Got yourself an Ooni pizza oven? Fantastic! You are well on your way toward having some pretty fantastic-tasting pizza.
While Ooni does give some helpful information on putting together a great dish, we figured that we would share a couple of extra tips with you. After all, you probably want your pizza to be the best that it possibly can be.
Tips to Use A Pizza Oven
So, its time for me to shut-up and share the tips and tricks that will help you dominate the art of homemade pizza!
Buy An Infrared Thermometer Gun
The secret to a good pizza is ensuring that you get that Ooni pizza oven nice and hot. While the Ooni pizza oven should do a pretty decent job of letting you know when it is the right temperature, we still suggest using a thermometer gun. It is much more precise.
Before you put that pizza in the oven, you need it to be around the 600C mark.
Having your Ooni pizza oven at 600C ensures that the pizza oven is neither too hot nor too cold. A pizza in an oven this temperature should only take a few minutes to cook.
Don’t Overload On Pizza Toppings
We have seen plenty of people pick up an Ooni pizza oven and go straight to overloading their beautifully-made pizza dough with toppings. Don’t do this. In the case of pizza toppings, less is always more.
The Ooni pizza oven is going to be cooking your pizza incredibly fast. If you put too many toppings on the pizza, there is a risk that it won’t cook all the way through. This means that you could end up with a beautifully cooked top, but a bit of sogginess in the center of the pizza.
In our opinion, you should have a light helping of sauce, a layer or two of cheese, and maybe two to three ingredients on top of that. Nothing intense.
Only Use 00 Flour
You will likely see this included in the recipe book that you get with your Ooni pizza oven but it is a bit of advice that is worth reiterating.
If you are going to be making a pizza using a top oven like the Ooni, then you should always ensure that you do it the best that you can.
You already know that you shouldn’t be buying store-bought pizza dough. You will never end up with something good unless you handmake it.
However, don’t just grab the first flour that you see. Make sure that you use 00 flour. This is the way the Italians make their pizza bases. 00 flour helps to ensure that the pizza cooks nicely. It is 00 flour that will ensure that your dough stretches properly.
You can pick up 00 flour from all good stores, so you won’t need to go out of your way to find it. Just know that it is going to lead to you having a much more exciting and delicious pizza if you do!
Experiment With Your Ooni
One of the reasons why you have picked up your Ooni is because you want to make the greatest pizza imaginable, right? Great! The Ooni is going to have you well on your way to that. However, you have to remember that working with your Ooni is going to be completely different from cooking pizza in the oven.
The Ooni gets a lot hotter. IKt cooks pizza faster. It will cook those toppings faster. Chances are that you could feel that you are doing everything right, but you may not end up with the perfect pizza the first time that you cook.
This is fine. We have made mistakes with our Ooni too. It is all about experimenting and finding the right cooking times, style, etc. for your pizza.
Don’t worry. Even if you do get things wrong, you are probably still going to end up with a pizza that tastes stunning.
Oh, and yes. Your pizza is going to get a little charred, particularly on the crust. There isn’t anything you are going to be able to do about this. This is a proper wood-fired pizza. It is still going to taste tremendous.
Buy Yourself a Second Pizza Peel
If you tend to cook more than one pizza at a time, then pick yourself up a second pizza peel. One should be used for the initial preparation of your pizza.
This should be kept at room temperature. The other should be used for adding the pizza to the oven, removing it, etc. This will stay hot.
Having multiple peels will make the preparation of pizza a whole lot easier. After all, it means that you won’t have to build a pizza up on a hot peel, which could end up cooking the dough a little bit before you add it to the oven.
Flour That Pizza Peel
You want that pizza to move easily off of the pizza peel. There are two things that you need to do here.
Firstly, the pizza peel should always be floured. When you put the pizza on top, a shake of the pizza peel will have the pizza moving about. You don’t want it to stick at all.
Secondly, do not leave that pizza on the pizza peel for too long. The longer that you have it on the peel, the more chance there is of it sticking. Ideally, any prepared pizza shouldn’t be on the pizza peel for more than a few minutes.
Don’t Push The Pizza Too Far To The Back
Many users of the Ooni pizza oven have claimed that pushing the pizza into the back left-hand corner of the pizza oven will lead to pizza burning. So, don’t do that. Keep the pizza near the center of the stone.
The Preheat Is Everything
A lot of people seem to think that because the flames on the Ooni pizza oven are crackling right away, they can just toss their pizza in there and it will cook. We suppose that this is true, to an extent. However, the base doesn’t get as crispy like this.
You want the pizza stone to warm up before the pizza is placed in the oven. A good 20-30 minutes of preheating will ensure that you end up with a perfectly crispy pizza.
