I can't help with the oven, but a note on the view: There's probably a maximum height for the wall, which has to do with emergency response, but you can probably grow trees (hedges) higher. Check the local ordinances, also what will live well there.

Re the wood fired flavor, can't you just add a few wood chips to the cooking floor?

ETA: Does this run on a propane tank? Does it need an attachment to the house gas line? I can't find where it says (I didn't watch the video).

This video shows how it is connected:

As for the wall height, it is very inconsistent, and so the wall at the other end of the patio is two feet higher. I do not think there would be a problem with raising the height of the wall (or at least part of it) to match the other wall. As it is now, the little girl next door can peer over the wall into my pool area, but she has not done this lately, except when she climbed a tree to pick fruit. If I wanted to plant a hedge there, I would have to remove some concrete from the patio, but I might look into that as well. This is not a forever house. When Kevin retires, we will sell both houses and buy a large house in Palm Springs.

I have a decidedly more rustic wood fired oven. They are great fun. I was wondering why not just buy another Egg as you are already familiar with it?

Sorry OT but the whole wall thing is just so foreign to me. Is that common on the west coast or a local thing? I see it on HGTV too.

Sorry, can't help on your outdoor pizza oven. Re the wall, why is it one course shorter along part of both of those walls? I'd definitely want to block out someone else's ugly yard. You have such a nice area to entertain. :)

"Lars

-------At first I thought I wanted a wood pellet one, which would give more of a wood-fired flavor, but some reviews said that the pellets do not work that well; i.e., that you have to add three boxes of pellets and that they do not stay hot very long.----"

Get a pellet smoker tube to put in your oven. Many models to pick from. Or make one yourself.

dcarch

We don't have fences but different environment. Split rail is fine. Solid fence backyard is fine especially with a pool. Never minded seeing close together communities with solid fences. Like NYC with backyards. The neighbors on either side could be slobs. We had nosey neighbors for a couple years but that game is over. Our worst neighbor moved, phew. He was desperate to be friends with DH. All good now. Great neighbors. Privacy respected.

I like the Ooni Lars. I've been familiar with the brand for some time. Maybe is was a Kickstarter. ? I do like the larger dual fuel with the wood, charcoal, gas options. Large enough to bake bread and roast other meats and accommodates cast iron pans.

But like dcarch mentioned, small tubes with chips can add smoke or even a small foil packet.

Surprised they are backordered. Well not really as so many home comfort well designed products are out-of-stock.

We have an Italian stacking bee hive grill that has a rotisserie but wood fired or coal only.

To get a BGE (or Kamado Joe) with an 18" diameter grill (minimum size for my pizza screens), it would cost $1,200, which is a lot more expensive than the portable pizza and takes up a lot more space. It would probably be nice to have, but I really want to try a dedicated pizza oven that will bake at 935° and cook a pizza in 5 minutes or less.

As for the walls, we have six foot walls around our back yard in L.A., but I am sure that the low part of our wall in CC is about 4'-6". It is necessary to have a wall surrounding a patio with a pool, and close to 50% of houses in Palm Springs/Cathedral City/Rancho Mirage/Palm Desert have pools. Palm Springs has more pools per capita than any other city in the country - and for good reason.

I do think the builder was saving on block when my house was built, and there is no reason why I cannot raise it to six feet, which would be nine cinder blocks high.

Looks like I should get the Ooni Pro Multi-Fuel oven, based on Sleevendog's recommendation.

J Kenji Lopez-Alt's video comparing outdoor pizza ovens

We were watching today's Saturday morning CBS news show, and they interviewed a professional cook at her home. She made a pizza and cooked it in her outdoor pizza oven--in ONE minute. That oven heats to 900 degrees. It was a stainless steel free standing pizza oven. I am totally impressed with a one minute pizza.

