Camp Chef Artisan PZ30D Outdoor Pizza Oven

Really exceeded my expectations! I had been cooking homemade pizzas in the oven, and that worked just fine. Now that summer is here, I don't want to heat up the house with the oven. I have a Woodwind pellet smoker with the sidekick attachment and a 14" grill for camping and thought the 14" single burner pizza oven would be a good option. Honestly, I did not expect much and had the opinion I might be wasting money on it. I could not have been more wrong. The difference in pizza quality was undisputable. I am not going back to the oven period! Cheese was bubbly, crust was crisp and not over cooked, taste was amazing. I can't believe a small pizza oven could make such a difference. We did have a bit of a learning curve, here are some tips: 1. Get a pizza peel, a thin metal one, preferably perforated to help the pizza slide off. It is a must have for a 12" pizza. I haven't used a wood pizza peel, but I suspect it would be too thick for the narrow opening of this oven. We used the bottom side of a baking sheet after our first failure which helped, but nothing like a pizza peel. You need to be able to slide the pizza all the way to the back of the oven, without bunching it up. We tried using the Camp Chef pizza spatula, but it just won't work for a 12" pizza. It might for a 6" but not anything much larger. 2. Do not heat the stone much over 600 degrees, initially there is an almost 100-degree difference between the stone and oven, so try to get a true 500–550-degree stone. I used an infrared thermometer to get the stone temp, but if you don't have one, heat the stone slowly and allow the temp to get to 600 degrees and you should be fine. 3. Follow a pizza recipe that suggests making a poolish first. That definitely improved the quality of our pizzas. Look for videos on next level pizza dough, and you will find a good recipe. 00 flour works well, DiNapoli crushed tomatoes makes a good sauce, and get real whole milk mozzarella for the cheese. Higher quality, fresher ingredients did make a noticeable difference.

I have used this two dozen times, and it works really well. I am glad that they added the door because it helps them cook a lot faster. One tip I learned early on is to make sure to let it pre-heat for the best results, I usually like 500 degrees. One thing I should note is that when I was looking at purchasing this, I contacted CC to see if this would work on my cache cooker (a camp chef product from the 90s or so) and they all said that it would not. I am glad to report that it does, so if you have one of those, you are good to buy it.