BakerStone Pizza Box, Gas Stove Top Oven (Stainless Steel)

This review will through a little shade at the uniformed and seemingly ignorant low-star-raters. Just sayin...First, let's discuss all the negative things about this that are true, but ultimately don't matter because the pizza oven is awesome. Yes, it gets hot. Duh. But isn't that the point? Once heated I was able to maintain a consistent 825 degrees (on a 19k BTU burner) which cooked pizzas in about 2 minutes. Yes, it can do damage. So put it on the middle front burner to avoid issues. See pic attached to this review on how to do this correctly.Do a little research on the best recipes and use the best ingredients. Search "Vito Iacopelli" on Youtube and watch his videos on making Napoli style dough, stretching dough, and assembling for high heat cooking. Use quality 00 flour and make sure you do a long proofing to develop taste and proper gluten texture. The dough version that uses dry yeast on a 6-8 hour rise time seems to work really well for me. He also demonstrates using fresh yeast, and other ways of proofing dough using different techniques, so see which one works best for you.Now to address burning. Don't overload the pizza. Don't get heavy handed turning the pizza. Don't put oil on the crust. Use ample flour to avoid sticking to the oven and pizza peel. Don't be afraid to back the pizza up to the rear of the oven where all the heat is. And for heaven's sake, don't lift the pizza up against the upper wall of the oven. Otherwise, yes it will smoke and yes your fire alarms will go off like crazy. I did this once and learned my lesson when some cheese went rogue and slowly oozed off the side. Emphasis on ONCE. Lesson learned and now all my pizzas come out perfect!Now for those who whine that you have to turn the pizza during cooking. The oven came with a peel of the perfect size and a huge metal spatula for turning. Since you are already committed to making dough from scratch, stretching it out, putting on toppings, and lest we forget all the chewing you will be doing, just how can you complain that you may have to turn the pizza around a few times during cooking? If that poses a problem, do humanity a favor and order delivery. Don't ding the manufacturer with a one star rating for YOUR SHORTCOMINGS.Lastly, clean up is easy. Once the unit is cool, put over a kitchen towel, scrap the burned flour from the oven stone, remove the back plate, and shake out the black residue. A quick wipe of the outside with a dishcloth and you're done!The only negative thing I can say is that the thermometer on top of the unit is next to useless. I recommend you buy a quality, high heat (up to 1100 degrees F or more) infrared thermometer for best control of heat. I can promise you that at 825 degrees, the needle on the top unit is pegged way past the third "icon." If you plan on also using this to roast veggies or bake other items at less than solar flare heat levels, a hand held thermometer will do the trick and allow you to dial in the temp with finesse.Summary. If you have read the manufacturers recommendations on stove type and how to operate this device, you will be happy. You need a good stove with as close to 20k BTUs as possible. You need a powerful vent hood if you want to keep your house from heating up. (Remember... fire = HOT for those one-star raters who can't understand that you cook with heat.). With quality dough and some fresh ingredients you will have Neapolitan-style pizza as good as those from Naples. And, make it a family event. My kids and extended family had a blast making and watching the pizzas cook in what seemed like miraculous time, and the flavors were awesome. Pictures show a plain pepperoni pizza, and another with mozzarella, fresh sheep's milk feta, langoustine lobster warmed in butter, grated pecorino and parmesan cheeses, yellow tomatoes, fresh peppers, and a mushroom pesto base prepared on a Miele dual fuel 36'' 6-burner range with the pizza oven positioned on the front, center burner. Have fun experimenting!

