How Hot Is A Pizza Oven? (2023)

Everybody loves pizza! It’s one of the most popular dishes in the whole world, but even if you eat pizza every week, you might not know much about how it’s made.

The best and most delicious kinds of pizza are usually made in a pizza oven, and they are made using only the freshest of ingredients.

In order to make the perfect pizza, you have to make sure that your pizza oven is cooking at the right temperature, so you might be wondering how hot pizza ovens get. Well, you’ve come to the right place!

We’re going to take a look at what a pizza oven actually is, how hot they are meant to get, as well as some other information that might make the temperature make a bit more sense.

What Is A Pizza Oven?

So first things first, what is a pizza oven? What makes it different from a normal oven?

Well, as the name suggests,

The most significant difference between a normal oven and a pizza oven is actually the temperature.

Pizza ovens get a whole lot hotter than regular ovens, which allows the pizza to cook faster and taste better. They are also dome-shaped, whereas normal ovens are boxed-shaped.

There are lots of different types of pizza ovens as well. Some of the most popular and well-known include wood fire ovens and conveyor ovens.

In our opinion, the best backyard pizza ovens are those made by Ooni, but there are a variety of options.

How Hot Is A Pizza Oven?

Now you have a better understanding of what a pizza oven is, let’s take a look at how a pizza oven is.

Typically, a normal oven can get as hot as 500F/260C, but a pizza oven is a lot hotter than that.

Pizza ovens can be anywhere between 900F/500C in temperature, with some actually being able to reach 1000F. Pizza ovens are hot and there is a good reason why, but we’ll get into that a bit later.

Even after you turn your pizza oven off, it can still maintain these temperatures for hours after, so it’s important to stay vigilant even when you are done using it.

The temperature can also differ depending on what kind of oven you’re using and what kind of wood you’re burning, but 900F/500C is the most common temperature pizza ovens are.

Why Does A Pizza Oven Need To Be So Hot?

You may be wondering why pizza ovens need to be so hot, and that’s a very fair question to ask!

It seems absurd that a pizza oven needs to reach these temperatures, but there are a few good reasons why and we will explain them now.

The first major reason why a pizza oven needs to be so hot is for efficiency purposes.

Pizza ovens are designed to cook multiple pizzas one after the other, and if you didn’t have the temperature up so high, it would take far longer to get them cooked.

Cooking the pizzas at these high temperatures allows you to cook pizza a lot faster and in higher quantities.

Another reason why pizza ovens need to be so hot is that the heat actually directly impacts the texture and flavor of the pizza itself.

Ovens at home can usually cook pizzas fine, but they often end up undercooked in some spots but overcooked in others. The heat pizza ovens generate covers the whole pizza and cooks it evenly.

Pizza ovens keep the crust crunchy but chewy inside, and the toppings heated and stops the pizza from being undercooked and raw.

Cooking pizzas at these temperatures also means that you will be able to cook multiple pizzas one after the other without having to worry about the oven cooling down.

And it's not just pizza. You can cook nearly any of your favorite dishes in a pizza oven because they are so versatile.

Different Types Of Pizza Ovens

Different types of pizza ovens work in different ways, so it’s important to have a basic understanding of them before you commit to one. Let’s take a brief look at some of them now.

Conveyor Ovens

This type of pizza oven is used to make pizzas by preparing them on one end and then once they are cooked, they come out on the other end.

Conveyor ovens are extremely convenient and the pizzas made in these ovens are usually tasty, but they will never be as authentic as ovens that utilize stone surfaces and wood fires.

Convection Ovens

These ovens use a fan to circulate hot air inside, rather than the air’s regular flow.

The heat in convection ovens is very consistent, and this is because it has a separate heating element that directs the hot air.

This oven type works great with stone or steel and actually shortens the cooking time by a few minutes.

Brick Pizza Oven

These ovens are designed to cook pizza very slowly and evenly. The wood used in brick pizza ovens actually adds more flavor to the pizza and gives it a smokier taste.

Brick pizza ovens take a little longer to heat up, but as soon as they do reach the right temperature, they maintain the heat for a long period of time.

When you use a brick pizza oven, the type of wood that you use will impact how the pizza oven cooks.

Countertop Pizza Oven

These ovens are perfect for home use because they don't take up much space and they don’t cost nearly as much as some of the other types of pizza ovens.

Because they are so small though, the quantity of pizza made per hour is going to be a lot smaller than some of the other options.

That being said, countertop pizza ovens are still better for producing top-quality pizza than regular ovens.

Conclusion

As you can see, pizza ovens get very hot. At 900F/500C, they reach heats that are a lot hotter than regular ovens, and this is because they can cook pizzas to taste better and they are far more efficient.

Stay vigilant when using a pizza oven and always use the right equipment when handling the pizza.