Oh yeah - I can get my WFO really really hot. In pre pandemic days my mom SO would like running the oven for gatherings. He likes infernos. I have cooked pizzas in anywhere from 60 seconds to 15 minutes. 2-3 minute is my happy spot. Pita bread is even trickier although fun to watch. I have made a lot of crackers. There are seconds between bread and crisp...

Enjoy whatever you get.

Here are some more options:

They rate Ooni Karu at #1, but it only has a 13" cooking surface, which I think is too small. I think I probably want the Ooni Pro, but since it won't be available until mid September, I have some time to decide.

On the topic of fences, how do you keep your pets from wandering away if you don't have a fenced yard? I'm a Calif gal who is always had fences. I think you must have at least a 6 ft fence if you have a pool.

I am curious. What is the price range of these 6 recommendations?

Compumom - I’m sorry I went tangential but to answer your question I was asking about block walls, not fences. It’s just a very uncomfortable look to me, but surely only because I’m not accustomed to it.

When we were smitten by the Ooni, I did have issue with the small size. The larger pro made the most sense. Portability is a great feature. We were considering a long road trip across country. Ideal for that.

Then last spring I was looking at side fire box grill/smokers. Ours is about 25 years old but still fine. (made better back in the day). Never pulled the trigger.Fine with what we have this season.

Reviews seem to imply those with the larger pro have upgraded after having the smaller one for a while. They did in the past offer a bundle package with extras as well as the gas hook-up. Not sure what that means 'out of stock' with the add-ons. Don't think the gas box comes with the back order. A shame to not have that immediately with the pre-order...

It's difficult to know price ranges for these ovens, since the only one in inventory that I have found is the Alfa One Pizza Oven, at $1,200.

I did go to the Ooni web site to find the Ooni Karu wood & charcoal oven listed at $329, but it is not available until mid October, and only has a 13" cooking space.

The Ooni Pro is $600, and has a 16" cooking surface, available in September. It has an optional gas burner, but that would cost extra. I'm sort of leaning toward this one.

The Ooni Koda 16 gas-powered oven also has a 16" cooking surface and is $500. I wish this one had a door in the front. Kevin is okay with this one, as he does not think it is necessary to use wood, and gas would be easier. We might get this one when it becomes available in September.

We will wait until late August before ordering anything, but it might be better to pre-order, to make sure that we will get one. I don't know how quickly they will sell out again - evidently these are very popular. They might not sell as fast in autumn, however, but we would use it more when it is not summer. We could always take it to L.A. for the next summer, if we get a portable one. We keep a propane tank here anyway, for the old gas fired grill that we have, which is more of an emergency cooker for earthquake preparedness.

FOAS, here are photos of my cinderblock wall in Los Angeles:

Beautiful!

I ordered the Ooni pizza oven from Williams Sonoma, and it arrived yesterday in Cathedral City. I haven't set it up yet - we plan to have fish tonight (after we buy some at Gelson's), and then I will bake my first pizza here tomorrow.

I also ordered a new pizza peel from Amazon, which was not cheap, but it is also essential. This was also delivered yesterday and I haven't assembled it yet either - we just got here late yesterday afternoon, and it takes a while to unpack, etc.

We should probably do a video of the pizza oven. Kevin bought an additional tripod to use here - mostly for filming hummingbirds - and so we could set that up.

We both have Covid hair now👩‍🦳👩‍🦰, as I have taken this opportunity to let my hair grow, and I haven't gotten around to restyling it.

Forecasts for this week range from 105° to 109°, and so it may be a bit hot for cooking outdoors, but at least this oven bakes very quickly, and so it might be okay. No need to heat the pool, but the A/C (electric) bill for last month was over $400. I spend less to heat the pool in the winter, but I don't heat it that many days.

Lars - I'm looking forward to your review on your new Ooni pizza oven and possible video. Some of the Ooni reviews I have read say that it takes a couple tries to get the hang of cooking in it. Most say that about 800 degrees for 2 minutes or so is easier than 1 minute at 900+. Do you have an infrared thermometer?

