Ooni Karu 2 Pro review: outstanding 16-inch pizzas from patio to table

Welcome to T3's review of the new Ooni Karu 2 Pro, an exceptionally versatile 17” multi-fuel pizza oven with new app-enabled technology for effortless baking. Like a smart pellet, charcoal or gas BBQ, the Karu 2 Pro’s app can be used to monitor both the oven’s ambient temperature and any meats you might cook, along with providing access to a wide range of pizza and other food recipes.

Furthermore, the Karu 2 Pro can be used with wood kindling or charcoal (or a combination of both) for full authenticity and smoky flavour, or easily transformed to propane use by fitting Ooni’s optional £99 burner.

Industry-leading UK-based Ooni already has a large roster of amazing pizza ovens in a wide variety of sizes, fuel options and price points. Does this one merit a top spot in our ever-changing guide to the best pizza ovens? On evidence of my following review, I think it most certainly does.

Ooni Karu 2 Pro review: price and availability

The Ooni Karu 2 Pro is available in several bundles at different price points. If you live in the UK, you can snap up the basic wood-fired version of one of these sterling ovens direct from Ooni where it’s shifting for a reasonable £699. Alternatively try John Lewis & Partners, Lakeland, BBQ Land where the basic model is selling for the same price. If you wish to add the gas burner separately (£99), head straight to the Ooni store and snap up some other tantalising pizza accessories while you’re at it.

If you live in the USA, your best bet is a visit to the Ooni store where the wood-fired version of the Karu 2 Pro sells for $799. Ooni also has a store on Amazon US, though there doesn't appear to be any listing for this oven, at least for the time being.

Ooni Karu 2 Pro review: set-up

The Karu 2 Pro arrived in a huge box containing the main oven section with fold-down legs already attached, a large 17-inch cordierite pizza stone plus rear crescent-shaped insert, a slide-in steel firebox, a rear cap with adjustable air intake, a rear cavity hatch, a tall 45cm steel chimney (also with its own built-in flue damper) and a temperature hub with two probes, one for the stone area and the other for meats. This model also comes with a large glass door that doesn’t get anything like as sooty on the inside as its earlier sibling, the Karu 16.

I should add that there is some assembly required, but this is very straightforward and basically involves fitting the chimney – just attach and twist – inserting the two stone pieces – there’s a hole underneath the oven to poke a finger through so the stone can be placed and removed without damage – and fixing the new smart temperature monitor which simply screws onto a front plate.

However, the manual’s illustrations could have been a little clearer about connecting the included stone temperature probe unit to the almost invisible mini hub underneath the right side of the oven. Of course, it didn’t help that the manual shows that the mini probe hub is on the left side when it’s actually on the right.

Once it’s all assembled and ready to bake, all you have to do is fold out the three sturdy legs and place the whole unit on a strong table that doesn’t wobble.

Ooni Karu 2 Pro review: design and features

Ooni sent us the Karu 2 Pro Essentials Bundle comprising the oven, gas burner module, tight-fitting cover with chimney section and their excellent 16” bamboo pizza prep peel which also happens to serve as an excellent bread and cheese bard when you’re not eating pizza. However, you can also buy this oven solo (£699) with all wood-burning accessories included or with the optional £99 gas burner for increased versatility. Nevertheless, I would personally recommend at least including the Karu 2 pro cover in your purchase, if only to protect the unit against the elements, especially during winter when you might not use it as much.

In the pantheon of pizza ovens, I’d say that this one’s Ooni’s best looker and that’s partly down to the new, extra-large glass window which drops the earlier air vents of the Karu 16 for a much more streamlined aesthetic. Although the Karu 2 Pro is not quite as stylish or as solidly built as, say, the 16-inch Gozney Dome or Dome S1 (which both cost several hundred more) or the company’s smaller 14-inch stablemate, the Gozney Arc, it won’t look out of place on any patio or verandah.

Despite the Karu 2 Pro’s weight coming in at a shade under 28 kilos, it’s not too heavy for two people to carry from patio to garden but almost certainly too weighty to transport from car to beach. Also, at around 81cm in length and 51cm in width, it’s quite a big unit to store away in the shed which is why I suggest buying the bespoke cover for it.

Having used the Karu 2 Pro on three separate occasions, the standout features for me are the oven’s ability to reach 500˚C with relative ease, the substantially large 43cm x 1.5cm (17” x 0.6”) cordierite stone which provides acres of space for turning an average-sized 12” pizza, the amazing glass window that stops heat from escaping while speeding up warm-up times (especially in cooler weather), and the temperature probe which provides a fairly accurate combined temperature of both the stone and the main cavity. However, I would still recommend using an Ooni laser temperature gun for more accurate stone temperature results.

The Ooni Karu 2 Pro is compatible with three types of fuel – wood kindling, charcoal and gas, though the base bundle comes out of the box set up for wood and/or charcoal use only. I would suggest using a combination of both. Although it may take longer for the oven to reach optimum temperature, charcoal provides a good bed of constant heat while the kindling adds a nice rolling flame that licks across the top of the oven’s interior, cooking the ingredients in the process. To add more wood to the mix, simply open the rear hatch and add another few pieces of kindling.

