3 Levels of Pizza Oven | The ULTIMATE Guide to Home Cooked Pizza

We put three levels of pizza ovens to the test. Food writer Natalie tries out a budget-friendly model, a mid-range crowd-pleaser, and a top-tier professional oven to see which one truly delivers the perfect slice .. at home! Subscribe to Good Food: https://bit.ly/GoodFoodSubscribe

Take a look at the products we featured:

*Beginner*

VonHaus wood-fired pizza oven: https://tidd.ly/4ogWLDC
Northern Dough Co. pizza dough: https://waitrose.pxf.io/MAV9Ro

*Intermediate*

Ooni Koda 2 Pro pizza oven: https://tidd.ly/4ocuI8B
Ooni pizza peel: https://tidd.ly/3IWtBJQ
Ooni digital infrared thermometer: https://tidd.ly/45eHA5o
Ooni dough boxes: https://tidd.ly/4fiIEtA

*Enthusiast*

Gozney Tread pizza oven: https://tidd.ly/4laUoiR
Gozney Tread mantel: https://tidd.ly/4mqoWhS
Ooni Halo Pro spiral dough mixer: https://tidd.ly/4ofxWIf
Gozney pizza peel: https://tidd.ly/4laM5Ut
Gozney turning peel: https://tidd.ly/4mfGLjm
Gozney pizza rocker: https://tidd.ly/3UaZAZf