I ordered the smaller propane fired Ooni Koda. I'm curious why you think it is too small. Since it cooks them so fast, my thought was that the size wouldn't matter much and one could cook several smaller pizzas with different toppings in a short amount of time when feeding a large gathering. I also think the smaller size will be an advantage when transporting it from home to the lake cabin.

My brother Kevin read the instructions for the oven, and they say that you must first season the oven by heating it for two hours on high to burn off any residues from manufacturing, and so he will be in charge of that. I am going to make a cover for it, but we will not be storing it outdoors, as that is also a no-no, and so it will stay in the garage here when we are not using it. I originally planned to make the cover today with Sunbrella fabric, but that is expensive and might not be necessary since we will not be leaving it outdoors. I think I have better uses for that fabric.

I do have an infared thermometer here, as well one in L.A. At this point, we have duplicates of almost everything in both houses, and so you might want to consider getting two pizza ovens, so that you won't have to transport them back and forth.

I tend to agree that 800° for two minutes would be easier than one minute at 900°, but I am also concerned about having to make multiple pizzas. I guess if they are small enough, that would be less of an issue.

I'll try to make some this evening.

Here's a video that I found helpful:

You may have seen this one already.

Lars, i have the 16, and if you make a large pie - say bigger than 14 inches, you need to watch the part of the pie closest to the rear left corner very closely, it can get charred very quickly , so as soon as it turns a light tan, I would suggest you turn it . For a smaller pie, like the one in that video, ( my guess is 10 to 12 inches ) that should not be an issue since it is much further from that corner.

We plan to make our first pizza in it today. We've had the oven for a week now, but during that time it has been 110-111°👿, which is too hot for cooking outdoors, I think. Today the forecast is for 109°, and so we are going to try to do season it today and bake tomorrow, depending on how we can deal with the heat. It won't cool down to below 100° until next week-end😞

I'll make a point of making smaller (~14" pizzas, but I think the peel I have is 12", and so I might have to make them that size. I have a 16" pizza screen here, and so I could bake one on that for 40 seconds, remove it from the screen, and then finish baking it without the peel.

We made pizza, usually weekly, for years in the oven. My husband was itching to get a wood burning pizza oven, but I couldn't quite take the plunge. I bought him an inexpensive propane pizza oven as a gateway to the big league to see what he thought. Nope, it doesn't cook a pizza in 1min--maybe 4min? Great crust--LOL--we impress ourselves with the results! Very portable, have taken it on the road. Four years later we still use the "cheapie" for weekly pizza, and so far haven't looked back. This is perhaps a less expensive option ($100-150) if you aren't sure just how much you will use it. Just tossing that out there to offer another option. Good luck with the pizza!

There is a learning curve with the Ooni pizza oven, and so my expectations for the first couple of pizzas is fairly low. We seasoned the oven this afternoon (without the stone), and when I checked the temperature inside, it was only 756°. but it might get hotter with the stone. Still, this is quite a bit hotter than the 550° that the indoor oven will reach. I think I will be okay with 750°, but I don't expect a pizza to get done in one minute at that temperature. Two or three minutes, or even four will be fine for me, and it will probably be easier to control at the lower temperature.

I can get our BGE to over 1100° with wood, but that is quite a bit hotter than necessary and will melt aluminum.

I ordered a 12" diameter pizza turning peel, but we won't have that until next week-end. I think we can manage without it, but it will be nice to have.

Kevin wants to make our first pizza tomorrow, and I will make sure to have the video camera set up, but I do not promise to release any videos, as they may be too embarrassing. I will, however, give a detailed description of the experience.

We have pizza out of the Ooni Koda once or twice a week. It’s got a learning curve (it gets so hot it’s easy to burn the pizzas if you don’t know what you’re doing) but once you get the hang of it it’s fantastic. We also have a Kamado Joe and prefer the Ooni for pizza.

Any updates from people who have been using the Ooni?

