New: Ooni Karu 16 Multi-Fuel Oven

[Pandasbecats]

Can someone help my So Cal public school ass figure this out. I'm looking at the oven comparison chart on Ooni's website, these are the numbers.


Karu 16
gas consumption
1.1/lb an hour


Koda 16 
gas consumption
1.3/lb an hour


Karu 16
fuel consumption
4.9lbs for 10 pizzas


Koda 16
fuel consumption
1.3lbs for 10 pizzas


Karu 16
BTU
7.3kw (25000 BTU)


Koda 16
BTU
8.49kw (29000 BTU)


So, I firstly don't understand what's the difference between fuel consumption and gas consumption. But if the Karu has lower gas consumption and lower BTU how the hell's the fuel consumption higher? And what the hell's fuel consumption? I'm seeing less BTU and less gas usage and my peabrains telling me the fuel usage can't be higher. And that's a massive amount higher to boot.

Like Mosa said, different fuel types. Wood is much less energy dense than propane so more of it is burned to create the same amount of heat.

I think it’s a 5 to 1 ratio for weights of wood to equivalent propane usage based on info from Pizza Party. Am Public school PNW myself so this info is for survival 

[Quebert]

Karu fuel consumption is high because it's a wood oven. The 1.1lb/hr is over propane. Karu 16 is more efficient than any of the other ooni gas ovens

Ok so the fuel consumption is for wood for the Karu, since the Koda which is gas had a number there I guess it didn't register with me. Makes sense now you explained it though.

Thank you for explaining this, kind of confusing IMHO if you only notice the fuel usage it makes it appear the Karu's much less efficient than the Koda, but the number for one's wood and the other's propane. 

[mosabrina]

So, the gas (propane) burner arrived a couple weeks ago and just did my 2nd bake, 9 pies total, using it.  Per a couple YouTube videos of same I was expecting it to get to Neapolitan bake temp in 20-minutes or so but, so far, it takes 45-minutes on high setting to get to 775/800F.   But the bakes were really good and much easier to manage oven temp than wood.

Just tried my karu 16 and 45 mins was somewhere around 880-900 air temp and floor around 800 in the center. I baked 15 pizzas over 2 hrs and never adjusted the flame once or did anything. Bake times were around 75 seconds I think but only timed one I did with gold medal bread flour and I pulled that one at 60s. The balance on the bake was perfect.

Oven over gas maybe would hit 950 at max but I doubt it would get much more than that. They do advertise it hits 950f in 15 mins and I would say that would be a bad thing. They way they have it now the stone didn't seem to easily overheat and it worked well

[Quebert]

Just tried my karu 16 and 45 mins was somewhere around 880-900 air temp and floor around 800 in the center. I baked 15 pizzas over 2 hrs and never adjusted the flame once or did anything. Bake times were around 75 seconds I think but only timed one I did with gold medal bread flour and I pulled that one at 60s. The balance on the bake was perfect.

Oven over gas maybe would hit 950 at max but I doubt it would get much more than that. They do advertise it hits 950f in 15 mins and I would say that would be a bad thing. They way they have it now the stone didn't seem to easily overheat and it worked well

Any pictures?? 

[waltertore]

Your fearless leader of Onni ovens, Arthur Bovino posted this on his instagram.  He bought a pan from us.  His pie is looking good 🙂  https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd2DW6FjAFN/?utm_source=ig_web_button_native_share

[mosabrina]

Any pictures??

Didn't take any I was busy painting the house and doing other stuff. I will take some next time I run it.  I made a bunch and gave some away too. My first one was good I actually tore 1 of them and left a lot of stuff on the stone. Also launched 2 of them too steep (since I was using it on the ground and didnt' have a table) so some toppings fell off and scorched.

My pizzas I would rate them maybe 5/10 and they tasted at least on better than a lot of the mediocre neapolitan places in atlanta. The deficiencies were my fault and the oven bakes quite evenly.

Only thing is ooni preheat time is definitely wrong and my numbers were pretty much exactly the same as the Got2eatpizza video where she unboxes the karu 16 burner.