However, despite the oven’s two adjustable air vents – one at the rear and the other on the chimney – I should add that baking with charcoal and especially wood is more volatile than gas which is a lot easier to control, mostly because you can turn the gas down or even turn it off completely if things get a little too spicy and your pizza base is starting to look like it might be incinerated.

Thankfully the Karu 2 Pro’s design makes swapping from wood to gas an absolute breeze, because all you have to do is remove the wood-baking baffle on the rear and replace it with the optional gas burner. This burner is very well designed, too, since it has two upward-facing pipe-like flame outputs that create a really long and wide flame that covers almost the entire ceiling surface of the oven for a crisp and even bake. I should add, however, that the gas control on this model is at the back which means you can’t adjust the flame while looking at it. Mind, this is an unavoidable anomaly given that the burner is an add-on module and not something that’s built in like most gas-specific pizza ovens.

Ooni, like most pizza oven manufacturers are at pains to point out that a pizza oven isn’t just for baking pizzas. Since a pizza oven behaves much like an indoor oven – only at much higher temperatures – it’s possible to sear steaks, cook a casserole or bake a loaf of bread. Just remember to use a heat-retaining cast-iron skillet if doing a steak or fish and not just put them on the stone or their juices will forever remain ingrained in the stone. But you already knew that.

Ooni Karu 2 Pro review: Ooni Connect Digital Temperature Hub

This model comes with Ooni’s battery-powered Connect Digital Temperature Hub, a smart app-enabled thermometer that connects to the base of the unit just under the stone, plus a second probe for use with large cuts of meat. The main probe provides an overall oven temperature and is arguably accurate enough to proceed without using a laser thermometer, though I would personally recommend using a laser gun for the stone because nothing’s worse than an undercooked base.

In order to make full use of the oven’s temperature hub, download the Ooni app and connect it to the Connect hub using its Bluetooth function. Once it’s up and running, the temperature hub will primarily display the ambient air temperature inside the oven. You can also set up an alert to notify yourself when the oven reaches target temperature.

While this system can be useful when cooking ingredients like steaks and fish, allowing you to monitor the cook from your phone, it is imperative that you stand by the oven when baking pizzas because they cook incredibly quickly – often within 90 seconds – and you will need to turn the pizza and keep an eye on it at all times. Ten measly seconds is all it takes for a near perfectly baked base to burn to a crisp.

Now, I should just forewarn you of one unfortunate trait with the Connect Hub – it doesn’t turn itself off after use. I made the mistake of not turning it off after my first test and when it came to my second test a day later, the two AA batteries were flat. It wasn't the end of the world but it was also quite annoying.

Ooni Karu 2 Pro review: performance

I tried two different methods of pizza baking – wood and gas – and both produced remarkable results. I was especially pleased about the large entrance to the oven and the huge amount of space inside which allowed me to turn my 12-inch pepperoni pizza without any hand-burning issues.

However, while the wood method produced a slightly more authentically smokey flavour, it did take much longer to heat up the stone. Also, because the wood container sits on the rear stone insert, it takes up a bit more oven space while occasionally scattering ashes on the stone. This is normal for any wood-fired pizza oven, mind, so perhaps have a long-handled straw brush to hand to sweep any excess ashes to the side or rear. Do not use a nylon brush because it will quickly melt in the heat and leave deposits on the stone.

When it came to using gas, it was simply a case of fitting the burner housing to the rear by tightening down two screws and firing it up using the built-in Piezo ignition system. Unfortunately the Piezo ignition system on my test unit has been a bit hit and miss, refusing to fire up for the first three or four attempts. This can happen with any Piezo system and the best fix is usually careful adjustment using a pair of piers to bend the metal sparker so it’s 2- to 3mm closer to the front of the burner cap. I did this and it now fires up much more readily.

I was amazed at how quickly this oven warmed up on a cold winter’s day when using the gas method – the glass door helped immeasurably in this regard. I’d say it took about 20 minutes to hit 401˚C in 5˚C ambient temperature and I consider that a very respectable result given that other pizza ovens I’ve used on a cold day have taken about three times longer to reach the same temperature while using far more gas in the process.

Although this oven is advertised at easily reaching 500˚C, I opted to launch my first pizza when the laser thermometer showed 420˚C. That’s more than enough heat in my opinion to properly bake both the base and the ingredients without too much burning. Although one of my test pizzas was a bit overdone, I take full blame for this because I simply left it in for 10 seconds too long. That’s how fast things happen in pizza-baking land.

Ooni Karu 2 Pro review: verdict

This pizza oven is an exceptional performer with acres of space for an average-sized 12-inch pizza, two bite-sized 8-inch pizzas or, if your dough-stretching technique is up to the mark, a whopping 16-incher. It heats up very quickly for an outdoor oven and you’ll really come to appreciate the oven’s clear-view glass door when it comes to using it in winter time. In my view, this is not only Ooni’s best model to date but one of the very best domestic outdoor pizza ovens on the market, period.