Salter has entered the growing market of outdoor pizza ovens with an affordable and portable option that allows you to cook stone baked pizzas within minutes. This oven has been designed to be portable, easy to use and to store when not in use. Having tested Gozney’s Dome pizza oven previously, I was eager to test out Salter’s innovation to see how a more affordable option weighs up against a professional-grade oven.
Should you fork out the extra bucks on a pizza oven, or will a budget alternative do the job? You’ll find out in this test and review of Salter’s pizza oven.
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Pros
- Quick and easy to assemble: It took less than 30 minutes to fully assemble the Salter pizza oven and the instructions were very simple and easy to follow.
- Lightweight and compact: Once assembled, the Salter pizza oven was easy to maneuver and carry to the desired location due to its lightweight and compact design. It’s also easy to store as it is small and comes with a carry bag. You can make it even smaller by removing the chimney and folding up the legs.
- Easy to clean: After using the Salter pizza oven, cleaning was quick and easy as the parts are easy to disattach and not much mess is created as the ash is kept in the ashtray.
- Great tasting pizzas: The oven produced crispy textured pizzas with a smoky taste.
Cons
- Pizza gets stuck to the provided pizza peel: Even when adding extra flour to the peel, the pizza dough would get stuck so when I was trying to place the pizza in the oven it was very difficult, and I had many failed attempts and ruined pizzas. In the end, I had to make the ruined ones into folded pizzas. Also, once the pizza was in the oven it would get stuck to the stone which made it difficult to rotate. A better-quality pizza panel would have made all the difference!
- No temperature gauge: When heating up the oven, it’s hard to know exactly when it’s ready to start cooking pizzas. This means that I didn’t know if it had reached 500 degrees Celsius within the claimed 10 minutes. For me it took about 25 minutes to get the oven hot enough to cook the pizzas, which whilst it was longer than advertised it’s still a respectful time.
- Fire maintenance: The fire was difficult to manage and maintain. I had to constantly add more wood pellets to the fire to keep it going, whereas I find using larger pieces of wood with other ovens easier to manage as they take longer to burn. It’s also difficult to see when the fire needs more wood added as the fire is hidden and closed inside. The fire kept going out because of this.
| Product Dimensions: | 68.5 x 36 x 70.5 cm |
| Heating method: | Radiant |
| Warranty description: | 2 years |
| Batteries required?: | No |
| Item weight: | 12.6kg |
- Comes with a pizza peel, a carry case and a scoop for the wood pellets.
- Removable ash tray for easy cleaning.
- Foldable legs for convenient storage.
Testing the Salter Pizza Oven
I tested the Salter pizza oven for 3 things:
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Time it takes to pre-heat the oven
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Time it takes to cook a pizza
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Quality of pizza
It took longer than expected to heat up the oven as it didn’t retain the heat very well and the fire kept going out. When I was able to keep the fire lit, it took about 25 minutes for it to reach the desired temperature. To sustain the fire, you’ll need to refill the pellets every couple of minutes. I found it worked best when putting half a scoop in every couple of minutes rather than a full scoop otherwise it will get blocked up. It took me a few goes to get it right and I expected it to be easier to keep the fire going.
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Once the oven reached the desired temperature, it cooked the pizzas surprisingly quick. After about 30 seconds with the door closed, one side of the pizza was fully cooked. I then (just about) rotated the pizza, closed the door and after 30 seconds the pizza was ready. On the first two attempts, the pizza was stuck to the peel and was ruined, however on the third time I was lucky and the result was good.
The final product of the pizza was great, it had a nice taste, was crispy on the outside and cooked fairly evenly. It was difficult to get perfect, it was slightly burnt on the crust rather than a nice golden brown. However, this didn’t take away from the nice taste and texture.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for a pizza oven that’s going to be reliable, feed a large family and be used regularly, I would suggest paying slightly more for an alternative such as the Ooni Karu 12. The process of trying to heat the oven up and place the pizza in the oven proved very difficult, so paying a little bit more is a fair trade-off if you’re looking for a good end product and a fun experience.
If you’re looking for a pizza oven that won’t be used very often, there are only a few people to feed and you have time on your hands to get used to the product, the Salter pizza oven is a good option that will serve its purpose.
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It’s important to remember that pizzas are very difficult to get right when using pizza ovens and take a lot of practice, so if you’re a first timer and you’re looking for a pizza oven that will make it easy to use, spending a little bit more will be worth it to get more features that will make your experience and pizzas better.