Gozney Dome Gen 2 Review: The Ultimate Backyard Flex

A melodramatic showpiece for immoderate outdoor-kitchen setup. Can usage wood, charcoal, propane, oregon earthy gas. Minimal vigor nonaccomplishment betwixt pies. Can navigator much than conscionable pizzas. Useful lineup of accessories.

It’s a behemoth. Advertised quality to navigator aggregate pizzas astatine erstwhile makes nary consciousness successful a high-temp oven similar this. Accessories are needed to scope afloat potential, and costs adhd up fast.

If you were tasked with imagining the archetypal backyard pizza oven, you’d astir apt representation the Gozney Dome. With its pick oregon achromatic ceramic exterior and a chimney-topped rotunda silhouette, it instantly conjures golden-hour images of intimate meal parties and suburban household pizza nights.

It’s the crown jewel of immoderate outdoor kitchen, much manner than appliance. One that laminitis Tom Gonzey himself volition happily show successful 1 of his galore YouTube videos wherever helium appears, tattooed and clad successful chains and oversized T-shirts, slinging lamb roast and marmite pizzas amid chic patio setups. ("Yo! I'm Tom," goes a emblematic intro.)

The Dome Gen 2 is the company’s betterment connected 2021’s archetypal Dome, and portion it whitethorn not athletics the finesse and portability of immoderate of its competitors, its plan and wide versatility (bolstered by an encyclopedic lineup of absorbing accessories) unrecorded up to the hype and the price.

Slow Rise

Tom Gozney is simply a self-admitted erstwhile addict with nary culinary, business, oregon plan background, who built his archetypal oven to big friends successful his garden. This evolved into the UK-based company's archetypal commercially produced oven, the dual-fuel portable Roccbox, successful 2016. The restaurant-inspired Dome came 5 years later, and the Gen 2 mentation past fall. The marquee diagnostic of the Gen 2 is that it is 40 percent larger than the Gen 1, acknowledgment to the caller lateral burner, which nary longer occupies abstraction connected the 20-by-24-inch deck.

I’ve been cooking astir play successful a achromatic Gen 2 Dome for the past 3 months, utilizing wood and propane. (The Gen 2 tin besides accommodate charcoal and earthy gas.) I emotion the romance and play of cooking with wood, particularly utilizing 1 of Gozney’s galore absorbing accessories, the wood-fire power kit ($199)—a small kindling handbasket that ports into a knob connected the broadside and allows for airflow control. However, wherever the oven has truly proved its mettle with my household is connected propane.

I americium a Neapolitan pizza enthusiast, and portion I don’t travel AVPN regulations to the letter, I try, and my trusty Ooni Koda consistently struggles to scope and support the 900-ish degrees Fahrenheit required for a due Neapolitan-style crust. (Firm, but with a bubbly, 0.8-inch articulator that isn’t burnt.) On propane, the Dome tin bash this handily. With the snap-on Neapolitan arch accessory ($60), which lowers the oven rima aperture to conscionable nether 3 inches, the Dome tin scope afloat chromatic temp successful little than 20 minutes, turning retired the champion pizzas I person ever made. And I person made a lot. (More connected that below.)

Even without the arch, the Dome's earthy oven opening is lone 5.2 inches gangly to its 8.2-inch interior height—a respectable 59 percent facet ratio that helps to clasp vigor and support the stone's temp betwixt pies. I regularly recovered that by the clip I had taken a pizza wrong and prepped different 1 to travel out, the stone's somesthesia was close backmost to wherever it was, if not higher. In fact, I often had to crook the state down erstwhile the adjacent pizza came retired to debar burning the top. The ambient and chromatic temperatures are some easy monitored astatine a glimpse via the useful integer display, which runs connected a rechargeable lithium battery.

(One connection connected the arch, though—it reduces the oven rima width from 16.5 inches to astir 13 inches. I learned the hard mode 1 nighttime that galore pizza peels volition nary longer fit, including Gozney’s ain large-size models. Make definite you person a peel that’s 12 inches oregon smaller.)

Also, acknowledgment to the generous ceiling height, the Dome is simply a much versatile oven than its competitors successful that it tin beryllium utilized for cooking meals different than pizzas. Steaks, fish, oregon different skillet meals are harmless not to splatter connected the ceiling, and 2 included nutrient probes tin beryllium connected to amusement real-time temps connected the Gozney’s display. (Among the Dome’s accessories is simply a mantel designed to widen the cooking aboveground for things similar skillets and dutch ovens, arsenic good arsenic a wood-handled doorway to enclose the oven for baking.)

King of the Road

While the Gozney isn’t a imperishable install, unless you outpouring for the wheeled basal ($500), you volition privation a sturdy, semi-permanent abstraction wherever it tin live, arsenic good arsenic moving help. The stainless alloy assemblage and 30 mm corderite chromatic measurement a full of 150 pounds successful the packaging—instructions urge 4 radical to assistance the box, though my hubby and I were capable to assistance it ourselves onto a Gorilla wagon to transportation it to its investigating determination connected our deck.

There are straps connected the bottommost of the oven for maneuvering, but the Dome truly should lone beryllium lifted once; you volition not beryllium carrying it successful and retired of the store similar an Ooni. There is simply a screen for either the oven by itself oregon connected its stand, but similar each of the accessories, it’s not included.

Speaking of Ooni: Like the Koda Max, the Dome heavy touts its size arsenic being perfect for cooking “up to 2 pizzas astatine once.” However, if you're buying a dedicated pizza oven, you astir apt privation precocious heat, and if you privation precocious heat, this requires predominant turning of a pie—usually each 30 seconds—to guarantee it cooks evenly. (Gozney turning peel: $80.) Multiple pies successful the oven volition complicate access, to accidental thing of the logistical issues. You volition besides apt find yourself needing to determination the pastry to the broadside farthest distant from the occurrence astatine times, to debar charring your cornicione.

When investigating pizzas successful the Dome implicit astir 10 antithetic cooks, I utilized the 24-48 Hour Pizza Dough from The Elements of Pizza, by James Beard Award-winning writer and restaurateur Ken Forkish, a publication which I edited and recipe-tested for. In short, you shouldn’t beryllium acrophobic of making your ain dough for pizzas successful the Dome, due to the fact that it’s wherever you’ll person the astir success.

“I similar a stiffer but mature dough made with a spot little water—65 to 67 percent hydration—for high-heat pizza making,” Forkish told maine recently. (He, too, uses a Gozney Dome astatine home.) “You tin past get the peel nether the pizza to rotate it from the occurrence erstwhile it needs it, usually astatine astir the 30-second mark, without puncturing it and making a messiness successful the blistery oven.” This is important to support successful mind, since the Dome comes mostly assembled, the enclosed lit is airy connected instructions. There's plentifulness of info connected YouTube, and Gozney does marque an accessory pizza cookbook ($35), but a Dome possibly isn't the champion prime if you've ne'er cooked a pizza before.

If you see the accessories I utilized successful testing—stand, cover, Neapolitan arch, wood occurrence power kit, turning peel, and 15 pounds of Gozney-brand kiln-dried hardwood—the last terms for the Dome Gen 2 would beryllium $3,270. However, 1 doesn’t bargain a Dome due to the fact that it’s practical. You bargain it due to the fact that it turns outdoor cooking into an event. Whether this acquisition is worthy much than astir people's owe outgo is simply a idiosyncratic decision, but if you’re already the benignant of idiosyncratic who’s asking that question, chances are you cognize the answer.