[mosabrina]

They released the pizza door that was posted on reddit a couple months back:

https://ooni.com/collections/accessories/products/pizza-door-for-karu-16

$99 curious if it works better than the default

[Quebert]

They released the pizza door that was posted on reddit a couple months back:

https://ooni.com/collections/accessories/products/pizza-door-for-karu-16

$99 curious if it works better than the default

Price is too damn high, with that said I'm curious about it. I'm not an engineer but I'm guessing the stock one I have retains heat much better than this. But since you don't have to open this, it would hold the temp much more steady.  That'a not a small opening so I want to see a video of how it compares to the stock window.  That big of a hole seems like it would let a ton of heat out and might not make much of a difference over the stock one when just left open.  I know mine loses a lot of heat when I open it, so I do have this on my radar.  Bout to go check YT maybe one of the Ooni Ambassadors already has a video of up it.  It wouldn't take much testing at all to figure out how well it works.

Them removing the handle was dumb IMHO, I understand the purpose of this is you don't need to open it to launch or turn the pizzas. But if you want to launch something that's taller than the opening I wonder if you have to remove the screws and take the whole thing off.

[mosabrina]

Hard to compare them. Original door lets air in through the gaps in the door. Not sure that has any affect. This one lets air out through the bottom but temp is more consistent.

Also not sure consistent temp matters because opening the door doesn't have a huge effect on stone temp or fire, and as long as the oven has some amount of ambient heat/convection it seems fine.

[mux]

It's interesting, but is it worth the cost and without seeing the results it's hard to gauge whether it's an improvement or not?
This should cost 70$ at 100$ that's very steep for what it is, but at the same time I'm debating whether I should order one.

Any other folks care to share their thoughts on this.

It's interesting that it says it's optimized for the gas burner

[Quebert]

It's interesting, but is it worth the cost and without seeing the results it's hard to gauge whether it's an improvement or not?
This should cost 70$ at 100$ that's very steep for what it is, but at the same time I'm debating whether I should order one.

Any other folks care to share their thoughts on this.

It's interesting that it says it's optimized for the gas burner

They say it works best with the gas burner because they designed it for high volume cooking, and they recommend the gas burner when you plan to make bunches of pizzas in a row.  By their wording, I'd say it should work fine with wood or charcoal, they are just saying this isn't intended for people who use Wood and make 1-2 pizzas and call it a night.  I do 8-10 in a go no and will be doing 24'ish in an afternoon by the end of the summer.  And I only use gas, so this might just be a good solution. I couldn't imagine the effort it would take to do 24 pizzas in a row using wood lol. Hopefully they'll have a 20% 4th of July sale and a few reviews will have already made it to YT.  $80 would be my sweet spot.   But if  the reviews are good I'd pay $100.

[9slicePie]

I may be missing something here, but wasn't the door one of the main luring features of this oven?

[mosabrina]

I may be missing something here, but wasn't the door one of the main luring features of this oven?

Yeah it is but when you open the door you have a lot of heat loss because of the big opening. Wondering if this helps anything in that regard or does the big opening in the bottom negate any savings.

One cool feature of this pizza door is the visibility you retain because it is glass.

[Quebert]

I may be missing something here, but wasn't the door one of the main luring features of this oven?

I love the door, I do 6 minute bakes so I don't open it much. Even if this product does what they claim, IMHO it should be cheaper.  And the least Ooni can do is give a discount to Karu 16 owners lol.  I mean didn't the oven come out like October last year?

I was being sarcastic about the discount, as this only works with the Karu so nobody else would buy it.  It's VERY convenient of Ooni to release it less than a week after the 20% Memorial Day sale. Even if it wasn't quite ready. They could have put it as a pre-order.  Just a few more Ooni purchases and I'll have spent maybe as much on their accessories as I did my damn Karu 16 lol.

[cwood]

I don't fid the full door inconvenient, nor does it let much heat out.  When you are up to temp its so damn hot in there, I don't think that is an issue....usually trying to back off the heat rather than keep it.