July 3, 2022 - 11:30am
Pizza oven for bread baking
I’ve been pining for a pizza oven for quite some time. My wife recently pointed out one of the smaller, portable ovens that run off wood or gas.
I would really love something large enough to bake bread in as well.
Does anyone have experience with an oven that can do both?
Thanks,
Chris
Share
I get your intent. However, I suspect you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
Big question is what are you going for in a pizza - Neapolitan style or more NY style and what size oven are you going for?
If you think about how the new micro pizza ovens work - it will give you a hint at why combining it with bread cooking will more likely just leave you with a disappointing pizza outcome.
These ovens don't use stored radiant heat. Instead the flame itself has to fill that role. This is no mean feat. The flame has to be just perfectly above the pizza to replicate that radiant heat. Too low and you are burning the pizza to a black lump, a tiny variation too high and it will just look like an bad oven bake.
If you add the need for bread baking, 1 no radiant heat source above, 2 the hot air /flame will not work for pizza.
When I watch all the videos of the latest mini pizza ovens, none are making pizzas I want to eat. Most are making a crust that looks more like a bread with minor scald rather than the mysterious light pizza crust with leopard spots. In addition, do I rarely see the topping reach that sublime mouthwatering state where everything is cooked but still fresh...that is the alchemy magic of pizza. Nearly all of these current videos are the visual of bread and melted cheese.
I have a UUNI 2s (from back when they still used UU instead of OO). This nailed the flame height, but you have to get used to it. The pizzas still melt my mind.
One final thought - Sure I get the convenience of gas burner for most - it's so easy and simple. However, given how impactful the smoke flavour of pellets is on the UUNI 2s, I personally wouldn't go to gas with these mini ovens.
That’s what I thought. I’m usually not a fan of multi-use tools - they often don’t do one thing well at all.. :)
I would eventually like a larger oven that does pizza and bread (and meat, and vegetables), but maybe I can get one of these smaller ones and it’ll be my gateway oven.
BTW, I’d definitely go for the wood!
between the two ovens, bread and pizza, is the distance between the floor or baking surface and the top of the oven. A bread oven is higher and the preheat longer. Idea: to bake a pizza in the brick bread oven, try preheating an upper shelf inside the oven using an additional large shelf with some brick feet for support.