Oven
My first "pizza" oven
I know it looks like a BBQ, but below you can see the modifications I made inside.I needed a way to get hotter than ~500F that my kitchen oven could reach and also not heat up the entire house in the process, especially in the heat of the summer. I decided to take my BBQ which I rarely used, and upgrade it to bake pizza. What you see below is the result of MANY iterations.
Stone on top of stones
I took two pizza stones I had, one for the pizza to rest on and another to act as the "roof" of the oven to radiate heat back down to the pizza.
Bricks and more bricks
I used other bricks to add height for the top stone and to help cantilever things.
All about the flame
I used other stones to shim the base stone higher and provide space for the heat to work its way up and around the base stone
Final Product
As you can see, it made "okay" pizzas. They were yummy, but failed to really get hotter than 650F. The oven took 25-30min to heat up with all 3 BBQ burners going full tilt. Cooking time was 3-7min depending on toppings.
Enter... the "Ooni Karu 16"
If you are on the fence about upgrading to a "prosumer" oven... get off the fence and just do it! I'm kicking myself for waiting this long. This oven has 100% changed my pizza game. I was afraid of cooking with wood, and it's been GREAT. Using the same dough and pizza process with this oven yields WAY better results. It's all about the heat. I often bake around 800F, but that is a topic for another page.The wood you use IS important, make sure you are using dense, hardwood. I'm using Oak. A mix of some bought, and some from my parent's cabin. Within a few pizzas you'll get the hang of controlling the temp. One trick I've found to be useful is using a base of hardwood lump charcoal. This seems to really help with a more constant heat. I lay the wood on top and throw a small chunk of wood on per pizza.
FLAMES!!!
The wood and charcoal sit in a tray at the back of the oven. This leaves ~16" by ~16" square stone as your baking surface. Rotating the pie every ~15sec is key. The pizza finishes backing in under 90sec (with high heat and a basic topping list). If baking over 950F it goes REAL quick, and it is fun to play with, but I've found slightly lower heat helps with pizzas that have more toppings and takes some of the stress of timing things perfectly.
Leopard spots
Here is an example of an early pie. You can see the crust has a nicer color to it as well as black spots from the higher heat. Not seen is how the bottom also gets a nice color and spotting to it.