Can A Portable Pizza Oven Make Amazing Pizza? | Ooni Karu 16 Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- We tested the Ooni Karu 16 portable pizza oven for 4 months, and here's our deep dive review to help you decide if it's the right pizza oven for you.
Read our full review: thebarbecuelab.com/ooni-karu-...
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► Karu 16 Pizza Oven - thebarbecuelab.com/recommends...
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0:00 Intro
0:36 What's in the box
1:25 What's not in the box
2:03 Karu 16 measurements and specifications
2:55 Optional Gas and Propane Burners
3:17 Oven Certification
4:11 How to light the Ooni Karu 16
6:10 Why stone temperature matters in a pizza oven
6:45 Real Time Pizza Cook on Ooni Karu 16
10:10 Pizza Taste Test
10:38 Final Thoughts on the Ooni Karu 16
11:37 Other Videos on the Ooni Karu 16 Playlist
Great content as always guys! Looks like a great addition to any backyard!
Thank you for detailed and clear review.
Another great review. I always like the details you give. You cover all the bases
Thanks Curtis! Always great to hear from you and thanks for watching.
Great Video- well planned, and very informative.
Thanks @billsmith147 - Glad it was informative for you. All the best!
I have an Ooni Karu 16 and so far I've only done the initial burnout (without pizza) using charcoal and oak wood. Ooni recommends that, and it provides a chance to get use to the oven. I have never made pizza so I have that learning curve ahead of me. I have the gas attachment but I'm more interested in the charcoal and wood. Really liked this video with a lot of information and detailed recommendations. It helped me a lot. Thanks!.
Have you made any Pizza yet?What's it like?I'm thinking of getting one.
awesome video!!
First time here. A lot of things you did in terms of explaining your reasoning for fuel type and length of use before the review let me you take this seriously. Subscribed.
Great video. Would cook it with the door closed. Temperature was somewhat low. Can see it if you look at the cheese.
Best demo I've seen so far.
Thanks Joe, all the best!
Great videos! Can you tell the difference in taste between wood/charcoal and gas?
Hello, I like your videos, new sub here. I didn´t find a comparison video between the Koda and the Karu. Haven´t you posted it yet? Greetings from Iceland. 😊
The comparison video will come out this week as a part of the series, so keep an eye on the channel as it’s finishing up in editing. Thanks for watching!
Awesome video. Can you share your dough recipe? It looks so good.
Sure thing. We made a video about it. th-cam.com/video/CY1BI6yLVQg/w-d-xo.html
Thinking about getting one of these to do pop ups at local farmer markets and kava bars.
There are quite a few people I know that use the Karu 16 for pop-ups, so you'd be in great company.
Really great video. I am definitely leaning toward buying the Ooni Karu 16 and the gas attachment but I also bake a fair bit of sourdough bread at home in addition to pizza. Would it be possible for you to do a video about successful bread baking in this oven and perhaps include one or two other dishes that can be made in it. I'm a retired chef of forty years and I need more function from an outdoor oven. Is this the oven for me?
If you’re looking for an oven under $1,000, then this is the best I’ve tested. It sounds like what you really want is an Alfa oven, but they’re about triple the price. You could check out their Gas Nano model or the wood Nano for much less. That might be the best fit.
@@TheBarbecueLab Thanks for the reply. I know it's hard to believe but I live in Himalayan Mountains. Zero pizza restaurants, if you can believe it. So far, Ooni is the only decent pizza oven I can find to purchase here. There are some places that manufacture brick pizza ovens but they are pretty large and there is no chance of having them delivered to my area. In truth, my options seem to be Ooni Karu 16 or build my own wood fired pizza oven. Wish me luck because I am no brick layer.
Not unique to the Karu 16, but after using my new Karu 16 for a month now with 15 Neapolitan pies baked, the biggest negative I've found (besides the soot issue over the front and glass area...some users report similar and other's don't have the consistent soot issue) is the need to constantly maintain the fire for repeated pie bakes; it heats and cools quickly! It, like most non-refractory ovens I'd guess, requires considerable fire box management to get consistent results.
That's true Dan, there is definitely some fire management that needs to happen if you're going to be cooking a bunch of pies in a single setting. Maybe that's a good video to add to the playlist. I tend to have all of my wood pre-cut and sitting on the stand with the oven ready to go in when needed. I can usually get 2-3 pizzas completely cooked before I need to add a piece or two of wood, but I'm cutting the wood quite small so I get that instant burn and arc over the top of the oven to crisp the top. Thanks for your comment. Maybe that's something we should shoot.
Yeah one of the improvements that I hoped they would do on this oven compared to the smaller 12 version was bottom insulation.
Alas they did not do anything about it, and this contributes to this problem.
If it heats up in 15 min, it cant hold heat for an hour, that would be a miracle. I use this if i make 1-2 pizzas or on vacation. For a birthday party i heat the big fire oven, but that takes 4 hours to reach that temperature, but its very easy to maintain the heat then.
@@roadrunner1095 Roccbox would want to have a word with you
To reduce soot you need dry wood. Preheat your oven only on coals ( don't use only wood) and dry your wood in the oven while the coals are burning. Then add the wood afterwards and keep the door open while adding wood. Once the initial smoke burns off there will be no soot
thank you
You're welcome
Hi. Can I ask what the machine was that was kneading the dough. It looked amazing.
Sure thing. It's called a Famag IM-8S spiral mixer, and you can find out more about them here. thebarbecuelab.com/recommends/famag-im8s-mixer/
@@TheBarbecueLab Sure thing!!! The darn mixer costs more than the oven
I am thinking of doing a pop-up and am wondering how quickly the floor can get back up to temp between pizzas if I leave the door open during cooking but close it between pies in the oven. It seems that my venture would require gas. I need to focus on getting the pizzas in and out and not on managing the fire. That being said, I have read that the Karu 16 is a propane hog.
