More and more people choose their homemade pizzas over the rushed pizza order that you get from fast food. The Bertello Pizza Oven and the Ooni Karu help your make authentic Neopolitan pizzas at home with ease.
The Ooni Pizza Oven is known to make pizzas within 60 seconds or less, and that is true. Bertello Pizza Oven comes with its features, and it is going to be interesting to compare the two ovens.
Ooni manufactures excellent pizza ovens that function just as well as an authentic brick oven that produces fantastic pizzas.
They have different pizza ovens with other fuels to use to optimize what they have around them.
They believe that everyone deserves the most amazing pizza, and they indeed deliver that with their ovens.
However, they are not the only company that produces portable pizza ovens. Another company produces the Bertello Pizza Oven, but they have the same standards for making ovens.
They believe that every one of us deserves a unique, authentic, Neapolitan Pizza, and they know just how to make people cook their pizzas.
These two ovens are maybe the ones most related to one another in terms of features, functions, performance, portability, and more.
They can both reach the required temperature for making a pizza with a crispy crust and a chewy interior.
The incredible thing is that these pizza ovens do not look as powerful as they are because of their size. But do not be fooled; they are as powerful as most ovens can be.
This article will give you categories to compare the two in their best features and functions and their differences to help you choose between these great pizza ovens.
Let’s begin!
Design
With customer reviews from their past products, Ooni built the Ooni Karu to fit the customers’ requests, and we are glad that they did.
Just like the other products from Ooni, the design is quite familiar. The only thing that you might find a little different is the chimney attached to this oven.
It can be detached, so you do not have to worry about the chimney getting in the way you put the oven in your storage.
What’s also great with the chimney is that it can fit right inside the oven’s interior and so you can put the whole oven inside a small room for storing.
Ooni Karu 12 Pizza Oven
The Ooni Karu has two doors. One for the central opening of the oven and the other for the gas chamber so you can change the fuel with ease.
The handles of the doors have a cool-to-touch feature with the glassed-reinforced nylons. You can open or close your oven anytime you want, even if it is burning hot inside.
With a slightly bigger stature than its predecessor, the Ooni Koda, the Ooni Karu is very portable, so when it is in its simplest form, you can hardly notice the difference.
It has three foldable legs to put the whole oven in a backpack when you choose to use it while traveling.
The Ooni Karu is made from a stainless steel aluminum shell to retain heat and protect the exterior from natural forces.
Bertello Pizza Oven
The Bertello Pizza Oven is also portable. With almost the same dimensions, this pizza oven is a beautiful oven with so much power.
The shell-shaped like dome entrance of a cave is black to prevent soot from gathering on it.
The Bertello Pizza Oven has a fuel compartment that can be opened by a wooden handle; this means that you can change or add fuel without burning your hands.
It has more legs than the Ooni Karu, with four to handle heavier foods that you might want to cook in it.
Features
The Ooni Karu features Ooni’s patented Flamekeeper, so even though it has a door, the heat does not escape from the inside of the oven.
The chimney is a perfect addition to the oven since it allows the oven to radiate heat and not bring its temperature through direct contact with fire, although that may be true.
The addition of the chimney works like this. The air is sucked inside through the gas compartment, and the flame gathers up, then exits the chimney.
The fire that stays on the ceiling radiates the heat to the bottom while the direct heat meets with it from the back’s flames.
The 0.6 inches thick cordierite stone helps with the heat retention of the oven. It gathers up so much heat and retains it for a long time to let your pizza cook.
You can use wood or charcoal as fuel, which means that you can improvise and look for wood as fuel even if you are outdoors.
The 430-grade stainless steel used for the shell is perfect for protection, and since you are more likely to use this oven outside, that comes in handy.
The gas fuel attachment for the Ooni Karu comes separately. So most likely, you are going to use wood or charcoal as fuels.
If you do so, you would not have to worry about the mess since it has an ash-catcher right at the bottom of the fuel compartment for ease of cleaning.
Bertello Pizza Oven
The Bertello Pizza Oven has the same versatility regarding its fuel. You can use wood, charcoal, and pellets with this oven, and it will still give you power for cooking your pizza.
The combination of the wood or charcoal and the gas fuel makes the pizza very powerful and gives that smokey taste from the wood to your pizza o
It also has a dirt-catcher for ease of cleaning, and since the overall coating of the oven is black, soot doe not make a huge difference with its looks.
The Bertello Pizza Oven has a 12.5 by 13.5 inches of cordierite stone, so you can cook 12-inch pizzas in the oven with no problem at all.
The use of cordierite stone for these two pizzas is necessary and very significant since that kind of baking stone can handle more heat than most baking stones with other components.
How Do These Pizza Ovens Perform?
The Ooni Karu heats up to 932 degrees Fahrenheit in a very short period of time. That is 500 degrees Celsius, and the oven can reach that temperature in 15 minutes.
Depending on your dough’s thickness and the toppings, your pizza will be ready in less than 60 seconds. Yes, that’s right, a portable pizza oven that can cook pizza in that short amount of time.
