For the casual pizza maker, it seems fairly obvious to go after a smaller, cheaper and/or simpler pizza oven for your creations. For the avid pizza connoisseur however, the choice to build or buy your pizza oven may not be as easy. There are many factors which would influence your decision either way, which is what we are here to talk about.
A bought pizza oven has several advantages. Firstly and most obviously, there is little to no effort involved. Short of plugging in a gas bottle on an outdoor gas pizza oven or plugging in the cord on a counter top electric pizza oven, there is pretty much nothing involved. They are usually very efficient, and most of the time it is actually hard to fail at making pizza. This is because these ovens, mass-produced or otherwise, have been developed by teams of people who know what they are doing. They have the consumer on their mind and want them to be able to make pizza at home with little complications. This leads me to the downsides. A bought pizza oven will rarely allow for any customization. Pretty much all the control you will get is the heat on the top and bottom elements or burners. This is more than enough for most home pizza oven users, so don’t let this scare you off.
On the other end of the scale, building your own oven from scratch still has its advantages and disadvantages. The end result may have the potential to produce the most amazing results, but there are a few factors which determine this. The assumption is that if you are building your own pizza oven, it will be of the wood fired variety, as all other ovens can be bought with ease. Many people do not realise the skill involved in cooking a pizza in a wood fired pizza oven. As there are no elements, and fire is nowhere near as consistent, cooking the pizza evenly can be a bit of a task.
Then there is the difficulty in building the oven itself – probably a lot more work than learning to cook the pizza! The raw materials, the manual labour and the sheer amount of time and effort required are enough to put most people off. Getting it right will take some skill and patience. More-so if you are not all that good with your handy work. All this said, handy people who love their home made pizza will get a huge thrill out of building their own pizza oven. The finished product will usually be very gloat worthy, and has the capacity to entertain a fairly large crowd at parties and functions. A DIY pizza oven is a great idea if you fall into this category.
Finally, there is a middle ground. This is where the not so handy people can still get away with building their own pizza oven. Pizza oven kits are available in many countries. You can actually build a large outdoor pizza oven from a kit. This means step by step instructions with a degree of customization whereby you can still build and impressive oven without anywhere near the amount of technical know how required to build one from raw materials.
Whichever route you choose, there is no doubt that home made pizza is leaps and bounds ahead of take out and supermarket pizza. What are you waiting for, get yourself a pizza oven!