We have the Ooni oven in Cathedral City, and so we only use it when we are there. When we are there (usually for about four weeks at a time), we make pizza twice a week. I do all the prep work and my brother cooks it.

We are using the round pizza turning peel, but we also discovered that we need spinners as well, but they are inexpensive. We use the turning peel for the first turn and then use the spinners, as in this video that we made:

(You can notice our Texas accents in this video.)

The spinners will not work for the first spin, as the pizza will not be firm enough and would distort if you use the spinners too soon. The turning peel is too slow to use after the first turn because the pizza cooks in seconds, and the heat is concentrated in one back corner - thus the need for constant spinning.

Here's a photo of a cover I made for the oven using Sunbrella fabric:

We get sandstorms in Cathedral City, and so this helps protect the oven.

I will add that I tend to make 12" to 13" diameter pizzas and make a batch of dough for two pizzas ad a time. Between the two of us, we eat 1-1/2 pizzas and so have half of a pizza left over, which is fine, and we usually eat that the next morning.

Great tutortial! Looks delicious, Lars. My DH has a Big Green Egg, and we have a pizza stone for it but haven't explored how to use that yet. He uses it mostly to cook and/or smoke meat and fish.

My son has the Ooni Koda like Lars and has the turning peel, temp gun and spinners, but was still unhappy with the wait between pizzas. While they were delicious, he was annoyed at the temp drop between pizzas, so he found a source for a door. Now he loves making pizza, as the oven comes back up to temp quickly with the door.

Our oven does not cool down between pizzas and is ready for a second pizza in five minutes or less, but it takes me longer than that to assemble the second one. Plus we eat the first one before I make the second one. I'm pretty fast at stretching out the dough now, but it still take some time, but less time than it does for the oven to be ready.

I thought I wanted a door at first, but now I'm glad we don't have one, as it would get in the way. Perhaps your son is in a colder climate (couldn't be hotter than Palm Springs!), but we've made pizzas in the dead of winter when it was in the upper 60s and the oven still did not cool down until we turned it off. In fact, we turn it down between pizzas, or else it will get too hot.

Lars, thank you so much!

We have been pre-cooking the crust for about 45 seconds before adding the toppings which seems to make things easier than putting the raw crust with toppings into the oven. Like Lars, we also have a peel and 2 spinners. Our Ooni is the smaller one so we are limited to about 11" pizzas. The burner is also in the back instead of on the left side like the one Lars has. We've been using it down at the lake cabin since spring where we usually have more guests to feed. A few weeks ago we made a dozen pizzas in about an hour and a half. All of the kids had fun building their own pizzas.

That is so trippy hearing your voice, Lars! I really don't know how I imagined your voice would sound, but I'd have to say, that isn't it :-D

Pizza looks good :- D

Pizza and its dough and ovens be it the kitchen oven, the grill, the prep, must be the most Ytube internet food item of all time.

We all like what we like in a pizza differently. I have preferences having lived in NYC 25 yrs and in Italy. Few toppings but of higher quality. And most important is a malliard raction with the toppings and cheeses. Consistently the Ooni is often burnt crust with barely melted toppings. I need a roasted top like wood fired NY pizza.

I want this.

I want the dough so stretchy, i want the brillant malliard reaction...i want his mild manered humble success. Not easy.

I've been waiting for the new generation of Ooni. I've not researched in some time. Covid at home i have a 2 thousand pound bee-hive Italian wood fired oven. Not very portable. 😂

My dough could have improvements seeing Lucali's. So impressive!

Soo, if you are on the fence like i am....

These have been my Onni front runners. A central back burner concentrated. A side air inlet both side front. Forces the flame up and over like traditional bee-hive ovens. Not back side flame that burns the crust and fussy.

The forward vent tube is important for heat drawn over the oven. They have two front side vents, left right. The front tube draws the fire forward OVER the bake, be it bread, pizza, fish, etc. So i am again fence sitting for my Onni travel...