Like many of you I like pizza. Being Italian/American it's a birth right. As such, and being a bit of a nut job about how I learn about various methods and equipment, I play with a number of pizza cooking devices.
Some time back I wrote up a post about my experience with the Ooni Koda 16 oven. I still have it and have upgraded it with a biscotto stone. If I'm doing a pure Neapolitan style pie, and want the full interaction experience of repeatedly turning the pie to achieve that just right cook, it's my go to because it works so well. But, being the curious type who prefers hands on experiences, I will give other cookers a try from time to time.
About a year or so ago I got an Everdure Kiln R oven, that's the model with the rotating stone that is intended to eliminate the need to repeatedly turn the pie to work with the heat flow pattern within the oven for even crust cooking. They have an identical looking model with a fixed stone and single burner. The Kiln R has the added advantage of a second burner that is placed below the rotating stone which is intended to heat the stone faster and help it maintain optimum temperature between pie cooks. For what I do it's at full ready temperature in about 1/2 an hour. I'll briefly explain what I like about it, but if you have interest I'll leave it to you to search out more thorough information online.
Lighting the two burners is done easily with electronic ignition on each with individual controls. There's a small port on the side that allows you to verify that the under burner is lit, and of course the upper burner is easily seen through the nicely wide front opening. It's necessary to have the stone rotating when the lower burner is lit so that there won't be a concentrated hot spot that would likely destroy the stone. It can be stationary for a short time, as we'll discuss more later, but not for extended time. The rotation is done by a motor and bracket under the removable round stone. The motor can be powered by AC current or battery so you have options there. The claim is the stone will rotate for upwards of 40 hours on the 4 AA batteries.
Both burners have a comparatively wide range of adjustment so that you can control temperatures appropriate for the style of pie you're making. On low, the stone will run somewhere in the low 500s, on high it will get up to 800ish. The upper will give you temps from 600-1000ish. For my preferences I'll run the stone burner at full and the upper burner at around 50% as I like the crust bottom to have more cooking/crunch. There's plenty of adjustability for most tastes I'd say.
Launching the pizza is pretty easy for the experienced as long as you remember to turn off the rotation momentarily for the launch. I've seen videos of very experienced cooks who can launch successfully onto a rotating stone, but it's a well developed skill. That said, in either method, it's not hard to adjust if you know how to wield a peel. The wide opening is a dream for access for any pie up to 16" with room to spare. The U shaped burner gives you three sided direct heat if you choose to leave the rotation and lower burner off.
Is the rotating stone a necessity of life? Not really, plenty of good pies are done with a stationary stone. But, if you have difficulty figuring out how to manually rotate a pie in a tight work space, or if you just like the idea of having the cooker do it for you, the results are very pleasing. Here's a pie we did for dinner last night.
While I'm not put off by the typical charred spots/bubbles on a common Neapolitan style pizza (they're actually quite yummy when done well) I also like the even browning that results from the automatic rotating of this device. As for dislikes, I don't really have any, it's as close to a perfect pizza cooker as I can imagine. There is a learning curve, and you do need to be attentive because if you run it like I do at the higher end of its temperature capabilities, a pie will be done in two minutes or less, and will be completely ruined in less than a minute more. But then, you can do that in just about any oven.
Some time back I wrote up a post about my experience with the Ooni Koda 16 oven. I still have it and have upgraded it with a biscotto stone. If I'm doing a pure Neapolitan style pie, and want the full interaction experience of repeatedly turning the pie to achieve that just right cook, it's my go to because it works so well. But, being the curious type who prefers hands on experiences, I will give other cookers a try from time to time.
About a year or so ago I got an Everdure Kiln R oven, that's the model with the rotating stone that is intended to eliminate the need to repeatedly turn the pie to work with the heat flow pattern within the oven for even crust cooking. They have an identical looking model with a fixed stone and single burner. The Kiln R has the added advantage of a second burner that is placed below the rotating stone which is intended to heat the stone faster and help it maintain optimum temperature between pie cooks. For what I do it's at full ready temperature in about 1/2 an hour. I'll briefly explain what I like about it, but if you have interest I'll leave it to you to search out more thorough information online.
Lighting the two burners is done easily with electronic ignition on each with individual controls. There's a small port on the side that allows you to verify that the under burner is lit, and of course the upper burner is easily seen through the nicely wide front opening. It's necessary to have the stone rotating when the lower burner is lit so that there won't be a concentrated hot spot that would likely destroy the stone. It can be stationary for a short time, as we'll discuss more later, but not for extended time. The rotation is done by a motor and bracket under the removable round stone. The motor can be powered by AC current or battery so you have options there. The claim is the stone will rotate for upwards of 40 hours on the 4 AA batteries.
Both burners have a comparatively wide range of adjustment so that you can control temperatures appropriate for the style of pie you're making. On low, the stone will run somewhere in the low 500s, on high it will get up to 800ish. The upper will give you temps from 600-1000ish. For my preferences I'll run the stone burner at full and the upper burner at around 50% as I like the crust bottom to have more cooking/crunch. There's plenty of adjustability for most tastes I'd say.
Launching the pizza is pretty easy for the experienced as long as you remember to turn off the rotation momentarily for the launch. I've seen videos of very experienced cooks who can launch successfully onto a rotating stone, but it's a well developed skill. That said, in either method, it's not hard to adjust if you know how to wield a peel. The wide opening is a dream for access for any pie up to 16" with room to spare. The U shaped burner gives you three sided direct heat if you choose to leave the rotation and lower burner off.
Is the rotating stone a necessity of life? Not really, plenty of good pies are done with a stationary stone. But, if you have difficulty figuring out how to manually rotate a pie in a tight work space, or if you just like the idea of having the cooker do it for you, the results are very pleasing. Here's a pie we did for dinner last night.
While I'm not put off by the typical charred spots/bubbles on a common Neapolitan style pizza (they're actually quite yummy when done well) I also like the even browning that results from the automatic rotating of this device. As for dislikes, I don't really have any, it's as close to a perfect pizza cooker as I can imagine. There is a learning curve, and you do need to be attentive because if you run it like I do at the higher end of its temperature capabilities, a pie will be done in two minutes or less, and will be completely ruined in less than a minute more. But then, you can do that in just about any oven.
Comment