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Which Ooni pizza oven? Karu or Koda?

Ooni now offers a total of five different pizza ovens. While the Koda series is purely gas-fired and the Fyra can only be fired with wood pellets, the ovens in the Karu series are so-called multi-fuel ovens. The Karu 12 and the Karu 16 can be fired with wood, coal or gas thanks to the optional gas burner. In this test you will find out which oven performs better, the Koda or the Karu converted to gas. You have already read how the Ooni Karu performs with charcoal here .


The test setup, the gas-powered Karu on the left and the Koda on the right

There are already big differences - at least visually - when heating up the two ovens. The flame of the Ooni Karu is yellowish and reaches very far into the baking chamber, while the Ooni Koda only shows its blue flames at the very back of the oven.



After 15 minutes of heating up time, the following temperatures are obtained, each measured in the middle of the stone on the Ooni logo.



The Karu is slightly colder at 339 °C than the Ooni Koda at 353 °C, this could be due to the burner or the 5mm thicker cordierite stone in the Ooni Karu.



Even after 25 minutes, the Ooni Koda is still hotter than the Ooni Karu - we'll see later in this review that this can only be due to the thicker stone and not the burner. Another possibility for the temperature difference could be the chimney pipe on the Ooni Karu, which I mistakenly didn't use. Even when using the gas burner, you should install the chimney pipe in the Ooni Karu for better draft - contrary to the chimney-less design of the Ooni Koda.



So it was time to form two Pizza Margheritas to pit the Ooni Koda and the Ooni Karu against each other in the ultimate comparison. On the left you can see the pizza for the Ooni Karu, on the right the one for the Ooni Koda.




I used the pizzaschaufel.ch standard dough recipe . This time with the incredibly good organic flour (No. 6, Tipo 0, for extra long rising times) from Molino Merano. An incredibly stable gluten structure is formed when you mix it for the first time - a difference that you notice immediately if you make pizza dough often.



In the Ooni Karu, the pizza seems to need to be turned less often because the heat distribution seems more even.


The results can definitely be seen from both ovens. On the left you can see the pizza from the Ooni Karu, on the right the counterpart from the Ooni Koda.





The chances of getting a nice leoparding seem to be a lot better with the Ooni Karu than with the Ooni Koda. With the Ooni Koda, the area is more likely to be "burned" - speaking of burning, although the pizza from the Ooni Karu looks anything but burnt from above, there are major differences between the two Oonis on the bottom.



The stone seems to get quite a bit hotter in the Ooni Karu due to its thickness of 15mm. Next time I would preheat the oven less and then use more top heat during baking, this should produce even better results.


After a little cleaning with the oven brush, we decided to spend the rest of the evening with the Ooni Karu.


Conclusion


The Ooni Karu converted to gas and the Ooni Koda are very similar brothers and they are almost the same. We decided to use the Ooni Karu for the rest of the pizza party - not necessarily because it is better but because we all know the Koda better.

If you only want to bake pizza with gas, you're better off with the considerably cheaper Ooni Koda. If you want to bake a pizza with wood, coal or gas every now and then, you should buy an Ooni Karu. It should be noted that the Ooni Karu is a little bigger and therefore less handy and also has a slightly higher gas consumption.






Like all tests by pizzaschaufel.ch, this test was also carried out on our own account, so it is impossible for the manufacturer to exert any influence. This is the free opinion of the author.

 
 
 
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