This Is the First Outdoor Pizza Oven I've Tried That Adjusts Its Own Heat

The point of having a pizza oven at home is that it lets you cook at higher—much higher—temperatures than your standard oven. Temps that can top 800℉ are the secret to those quick bakes that blister the outside of a crust while leaving it soft and chewy on the inside.However, if you work with enough pizza ovens, you’ll discover that the real secret is not just the high heat (most of them can hit those now)—it’s control over those temperatures. While 750℉ or even 800℉ can make a better pizza, once an oven starts pushing 1000℉ (and plenty of them will without proper attention), making a crust that is spotted but not carbonized becomes a more tenuous affair.That is the main problem Fontana Forni’s Volta oven solves.Fontana ForniFontana Forni VoltaWhat makes the Fontana Forni Volta different than other pizza ovensIt’s the first outdoor pizza oven I’ve seen that can set temperatures with some precision, all the way up to 840℉. Some electric ovens can do this, but most of them are much more limited in what they can do.The Volta has a built-in thermocouple set opposite the burner that will automatically lower the flame when the oven begins to overheat, or push it hotter if the temperature starts dropping too low, which will happen if you leave the door open for too long.This means that I can cook a whole party’s worth of pizzas without waiting for the oven to settle back to temperature and without worrying about the heat inside. I’ve found that my particular pizza dough (a slight riff on the “New American” dough in King Arthur’s Book of Pizza), cooks best between 650℉ and 700℉, a temperature range much easier to consistently achieve with the help of the temperature control on the Volta.Noah KaufmanNoah KaufmanDo know, though, that super-high heat cooking like this can only be controlled so much. As I was testing the oven, I regularly checked the temperature with an infrared thermometer (like I do with all the outdoor cooking equipment I use), and it would fluctuate as much as 30°F on either side. The difference with the Volta is that it will self-correct when that happens.Fancy features like temperature control are great, but if they aren’t built on top of a high-quality base, they’re just particularly noisy bells and whistles. Fortunately, long before it came out with the Volta, Fontana Forni developed a reputation for building some of the best home wood-fired ovens out there, dating back to the 1970s.A thick, heavy, two-piece stone floor helps to retain the temperature and stands up to the elements without cracking. The domed design throws searing heat over the top, creating a super-charged broiler effect more intense than more basic outdoor ovens. And the spacious interior makes it easy to launch and turn multiple pizzas simultaneously. Other ovens have some of that, though; in terms of better-known outdoor oven brands, Gozney’s Dome comes to mind.Wonderful, but can the Volta do anything else?However amazing they perform, pizza ovens can feel niche. There are only so many nights you want to serve pizza for dinner, and only so many other things you want to hit with the high heat pizza ovens generate. The thing that moves the Volta from a narrowcast hobbyist’s obsession or a trendseeker’s toy is its versatility. Not only can it hold the high temperatures to make 90-second Neapolitan pies, it can also be set as low as 300℉ and hold the more modest temperatures used in everyday cooking.Lots of outdoor pizza ovens come with claims that it’s easy to roast vegetables or bake bread in them, but I’ve found that frequently isn’t the case; they still get so hot they’re impractical. The control offered up by the Volta really does turn it into an extension of the kitchen. Caramelizing something in the oven? Roast those carrots in the Volta. Want a crispier finish to your potatoes than your range will provide? The design of the Volta gets it done. It also has ports to attach temperature probes, which connect to an app for monitoring purposes, to cook thicker proteins to a precise level of doneness.Keep in mind this range and control are all done with a propane burner. The Volta also quickly transforms into a wood-burning oven for more hands-on types. In this mode, it functions like a traditional pizza oven, and all the techy add-ons are unavailable. If you want something that will control a live fire for you, you’ll have to look at some of the newer grills out in the last few years.Noah KaufmanWhat’s the downside to the Volta?Between the size, the build, and the technology inside, the Fontana Forni is a quasi-professional piece of equipment, and it's priced that way—$5400 as I write this. And plainly, that will make it inaccessible for lots of people. But for anyone out there building their dream outdoor kitchen, it’s an addition that will transform the project from perhaps just a place to grill and smoke into an all-purpose extension of your indoor cooking space, quickly and easily ready to make just about anything.More for pizza loversThe Best Outdoor Pizza OvensMaking Pizza Indoors? Use a Stone.An Incredibly Good Homemade Cheese Pizza