really taste like a traditional woodfired pizza?

As a chef and food editor, I have always loved the idea of having a pizza oven in the backyard, to cook fresh homemade pizzas whenever I wanted, but with space limitations and costs involved, it has just never happened. Enter the Ooni Koda 12 gas-powered pizza oven. 

About the Ooni

The Ooni oven trialled in this article is available from several online retailers, including Ooni directly, who offer an extended 3 year warranty and free shipping on all orders over $99.

SHOP OONI HERE

The oven boosts a small compact design and can heat up to 500°C in 15 minutes, meaning a standard 12” pizza will cook in just 60 seconds. Ooni also offers a 60-day guarantee - Great pizza or we will buy it back. The 12" pizza oven retails for $659.00.

Ooni 12" gas powdered pizza oven

It’s super easy to set up

Straight out of the box, the Ooni is almost ready to go. You don’t need any special equipment or tools, it’s just a matter of removing all the packaging, extending the legs and sliding in the baking stone. Voila! Set up complete. Impressive.

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Pizzas made in the Ooni pizza oven

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Cooking in the Ooni

I decided to make the pizza dough recipe from the instruction booklet. This made 5 good-sized pizzas, which was fine for a family of 4-5 (we had leftovers!). We let the kids choose their own toppings so we had a mixture of ham and pineapple, a simple bbq meatlovers and then some classics like pepperoni, basil and tomato and garlic and cheese. 

With paddle in hand and a freshly made bocconcini and tomato pizza ready to go, I attempted placing my first pizza in the oven. Nervous I would mess the whole thing up I just went for it and with the flick of my wrist to my amazement, the pizza landed fairly centrally in the oven. I did note, some of the bocconcini flew off and started flaring up in the back corner of the oven, but for my first attempt, I was pretty happy. 

Cooking the pizza was easy, but you do need to remove the pizza every 15 seconds or so and rotate it so that you get even cooking. On quite a few occasions I left the pizza a touch too long and one side got a bit dark. I think if you were using the oven on a regular basis, you would get to know the heat settings and would master it in no time.

Base and topping on pizza from Ooni pizza oven

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Things I wish I had known

The set-up is easy, the dough is simple and the results were great, but there were some things I wished I had known in advance. 

The instructions say, flour the paddle, but this is ultimately what makes the pizza fly into the oven with ease, so just when you think there is enough flour on the paddle, add a little extra for good measure. 

As I mentioned above, turn the pizza - This particular model only has a flame at the rear of the pizza oven, so the back of the oven is hotter than the sides and front, so turning the pizza is key to even cooking, golden melted cheese and a crispy charred base.

Keep the toppings simple. I found that anything too big would fly off the pizza and into the back of the oven (when you are placing the pizza in the oven). Once in the back, it's hard to retrieve, so whatever falls off will burn and flare up. 

If you don’t want to store the pizza oven indoors when not in use, I would recommend getting the additional waterproof cover. This keeps it clean, dust and dirt free and safe from any storm front. It is something I think should be included in the price of the pizza oven.  

This model requires a gas bottle. I have natural gas at my place, so to use this pizza oven I had to buy a gas bottle, which was fine, but if your place has natural gas and you don’t want to keep a gas bottle on hand, maybe look at the Ooni Koda 16 Gas Powered Pizza Oven, which is both gas bottle and natural gas compatible. 

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Is a gas-powered pizza oven worth the investment? 

Did I think the oven made a pizza as good as a purchased pizzeria pizza? Short answer, yes.

I think if you buy an Ooni, you won’t be disappointed (and you won’t buy store-purchased pizzas anymore either!). The pizza was great and both adults and kids gave it a big thumbs up. If you think you will use the oven even a few times a month, it’s probably a worthwhile investment. 

The Ooni Koda 12 gas-powered pizza oven retails at $659 and is available via the Ooni website. 

Update: Koda 2 Max has been released, and it's Ooni's biggest pizza oven to date!

The Koda 2 Max is now available!

This super-sized, 24-inch gas-powered pizza oven has an innovative dual-zone cooking function, meaning home cooks can feed their entire family in one go. Dual-zone cooking has been made possible with the introduction of two independently controlled gas burners, which means you can cook multiple pizzas at once or cook  foods simultaneously at a range of temperatures; slow-cook a deep-dish pizza on one side while sizzling a ribeye on the other. 

We love the 2 independent cooking zones!

Not only is it the biggest pizza oven around, the Koda 2 Max will also take the guesswork out of cooking with its digital temperature hub. This hub will give you even more control and comes equipped with a pair of digital food probes which take internal temperature readings of meats as they roast. To access the hub all you need is Ooni Connect™ on your smartphone! The app with offer real-time notifications of oven and digital food probe temperatures as well as send notifications, product updates, tips and more.

Suitable for outdoor cooking, the Ooni Koda 2 Max reaches 500°C in just 30 minutes and is available to purchase now for $1,499 on ooni.com.au.

Originally published as I tried the popular Ooni pizza oven to see if it's worth the investment