Why a Charlie Oven is an excellent alternative to a traditional pizza oven
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Time to read 2 min
Outdoor cooking, and in particular pizza baking, is growing in popularity. There are lots of pizza ovens to choose from, both big and small, fuelled by gas, wood, and electricity.
Who doesn’t love pizza? It makes sense to make your own at home: not only will you get a pizza fresh out of the oven, but you’ll save money too. In this blog, we’ll explain why a Charlie Oven is a fantastic alternative to buying a pizza oven, offering brilliant features that take all the hard work and stress out of pizza baking at home.
Charlie Charcoal Oven in the colour Rhubarb
How Traditional Home Pizza Ovens Work
Traditional pizza ovens come in various types and designs, from wood-fired to gas-powered models. They are built to achieve very high temperatures, providing the ideal environment for baking pizzas. They’re usual made from heat-retaining materials like brick or stone, and take between 30 to 60 minutes to heat up to temperature. They bake pizzas quickly, from 60 seconds to 2 minutes.
The heat source generally comes from one side and requires the user to rotate the pizza during baking to evenly cook the dough. Most bake one or two pizzas at once. Overall, the method of operation is hands-on, fast-moving and requires a medium level of skill.
Pizza ovens can do more than just bake pizzas
Many pizza ovens now market themselves as a great way to cook other things too, like frying steaks in a hot skillet pan, or roasting a chicken. However, it is still essentially a pizza oven with one cooking surface. The heat source is usually on one side, and sometimes it will flow across the ceiling of the oven. This direction of heat means you need to constantly tend to whatever is cooking, by moving and turning the food regularly to avoid burning and ensuring an even cook. It’s fairly high-maintenance cooking that can be lots of fun … with maybe a little bit of stress too.
The Charlie Oven is a game-changing approach to outdoor cooking, whatever the food.
The Charlie Oven is a beautifully simple design that captures heat and smoke and distributes the heat evenly throughout the oven. Charlie Oven is a charcoal oven that can do many things, from grilling directly over the fire, to indirect heat for low’n’slow cooking and smoking, to high temperature roasting and baking. Its ability to cook over many levels gives it a huge cooking area, so you can cook a whole meal at once … or three pizzas at the same time. And it’s hands-off cooking: all the magic happens inside the oven, simply close the door and wait. It’s low-maintenance cooking that anyone can handle. With ease.
Charlie Charcoal Oven in the colour Rhubarb
Bake multiple pizzas at once in the Charlie Oven
Time saving and stress-free
Pizza time is family and friends time, too. It’s about the fun of making your pizzas and then eating together. You can easily bake 12 pizzas in 20 minutes in the Charlie Oven and everyone can eat together. Baking in a traditional pizza oven, with usually one pizza at a time, can be rather more of a challenge!
How long does it take to heat the Charlie to bake pizzas?
The oven takes 30 minutes to heat up to 375°C/700°F. Place the pizza stones inside the oven before heating.
How many pizzas can be baked at once?
The optimal number is three pizzas to allow the logistics of putting pizzas on peels to transfer into the oven.
Is the temperature the same throughout the oven?
The pizza stones nearest the fire will be the hottest. We recommend loading from the top of the oven to the bottom and removing from the bottom to the top.
Related Readings
Making pizzas together.
Tara Quick, Charlie Co-founder