Stainless Steel Pizza Ovens: Quality Matters

The cheap pizza ovens do not originate from high-quality European production, but mostly from Asian countries. This is not always a disadvantage but is if you are looking for a durable and high-quality solution. They are built to lower quality standards. The material strength of the stainless steel is low, usually only 0.5mm, so the ovens are not able to maintain temperature. This has several disadvantages. On the one hand, significantly more energy input, that is wood, is required to fire up the oven and maintain the temperature. A high-quality pizza oven from the Italian manufacturer Fontana reaches a temperature of 350 degrees with 2 kg of wood in 30 minutes. A cheap oven is not capable of reaching this high temperature due to inadequate insulation—even with a very high wood input. An original Fontana pizza oven has a material strength in the dome of 2.5mm and in the baking chamber of 4mm. It is an additional reinforcement in the baking chamber to protect the dome and ensure the longevity of the oven.

In combination with other quality features like insulation, an enormous energy efficiency is achieved here. This also leads to a very long operating time of the ovens. In a Fontana pizza oven, you can bake a lot of pizza for hours with low wood consumption, nothing stands in the way of a cozy garden party. And the next morning the oven still has 200 degrees, to bake bread, rolls, and cakes in it or to prepare a casserole for lunch. In a cheap oven from China, it is not possible to bake a large number of pizzas over a longer period, as the inserted pizzas naturally lead to a drop in temperature, and the oven has to rebuild this temperature over a relatively long period, whereas an oven with high-quality insulation unnoticeably forgives this short temperature drop.

In addition, there is the poor or lacking insulation of the ovens. For pizza ovens produced in Asia, a very thin fiberglass mat is used, which lowers production costs. High-quality Italian pizza ovens are insulated with quality natural wool, which provides a much better insulation performance. The insulation wool is bio-soluble and therefore not harmful to health. It also has consequences for the handling of the ovens: high-quality insulated ovens do not get warmer than 50 degrees on the outside, so there is no risk of burns. Cheap ovens lose heat to the outside due to lack of insulation and thus become dangerously hot.

The discount store pizza ovens are also at a disadvantage when it comes to baking surfaces. The stones installed in cheap ovens do not match the quality or composition of the high-quality, food-safe certified fireclay stones (30mm strength) of the original Italian pizza ovens by Fontana. The Asian stones are mixed from various materials, have a low strength, and do not retain heat over a long period. Often, the ingredients in the stones are questionable and sometimes even carcinogenic. Who would want to bake their pizza on a stone whose ingredients might be harmful to health?

The shape of the pizza oven also plays a big role in air circulation. While the original Fontana pizza ovens are given a traditional and precisely shaped dome form in an elaborate process, cheap Asian productions are usually square-shaped. This is much faster and cheaper. Quality suffers from this. In the original dome ovens, the hot air circulates perfectly, all by itself. It is always in motion, surrounding the food and cooking it absolutely evenly. In an original Italian pizza oven by Fontana, it is not necessary to turn or reposition the dish. In cheap imitation ovens, a pizza can burn on one side and still be raw on the other.

Original Fontana ovens are robust and heat resistant. They are made of absolutely high-quality stainless steel, it is electro-galvanized and therefore more robust than any other steel. They are pre-assembled and ready to use without lengthy setup work at home. A Fontana pizza oven gives customers years of joy without complaints. That is why there is a 6-year warranty for Fontana pizza ovens, while Asian cheap products often do not even survive the maximum two-year warranty.

We hope you have gained a good impression of the quality differences between cheap pizza ovens in discount stores and high-quality pizza ovens from Italian production in our shop. We also have budget-conscious entry-level models of very good quality, on which you will have years of pleasure. Talk to us, we are happy to advise you and show you our high-quality stainless steel pizza ovens by Fontana in our exhibition.