If you close it between pies, it should rebound pretty quickly, especially if you’re using the propane burner. Regarding it using lots of propane, I didn’t run into that, but I usually ran it for an hour at a time. I didn’t change the propane tank for a couple of months though, so I didn’t notice it being hard on propane personally.
@@TheBarbecueLab Thank you for the prompt response...very helpful. I see that Ooni has a half door so to speak for the Karu 16 which may be the best option if my business gets any traction.
The door - does that give you any frustrations? I've seen some reviews where the tester think the door is a bit stupid when cooking pizza. What are your thoughts? Great video, but as mentioned in comments, it could be good with a video/how to video with wood fire and bigger scale cooking. Or maybe a bread cooking? Long and slow? 😄 Cheers
Thanks for the ideas Dennis. We'll see what we can add to the shooting calendar. As far as the door goes, I like that this unit has a door. I don't always use it when we're cooking pizza, but it definitely holds the heat in more when we use it. I'll watch the digital thermometer drop 100-150 degrees over a 60-90 second pizza cook when we leave the door open the whole time. When we use the door and just open it to turn the pizza, we'll only lose about 20-30 degrees over a cook, so it's a definitive difference holding the heat in when you use the door. That's my two cents anyway.
I use my Karu 16 for 4-6 minute NY style bakes so I love the door. But I'm not turning my pizzas every 20 seconds. For longer bakes it holds the heat a lot better and keeps the front of stone at a more even temp.
Question. I have watch many videos going back a few years and the karu 16 configuration appears to have changed somewhat, which is expected as the development will improve as time goes on. There doesn't seem to be a sequence of models to highlight changes. I'm in New Zealand and we have an Ooni agent here. My concern is if I purchased one how would I know if it had the latest features?
@@didanz100 The Karu 16 just came out October 2021. And to my knowledge they haven't made any reversions to it.
How to avoid the glass getting black? As it defies the purpose of being able to watch your pizza baking.
I've seen some reviews where the door gets covered in soot. Do you know how to prevent that when using coal/wood? Thanks
Hi Elizabeth, we don't really prevent it as much as we do clean it every now and then. We just shot a review of the Alfa 4 Pizze pizza oven, and in that video I show how we use Liquid Bar Keepers Friend and a Microfiber cloth to keep the stainless steel of the oven clean. Here's the link if you want to check it out. th-cam.com/video/hsQ4aEURN8U/w-d-xo.html
@@TheBarbecueLab thank you!
Can you cook a steak 🥩 in this oven? Seems it would be great with those temperatures
Pizza ovens are great for cooking steak, and we have a video coming up in this series where I cook some steak fajitas on the Grizzler cast iron plate that fits this oven. It can char the outside fast, and keep it nice a medium rare on the inside. I love the way you think.
Can you cook with gas & wood/Charcoal at the same time?
It's one fuel or the other at a single time. You have to take out the wood rack in order to install the propane attachment, so there's not room for both.
What does AVPN certification mean to you? it means ooni pays a royalty on every oven to AVPN and that is passed along to the consumer
Are you using a 60% hydration cold prove dough?
Yes, this recipe is 60% hydration with a cold proof of 42 hours.
@@TheBarbecueLab thanks so much! Great videos !
If you want to watch us make the dough, we just released a new video a few hours ago showing how we made this. th-cam.com/video/CY1BI6yLVQg/w-d-xo.html
Awesome thanks so much 👍
I didn't hear a crunch from the bottom crust on that bite.
you won't get any crunch on a 90 second bake. Neopolitians are going to be soft on the bottom. For crunch you need a 4-6 minute bake like a NY style at a much lower temp.
if its stainless why does it need a cover outside
I'm going to guess because it's not 100% stainless, so it's protecting any of those parts that aren't.
would you classify - oklahoma joes judge - also a pizza oven ?? - just got one - cheers
I don't know that I'd classify the Judge as a pizza oven, but you can certainly cook pizzas on it if you can get it high enough. I haven't had hands on a Judge yet, but I hope to in the next few months.
Not exactly portable. It's pretty damn heavy. And, although it's "multi-fuel" you gotta spend even more $$$ to use different fuel. Blech.
Fresh Parmesan? Isn't the good stuff aged several years? 😁
Fresh parmesan is purchased sold mature, in EU as opposed to dried parmesan grated in a box like US.
Lot of leoparding going on. Is that actually a real word?
I hope it's a real word. If it's not, we're going to have to come up with a new way to talk about leopard like spots on pizza crust. I could try "blotchy" but I don't think it has the same ring, lol.
more a fact than an opinion . you are stuck with the same temp for everything you bake . as an electric oven you can modify bottom and top for any type . also burning the bottom of the pizza is more likely to occur. you have to stay in front of your oven almost the whole time . the temp is not even all around like an electric oven. you have to use it preferably outside . for a more than 400c baking you are going to have a less crispier pizza and more chewy , way more . wind might interfere with the baking at times . but i can understand the compact and light , easy to carry for some occasions . last the baking is way more even in a modular gaz or electric commercial oven . i was reffering to a small electric oven compare to this small oven here. that is why i do not like any of the ooni or similar products . however thanks for sharing this video and your comments here .
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY SUBSCRIPTION!
Great video, mate.
Welcome aboard! Thanks for watching Aidan.
C'mon man, be honest! Is that a good pizza? I mean Im from Brooklyn and I don't want to break your Ba--ls!, but that's not good pizza! Sorry paisan!!
The top is undercooked as hell
16 inches oven and you cook a crappy 8 inches raw Margherita