pizza oven

[Bootsie]

Do you have a pizza oven?  Do you like it?  

A pizza oven sounds like a nice idea, but I am wondering how much we would like it.  I see prices from a couple of hundred dollars up into the thousands and wonder what your budget needs to be to get one that is really worth having.  Also, are the gas, pellet burning, or charcoal best?  Any input is welcome. 

[TexasProud]

Well, we discovered that we love doing pizza in our green egg!!  We have done it many times. A favorite with teens and young adults.  

[Bootsie]

8 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Well, we discovered that we love doing pizza in our green egg!!  We have done it many times. A favorite with teens and young adults.  

Do you do it on a pizza stone in the green egg?  How long does it take?

[Ali in OR]

We don't even have a green egg but we make excellent pizzas on our charcoal grill. We make smaller ones (divide a 1 lb ball of dough into 3), roll them out pretty thin, grill on one side no lid, rotate every min or so, flip when bottom has brown marks just for a bit (30 sec?) to set the other side. Take them back in the house, everyone tops their own (olive oil, spices, pizza sauce, very light on the cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, ham, small pineapple chunks, etc), toppings on the fully cooked side. Then take them back out, place on cooler section of coals, keep lid on to help cheese melt but rotate them a couple of times. These are the best pizzas we make (ie better than any kitchen oven version).

[TexasProud]

38 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Do you do it on a pizza stone in the green egg?  How long does it take?

Yes, and you get it really hot. Hubby says like 800 degrees so each pizza just takes 5 minutes or so. We love it.

We have also done some fabulous rotisserie chickens in there. I think he can do two at once.  We bought it at an auction many years ago, more for a good cause and it just sat on our back porch. Then during the pandemic, we started to use it and we LOVE it.  We never use our gas grill anymore.

[Danae]

We have this one:  https://www.ilfornino.com/ilfornino-professional-series-wood-burning-pizza-oven-one-flat-cooking-surface/

We bought it at the beginning of last summer and used it at least once a week until the end of October.  We roasted veggies in it for Thanksgiving, and now we’re probably done with it until spring.

[TheReader]

Well, after living in Brazil and falling in love with the one that we had in our last house, we saved up for this one:

https://authenticpizzaovens.com/collections/traditional/products/ventura-buena-black-premium-pizza-oven-brand-new?variant=21669147476028

It was quite the production to get it set up once it was delivered, but we adore it and use it often. 

There are certainly less expensive options out there; we're fond of the wood fired aspect, so I can't comment on what fuel is better among the other choices.  We do a lot in ours besides pizza, though, and do pizzas often, and new this was the type we wanted. 

[Bootsie]

5 hours ago, TheReader said:

Well, after living in Brazil and falling in love with the one that we had in our last house, we saved up for this one:

https://authenticpizzaovens.com/collections/traditional/products/ventura-buena-black-premium-pizza-oven-brand-new?variant=21669147476028

It was quite the production to get it set up once it was delivered, but we adore it and use it often. 

There are certainly less expensive options out there; we're fond of the wood fired aspect, so I can't comment on what fuel is better among the other choices.  We do a lot in ours besides pizza, though, and do pizzas often, and new this was the type we wanted. 

I am curious what else you do in yours.

[Danae]

1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

I am curious what else you do in yours.

We do pot roast or chicken in a covered cast iron pot, kebabs, mac&cheese, lasagna, roasted veggies, baked potatoes & sweet potatoes, every type of flatbread imaginable, sometimes regular bread.  One thing that I do every time we use the pizza oven is fill a mini cast-iron skillet with green olives (pits in) and garlic cloves in olive oil. Roast until the olives are wrinkly and the garlic is soft.  Save the flavored oil to dip things in.

[TheReader]

11 hours ago, Bootsie said:

I am curious what else you do in yours.

We have done:
...roasted veggies
....cooked our Thanksgiving turkey in it
....planning on, but have not yet tried, baking bread in it
 

We certainly don't use it as much/as often as our grills (we have a charcoal grill and a gas grill, as well), but we do use it a lot. DH keeps a tally of how many pizzas we've done, and I think since getting it set up we've done over 60. We usually make a big batch of pizza dough, then set out the toppings on a table outside, everyone tops their own, DH cooks the pizza, I slice it and hand it out, everyone piles around the picnic table and eats, there's much laughter and it's just a lot of fun. The pizzas cook crazy fast (3 to 5 mins), so in the amount of time DH is cooking one, the next person starts topping their crust and getting it ready. When they're done, he's done, and in goes the next pizza right as the previous comes out. 

Now, heating up the oven (since it's wood burning, and you need to get it HOT) takes a few hours. But it requires less tending than, say, smoking stuff in the grill, so.....and you can't use it when it's too hot (well, ha, you *can* but the person standing in front of the oven spinning the pizzas will not enjoy it....). In that regard, the other fuels have an advantage (I think they don't take as long) (but for flavor, we're wood fired purists at my house). 

[Guest]

We have a Uuni pellet oven and we use it almost every Friday night. I prépare my dough sponge before I leave for work and make it into dough balls (2) when I return home, then we make pizza at about 7pm. The Uuni is small, relatively inexpensive, and adequate for our needs. It comes with two peels. 
 

One thing we learned to do is to put the pellets into a plastic bin we used to use for dog food, otherwise they absorb our Maryland humidity in the summer and don’t burn right.