When you use the wood and charcoal compartment, you can be sure that there is enough room for more fuels, and it can heat the oven pretty quickly.
One of the most impressive features of this oven is that even without the door, the heat stays inside the oven, so you can cook as many pizzas as you want with as few fuels you can get.
The Flamekeeper technology of the oven allows it to retain heat even after the fire is out. Therefore, it can still produce the amazing crispy crust with a chewy inside.
The gas attachment of the Ooni Karu produces as much power as the wood or charcoal fuels. The difference is that you can control the flames with ease.
==> Check out the Ooni Karu Pizza Oven
The Bertello Pizza Oven can also reach the 932-degrees Fahrenheit standard for cooking Neapolitan pizzas with wood and charcoal.
Since the fuel compartment is a little bit smaller, the time it takes for the Bertello Pizza Oven to heat up is longer. It needs to preheat for at least 30 minutes to reach that kind of temperature.
You can get the gas fuel attachment separately, but you are never going back to using wood or charcoal alone once you have that.
See, the Bertello Pizza Oven has an attachment that allows you to combine both wood and gas simultaneously; this gives more power to the oven and more flavor from the smoke.
Cooking In The Ovens
When you cook pizza in the Ooni Karu using wood or charcoal, you get the best result once heated up to maximum temperature.
The 15 minutes of preheating are just enough for you to prepare the pizza right beside your Ooni Karu. You can then start the cooking process, and it will only take a minute or even less.
Going to a camp and bringing the Ooni Karu with you will not be a problem since it is very portable. Also, you would not need to bring other things, such as gas tanks.
The fact that you can use wood with the Ooni Karu allows you to get fuel from around you, especially outside.
The Ooni Karu is compatible with Ooni’s gas fuel attachment, so you can purchase it separately, and it will still produce the same amazing pizza.
Since it is a relatively small oven, the Ooni Karu produces high temperatures in a shorter period allowing you to cook as many pizzas as possible.
Cooking in Bertello Pizza Oven
The Bertello Pizza Oven has the same power that can heat up to 932 degrees Fahrenheit. The thing is, you need to wait almost double the amount of time that the Ooni Karu needs to heat up.
You can make the most of the time by preparing as many pizzas as you can, and once the pizza oven is ready, you can cook them in just under 60 seconds each.
The combination of wood and gas as fuel in the Bertello Pizza Oven is breathtaking. It can cook pizzas just as fast or even faster plus the smoky flavor from the wood just makes it better.
The cordierite stones in both pizza ovens are amazing. They heat up very fast and retain the heat, which creates an evenly baked crust with crispy results on the outside.
Since the stone absorbs moisture, the crust is crispy all the way through, and the inside is fluffy with perfectly cooked toppings.
Conclusion
These two pizza ovens are amazing in their way, yet they are almost the same in most of their features.
They both have the power to cook the same pizza size in just under a minute with a 932 degrees Fahrenheit that most ovens their size cannot get to.
Both ovens are small and portable. The size of these pizza ovens is relatively small and portable, so you can store them in small places.
You cannot imagine that a pizza oven their size will produce that much power, so they exceed the expectations.
The Ooni Karu is faster than the Bertello Pizza Oven, so if I had to choose one among the two, I would go with the Karu Pizza Oven.
Also, the Ooni Karu comes with a three-year warranty if you get it from the official website, which is not the case with many pizza ovens.
==> Check out the Ooni Karu Pizza Oven
Both the ovens are muti-fueled, and they cook pizzas perfectly, but the Ooni Karu is slightly better than the Bertello Pizza Oven. The Karu is slightly more spacious, which means you can cook other dishes easily inside the pizza oven.
Considering the price point, the Ooni Karu and Bertello Pizza Oven are almost the same, so there is not much stopping you in that section.
==> Check out the Bertello Pizza Oven
So, make sure to check out these two impressive pizza ovens and see which one is better. You are going to be amazed at how well you can cook pizzas with both these pizza ovens.
Let us know which one would you get for yourself!
If you have experience with any of the pizza ovens, then let us know in the comments below!
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I think Ooni Karu 16 cooks better than Bertello Pizza Oven?
thanks for the review ! bob canada
You are welcome, Bob!
Have you found the best price for each one? Showing price points would be helpful and a link to the best price attainable. Would also be helpful to know how each one performs if left outside. Thanks for the review.
Recently bought the Bertello oven after reading many comments and reviews of both the Ooni and Bertello. Bertello’s deal on QVC was hard to pass up.
So far, the Bertello is a star. We’ve made pizza’s 3 times in a week and a half. Our Friday night get together saw 12 pizzas made including smoked gruyere and peaches. The biggest issue and learning curve is placing the pizza too far into the oven and getting excess char. Also discovered that using shredded cheese chars faster than fresh mozzarella (also, Burrata has too much moisture).
One tip from reading other comments is to first place pizza in oven without cheese. Then, on 1st turn put your cheese on. The crust came out crisp and perfect.
Thanks for the advice.
Yes, these ovens get very hot so turning them around quickly is a task.