Who doesn’t like a crispy crusty-cheesy home cooked pizza? The perfect blend of that well-cooked pizza crust, homemade pizza sauce, some mozzarella cheese melts, and two fresh basil on top is sure to make you drool.

One of the important criteria to get a drool-worthy enjoyable pizza is to perfect the crust. Sure, your conventional oven at home may give some browning along the crust top, but does that satiate your craving for a crispy on top and soft inside crust? The answer would probably be no! That’s when you need a traditional wood-fired pizza oven to bake your yummy pizzas.

Which pizza tastes better – Conventional Oven Pizza vs Wood-fired outdoor oven pizza

Texture

When it comes to a conventional pizza oven, the maximum temperature it can attain is around 500F/260C. While this is enough to cook the pizza thoroughly, you may not get the perfect crusty top. There would be a slightly burnt look along the crust, but that’s the best you can achieve with a conventional oven.

Any longer, you are overcooking your pizza, and your crust becomes hard to chew on. Further, the longer you keep the pizza in the oven, the longer the toppings get cooked. So if you were to include some capsicums or onions as toppings, these would come out looking unpleasant, and the texture would be slightly chewy. Also, the toppings lose their original flavor and nutrients the longer it sits in the oven.

In the case of a wood-fired outdoor pizza oven, the temperature can get as high as 900F/500C or even above, which is almost double the temperature you can achieve with a conventional oven. The high temperature quickly cooks your pizza and gives it a nice crunchy/crispy crust within 90 seconds. Also, the insides would still be moist and soft, thus achieving that perfect crust texture.

Further, if you were to use any vegetable toppings for the pizza, you would notice that they have a charred yet juicy texture to them. Similar to the pizza crust, the vegetables would look slightly burnt and crispy, but the insides would still retain that juicy texture. This makes your pizza far more enjoyable, as you get the real juicy feeling of the vegetables when you take a bite from your pizza. The nutrients of the toppings still stay intact as the overall cooking time is reduced, so along with the taste, you are actually benefiting from consuming those vegetables on your pizza.

Taste

When it comes to a conventional oven, no extra flavors are added to the pizza. The heating element is most likely to be a coil, and there isn’t much scope for any natural flavors to get incorporated.

When you keep the pizza in the conventional oven for a longer time, hoping to get that crispy crust on the cheese, the cheese is actually getting burnt, and you might not even get the perfect cheese pull after a certain point. You are, in fact, destroying the original flavor and texture of the cheese. So to get the crispy cheese crust, you might have to use a blow torch once the pizza is out of the oven.

Whereas in the case of an outdoor pizza oven powered by wood, the pizza acquires a burnt wood flavor, which makes it a bit more authentic. This natural flavor also improves the smell that comes out of a freshly baked pizza and imparts a smoky kind of smell to it.

As the temperature reaches nearly 500C, the cheese gets ample time to melt thoroughly and spread across the region. Once it does, the cheese melts to form a crispy crust on top, which appears to be sizzling when you pull the pizza out of the oven. This crispy cheese melt and the crispy crust, along with the smoky burnt wood flavor, complete the taste of the pizza, giving you the vibe of an authentic Italian pizza recipe.

Final Thoughts

The wood-fired pizza oven isn’t high maintenance as you may think. You can easily set it up on your patio and prepare some yummy pizzas for an outdoor family gathering. The oven is quite easy to install and can be set on a countertop, so you can easily cook your pizzas while standing.

If you want to enjoy some authentic Italian restaurant-style pizza at home, it’s best to invest in a wood-fired pizza oven like those offered on Sabra Pizza. That taste of the pizza is well worth the money!