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Ever dreamed of making restaurant quality pizza at home only to end up with a sad floppy disc that tastes more like regret than margarita? Yes, we’ve been there. But the good news is you don’t need to drop thousands of pounds or be a pizza pro to get started. Whether you’re a total beginner, a home cook, leveling up, or a total pizza fiend, we have got the setup for you. Today, we’re breaking down three levels of pizza ovens and showing you what you need at every stage to nail that perfect pie. So, grab your pizza peel and let’s fire it up. [Music] Now, let’s start simple. This is an entry- levelvel pizza setup we’ve got here. No fuss, no stress, but no less delicious. You don’t need a pro oven to make great pizza. this budget friendly woodf fired oven. It’s really compact. It’s easy to use, and it heats pretty quickly, too. Just fire it up with some wood pellets, some fire lighters, and it’ll get preheated in around half an hour, and then you’re good to go. You can keep it really simple with shop bought dough, canned pizza sauce, and pre-shredded cheese. And you’ll still get a really crispy crust and gooey topping. No needing or fermentation required. Perfect for pizza night without the mess or the prep. So, we’ve got our shop bought dough. I’m going to add a little bit of flour to the surface that I’m going to be working on. It’s a little bit windy, but managed to get it all on the board. Okay. The technique that I tend to go for, and you can try any technique that you want. There’s tons of YouTube videos and guides online. I do is I take my fingers and I press into the dough gently like that. Twist it and do the same again. And then once we’ve got it to about roughly this size, the technique that I like to do is I place my the back of my hand on the back of the pizza dough and I stretch like that. Fold it over my hand, slam it on the surface. And then you just go around like so. It takes a bit of practice. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to do this in order to actually like perfect the rhythm. Um, but it does feel really satisfying when you’re doing it. You feel a bit like you could actually own your own pizza shop. Stretches it without you worrying about getting any holes in the center. Keeps it nice and round. And then I tend to pick it up and just gently stretch out the crust like that because you don’t want it to be too doughy. But that feels nice and thin and that’s going to crisp up really well. Next up, I’m going to get my pizza peel. Now, these are available from lots of different pizza oven retailers. I’m going to top it with some flour and that’s going to stop the dough sticking when we put it in because there’s nothing more upsetting than prepping your lovely pizza and then you can’t even get it in the oven. So, just going to drag it across like so. And then you kind of want to be doing this while it’s on the peel because if it’s topped with all your ingredients while it’s still on the work surface or the chopping board, then it’s just going to be a bit of a faf to try and get it on the peel. So, always try and get it on the peel first. Try not to be too heavy-handed with your tomato sauce. This is a precaned sauce that we’ve got here. But I like it when it’s not too saucy, so I tend to spread it relatively thinly. Maybe we’ll just go for a little bit more. [Music] How good does that look? Right, we’ve got our pre-shredded mozzarella. And that’s just going to go on the top. Oh, this looks really good. I’m getting hungry just looking at it before it’s even cooked. Now, our pizza oven should be at temperature. Take the lid or the the door off your oven. Like that. And then, look at that. It’s moving really nicely. I’m just going to slide it inside. Now, the door’s back on. And we’re going to leave that for maybe a minute. Let’s see how it looks. Give it a turn. And then let it cook for another minute. and it should be perfect. Okay, let’s check how our pizza’s doing. Once your pizza’s been in there for around a minute, a minute and a half, check how it’s doing on the side that has the flame closest to it. Rotate it and then pop it back in the oven for another couple of minutes. Slide it back in. Let it get nice and hot. Right, I think our pizza might be ready. So, going to take off the door. Let’s have a look inside. Those look pretty good, actually. There we go. Here’s our pizza. It’s got that nice crisp crust. Really crispy cheese that’s all melted. And here it is, your beginner’s pizza. Cheers. M. Really good. Crisp crust, bubbling cheese. That’s delicious. Ready to level up? If you’ve caught the pizza bug, this setup gives you better control and better flavor. Now, the sun’s gone behind a cloud now, but that’s not going to stop us creating some really delicious pizza. And this is where things are going to get really exciting. A mid-range oven like this one from Ooni can hit temperatures of over 400° C, which means blistered crust and perfectly melted cheese in under 90 seconds. Now, you can swap out shredded mozzarella for fresh. We’ve got low moisture mozzarella here and use high quality tomatoes for that sweet, tangy sauce. Fresh dough makes a huge difference, too. And you can buy that from your local bakery or try making your own. This setup gives you that classic Neapolitan texture. crispy on the outside and chewy in the center. Perfect. Okay, so now let’s make some delicious pizza. I’ve got a temperature gun is here as well and that’s going to help us check on the temperature of our oven and at the moment it’s about 350° C which is perfect. I’ve got some flour to layer on top of my chopping board, which is where I’m going to be assembling my pizza. You can also buy dough boxes like these and that give you the perfect environment if you are making your own dough from home. It’ll allow it to prove until it’s a perfect texture ready for stretching out and going in the oven. We’ve got our dough here and I’m going to start by stretching it out like this. You want to rotate it 90° and press with your fingers into the dough. And then I’m going to do that same technique of placing the back of my hand and stretching with my other hand, folding over and slamming on the worktop. This dough, I can already tell the difference from when we used the shop bought dough from the first beginner setup because this just like the texture feels like so much stretchier. It’s actually a lot more a lot easier to work with the flour and semolina mix that we’ve got here. You can just make that at home easily enough. Just combine some plain flour with some semolina. Then we’re going to pop our pizza dough onto the pizza pill. You can see already like it’s really stretchy. Add my tomatoes. Now, we used high quality tomatoes for our intermediate setup. And we’ve just given them a blitz in a food processor. And now we’ve got our low moisture mozzarella here. That’s going to go on the top of our tomato. Already very excited about this. Okay. Right into the oven we go. Oh, slides off really nicely. You want to be very generous with your semolina and flour mix. Make sure it really comes off the pizza peel. Going to keep an eye on that. Hopefully, it will take 90 seconds, maybe 2 minutes, but we’ll keep an eye on it and see how it’s looking. Oh, the cheese is bubbling. Okay, we are ready. That is our intermediate pizza. It’s really lovely even char. Oh, look at all that cheese. Doesn’t that look great? M. That is so good. And now for the final boss level. If pizza is your personality, this one is for you. At this level, everything is dialed in. Fermentation times, hydration levels, and exact temperatures. You’re using a stand mixer for consistent dough, d0ero flour for that light elastic texture, and digital scales to nail those measurements. Your oven probably has temperature control, steam injections, and even a wood gas hybrid setup. Basically, you’re one step away from opening your own pizzeria. At this stage, you are chasing perfection. And honestly, you’re getting pretty close. So, let’s start making our pizza. We have got a freshlymade sourdough pizza base here. Look how lively it is. It looks great. It’s super moist and stretchy. And unlike the other pizza doughs I worked with, I’m going to have to be a little bit a little bit more gentle with it. I think I’m going to struggle to lift it. So, I’m going to just stretch it out on the board. Lightly rotating it. It is very lively cuz it’s super fresh, which really is what we’re aiming for at this level. Stretch it out like this. So you can see all those bubbles forming in the crust. But it is going to make a really really good pizza. You see I’m getting a slight like window pane effect in the middle here. That’s going to create a really lovely chewy center. And it stretches so easily. You can already see the diameter of this pizza compared to the others. Okay, got my pizza peel here. We’re going to use our double zero flour and semolina mix on this. And again, because the dough is the way it is and very soft and stretchy, I’m going to be quite generous with this. Once that’s all good, I’m going to gently move the dough onto the pizza. Again, we’ve got premium tomatoes here blitzed up because the center is a bit thinner. I’m not going to put too much tomato on just cuz we don’t want it to be too wet. You know, sometimes a wet and sloppy pizza can be quite tasty. Probably a knife and fork job rather than a picking up with your hands job. Now, we’re going to put on our fresh mozzarella. We have padded this with a bit of paper towel and that’s just gonna get rid of some of the moisture. And I like putting nice big chunks on of the mozzarella. Looks pretty great. And then what I’m also going to do is I’m going to add some parmesan to the top. And that so I’m told by pizza pros I have spoken to will help absorb some of the moisture from the tomatoes. So, it’s not going to be too wet and saucy. Plus, you know, it’s extra flavor, right? It’s like, you know, you get the nice saltiness from the Parmesan. And that’s really going to elevate our enthusiast’s pizza. Okay. Should we go into the oven? Give it a shake. There we go. Use this turning peel to rotate the pizza to make sure we’ve got an even cook on each side. Then I’m going to use my pizza peel to get it out the oven. There it is. Our enthusiast’s pizza. Going to add some basil to the top because that’s going to really elevate this a little bit further. And then maybe some extra parmesan too, actually just for some extra flavor. You see, we’ve got this really nice thick bubbling crust, which is what you’d get in a pizzeria or dare I say even in an Italian pizzeria. Okay, which slice should I go in for? This one looks like a really good one. Got nice cheese pull. Cheers. Oh my god, that is really good. You can really tell the difference here. The dough is just that bit stretchier and the cheese is bubbled. It’s just Yeah, this really is a next level pizza. The dough is stretchy and delicious. The cheese is bubbling. The tomatoes are sweet and tangy. You can’t get much better than that. So whether you’re just getting started or already obsessed, there’s a pizza oven out there with your name on it. Beginner, intermediate, or enthusiast, pick your level, fire up that oven, and get cooking. If you want to dive deeper into dough, sauce, or oven tips, drop us a comment below, and don’t forget to hit that subscribe button. Thanks for watching, and happy pizza making.