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282 guides, page 3 of 24.
Ooni Koda 16

Our #1 pizza oven.

Ooni Koda 16

Best Overall. From The Best Pizza Ovens (2026).

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  1. 25Buyer's Guide · ~9 min readBest Pizza Steel (2026): Ranked by Thickness and FootprintA pizza steel turns a 550°F home oven into the closest thing to a deck oven you can own without a backyard. The ranking is decided by two numbers: how thick the plate is and whether it fits your rack. We settled both.
  2. 26Explainer · ~7 min readPizza Stone Temperature (2026): How Hot It Should Be, How Long to Preheat, and How to CheckA pizza stone should be as hot as your oven can make it, 475 to 550°F for most home ovens, and it takes 45 to 60 minutes to get there even though the oven beeps at 15. Here is the temperature each pizza style wants, the preheat time by stone thickness, how to check the surface with an infrared thermometer, and why a stone that feels hot is not the same as a stone that is ready.
  3. 27Explainer · ~9 min readHow to Use a Pizza Stone (2026): Preheat, Launch, Bake, and Clean It RightA pizza stone turns a home oven into something close to a pizzeria, but only if you use it the way owners have learned to: cold oven in, an hour of preheat, a floured peel, a confident launch, and never, ever soap. Here is the whole method, the mistakes that crack stones, and how to care for one so it lasts a decade.
  4. 28Explainer · ~8 min readHow Long to Cook Pizza at 450°F (2026): Times for Every Crust, Plus 425, 475 and 500A homemade pizza at 450°F takes 12 to 15 minutes on a tray, 8 to 10 on a preheated stone, and 6 to 8 on a baking steel. Frozen pizza runs 12 to 18 depending on the box. Here are the consensus times for every crust style and surface, what changes at 425, 475, and 500, and the three doneness cues that matter more than the clock.
  5. 29Explainer · ~7 min readHow to Reheat Pizza on the Stove (2026): The Skillet Method That Beats the OvenFor one or two slices, a covered skillet is the best reheat in any kitchen: crisp base from the pan, melted cheese from the trapped steam, five minutes, no preheat. Here is the method as the home-cooking community has refined it, the pan that works best, the water-drop trick, and the timing by crust style.
  6. 30Explainer · ~7 min readHow to Reheat Pizza in the Microwave Without It Going Soggy (2026)The microwave is the worst way to reheat pizza and sometimes the only one you have. This is the damage-control guide: the cup-of-water trick and why it works, the power level and time that keep the cheese from turning to rubber, and the 90-second microwave-then-skillet finish that gets a microwaved slice most of the way back to good.
  7. 31Explainer · ~7 min readHow to Reheat Pizza in an Air Fryer (2026): Exact Temp, Time, and the Crust TrickThe air fryer is the fastest good way to reheat a slice, and the easiest to overshoot. Here is the setting the home-cooking community has converged on, how long each crust style really needs, the foil-versus-bare-basket question settled, and the one habit that stops a slice from turning into a cracker.
  8. 32Explainer · ~12 min readHow to Manage a Wood Fire in a Pizza Oven (2026): Fuel, Airflow, and the Live FlameA wood fire is not a setting, it is a heat source you have to keep feeding, and the single biggest determinant of whether it works is the moisture in the wood. The US EPA's Burn Wise programme states it directly: "Wood burns best at a moisture content of less than 20 percent," and it tells you to "season wood for at least six months." Everything else, building the fire, pushing it to the side, feeding small and often, managing the ash bed, is downstream of starting with dry fuel. Here is the whole skill, plus an honest comparison with a gas burner.
  9. 33Explainer · ~11 min readCooking Multiple Pizzas Back to Back (2026): Why Pizza Four Is Always the WorstEvery pizza you launch strips heat out of the stone, and the fix is to wait for the deck to come back rather than to launch on schedule. Ooni publishes the rule in its own Koda 16 guide: preheat the stone to 715 to 850°F (380 to 450°C), and between pizzas "make sure the stone gets back up to 715°F-850°F (380°C-450°C) before launching". That one instruction is the entire skill of cooking for a group, and almost nobody follows it. Here is the mechanism, the fuel by fuel differences, and a service rhythm that keeps pizza six as good as pizza one.
  10. 34Explainer · ~10 min readHow to Turn a Pizza (2026): How Often, With What, and WhyOoni's own Koda 16 guide gives you the number: "use your peel to take the pizza out and turn it every 20-30 seconds." The reason is that a high heat pizza oven is deliberately asymmetric, with one burner or one fire on one side, so the edge nearest the flame chars while the edge nearest the mouth stays pale. Turning is not a flourish, it is how you make an uneven oven cook evenly. Here is how often to turn, which tool to use, and the two motions that do it without dragging the toppings off.
  11. 35Explainer · ~12 min readCold Ferment vs Same Day Pizza Dough (2026): What the Rules Actually SayNeither governing authority for Neapolitan pizza endorses the long cold ferment the internet treats as gospel. Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies a two hour first rise plus a four to six hour second rise, six to eight hours in total at a specified 25°C, which is a same day dough. AVPN's own published recipe says minimum 8 and maximum 24 hours. Neither document describes 48 or 72 hours in a refrigerator. That does not make cold fermentation wrong, but it does mean it is practitioner consensus rather than specification, and this page is honest about which is which.
  12. 36Explainer · ~11 min readPizza Flour Protein Content: The Published Numbers, and the Two We Could Not GetKing Arthur publishes a protein ladder running from 8 percent for pastry flour to 14.2 percent for high-gluten, and Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies Pizza Napoletana flour at 11 to 12.5 g percent protein. But the Italian system specifies strength, not just protein, which is why an American protein number alone cannot tell you what a flour will do. Below: both specifications in full, Caputo's own figures, and two numbers we went looking for and could not find.

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