Eight years ago, I embarked on a journey to make Neapolitan pizza at home. I never quite succeeded. The main challenge had always been creating an oven environment that's consistenly above 700F (370C). Numerous tricks and hacks were tried, and while it was possible to heat up a cooking surface (say a slab of stone) to sufficiently high temperature using the cleaning cycle of the oven, there wasn't enough convection heat to cook the top of the pizza as quickly as the bottom is cooked, resulting in an adequate bottom crust but an undercooked top lacking the leoparding qualities desired in a true Neapolitan pie.Fast-forward eight years—recently, the last oven I inherited from the previous dwellers of my apartment gave in after a final valiant effort in making pizza. It was about time, since the most powerful burner on it put out a measly 14,000 BTU/hr, and that's just about a bit more than a simmering flame by Asian cooking standards. I had always wanted a more serious gas range. But at the same time, I was fully aware that nobody designs home ovens that go above 550F, not even the Italians.By serendipity, I saw an ad by Bakerstone, a former Kickstarter project—now a company—that makes a stovetop contraption that utilizes the heat of a gas burner. The design seemed sound and brilliant, so I got one and tested it out on the most powerful burner on my old defunct stove while I waited for my new stove to arrive. It peaked at 700F after sitting on the burner for a good 45 minutes, which was already promising.I did a lot of research and got the stove with the most powerful burners approved for home use that's currently available. (I've used Wolf, BlueStar, Viking, and none of them came close.) I put the Bakerstone pizza box on it. With a 25,000 BTU/hr burner it quickly went up to 950F under half an hour and showed no sign of stopping! (So far I've had no desire to find out how high it can actually go.)It took two "canary" pies to get a feel of the mini oven. There's very little recovery time—it was churning out pizza faster than we could make and eat. It has convection heat redirected from the stovetop and radiation heat from the top of the box, so the top gets cooked properly. "Dome-ing" the pizza works beautifully. It produces little to no smoke (if you don't accidentally spill anything on it). It takes up as much space as a stockpot and just sits on one burner. It doesn't heat up the entire kitchen like the oven does. It uses heat very economically and efficiently. It's elegant and perfect.Missing that wood-fired oven flavor? Easy, I put a bunch of tiny wood chips sold for smoking in a small container and slide it in a few minutes before shoving in the pizza.You could hear the pizza's muffled crackles when you slide it in. At 800F it really cooks under 2 minutes—less than the time it takes to get dressed to go out for pizza.So now I consider the mechanical problems in making true Neapolitan pizza safely and reliably at home essentially solved. Now onto the best flavor.A few notes:- To get leoparding, high temperature is necessary but not sufficient. You also need to achieve full gluten development and full rise and a dough with the right water content. At 800F or above you need to use 55% water or less. At 700F you need 60% water or more. This is because at higher temperatures the pizza cooks faster, so if there's too much water in the dough, you will end up with a good bottom but undercooked top. And if you lift the pizza to cook the top, by the time the top is cooked the crust will be dry and crunchy like a baguette, which still tastes fine, but it's not desirable in a Neopolitan pizza. With a 14,000 BTU/hr burner you can only get to 700F, so start from 60% hydration and adjust from there.

I’ve made about 15 pizzas and, so far, it’s works better than expected! I didn’t have huge expectations, but ultimately it makes small pizzas very well in minutes in the comfort of the kitchen as described. A few gripes: one of the upper mounts for the ceramic was broken off before installing. I tried to solder it, but it wouldn’t work. Build quality of the housing is not great, but should be be a problem once assembled. Once assembled, however, it seemed to work perfectly! I use it over a 17,000 BTU burner, which gets it right up to a perfect temp within about 10-15 min. My cooktop does have upward facing knobs, but thankfully they are far enough away to stay away from the heat. The rear comes within a couple inches of tile backsplash, but fortunately not much heat radiates from the rear and sides. The peel and spatula are nice. Really, it couldn’t be simpler to use - it’s brought a new fun food activity to the house for any time of year! It does quickly begin to look bad with charred junk on ceramic and discolored steel, but who cares? It’s not going to stay out in the open after use amd I figure the burned junk gives pizzas a little extra character. The only real downside it that it is somewhat small. It really only works for “personal” pizzas, but that makes it somewhat fun because I can whip out a bunch of different pizza styles for a group in minutes. I originally wanted an outdoor oven, but I’m so happy that I can use it right inside! Easily worth the price as long as it stays working and doesn’t burned down the house!