The physique has Ooni’s distinctive dark-grey turtle-like form, constituted of chrome steel in a shell of powder-coated carbon metal that, once more, insulates it remarkably. I can relaxation my hand on the highest of the oven whereas it’s going full blast and it simply barely feels heat. The door is constituted of triple-paned, insulated borosilicate glass that appears designed to invoke deliberate comparisons to the Pizzaiolo, whose door is merely double-paned. It might additionally warmth as much as 850 levels Fahrenheit (Pizzaiolo can solely go as much as 750 levels, the losers!).
The door has three knobs on it. These knobs, sadly, did take me a little bit longer to determine than the Pizzaiolo’s, which include handy presets for various sorts of pizza. The one on the far left is a timer, the one within the center is the temperature, and the one on the far proper is what Ooni calls a Enhance mode, which lets you switch warmth backwards and forwards between the highest and backside heating parts for various functions.
In the event you like your cheese barely browned, you possibly can flip the warmth up; for those who’ve been baking loads of pizzas, opening the door quite a bit, and shifting dough out and in shortly, you possibly can preserve turning the dial to switch warmth again to the underside. It’s a easy operate, however the symbols on the dial are weirdly obscure.
Sizzling Sizzling Warmth
It’s insane how shortly the oven preheats. I’ll warning right here that I do suggest ready a full hour for the stone to warmth all over, which can scale back the probability that your pizza dough will cool the cooking floor immediately and get caught. However the first time I used the oven, I turned it on to 650 levels (what Ooni recommends for a “New York–fashion” pizza) and walked inside to tug substances out of the fridge. By the point I walked again out 13 minutes later, it was prepared. That is much less time than it takes my standard indoor oven to succeed in 400 levels.
The principle distinction between the Pizzaiolo and the Volt 12 is philosophical. The specs on the Volt are simply objectively higher than these of the Pizzaiolo, however greater than that, the Pizzaiolo lives completely indoors and has presets. Whereas it does have a guide mode that permits you to play pizza baker and hover across the oven, anxiously rotating the pie your self in order that it browns crusts completely throughout, you don’t actually need to. It does really feel like playacting. By the point I completed my testing interval with the Pizzaiolo, I simply made dough, punched a preset, and walked away. It is the perfect oven for those who’re a busy working guardian with young children.
The Volt 12 does have an necessities booklet that permits you to decide which fashion of pizza you need and plug within the timer and the temperature setting. It’s not that onerous, and it does give the oven a little bit extra versatility. For instance, I simply discovered what grandma-style pizza is, versus Detroit-style (somebody will undoubtedly appropriate me, however so far as I perceive it, grandma-style is thinner).
