There’s a bunch of ways you can make your own pizza at home, but if you ever have a chance to get it cooked in a wood-fired oven, you’ll realize just how awesome these are. Unfortunately, these tend to be huge, not portable in the least, cost a fortune, and therefore are out of reach. The Uuni 2S that we received as a review unit a few weeks ago however is none of the above. It’s extremely portable and costs a very reasonable $300. It uses granulated wood pellets as fuel, which are energy dense and low in cost, and is able to reach temperatures of 900F (480C) in as little as 10 minutes of heat-up time. That’s hot enough to cook a pizza in 2 minutes. Or at least, this is what the company claims. So how did it do? Let’s find out.
The Hardware
Assembling the Uuni 2S took about 8 minutes. No special tools are required beyond the included Allen key, and everything fits together easily with the few screws provided. The legs just fold out. The interior features double-walled insulation, which we assume is meant to keep some of the heat in. The baking stone, really a large slab of aluminum (if the Internet is to be believed), simply slides into place. The entire oven went from the box to ready-to-bake in 10 minutes.
It’s constructed of what appears to be stainless steel, with wooden handles. The flue is pretty tall, about 24 inches, and the entire setup weighs just 24lbs and measures 12x35x48 cm or 4.7×13.7×18.8 inches (without the legs). You’ll be able to spit out pizzas up to 13 inches across. Overall the construction quality seems good, with no loose parts or ill-fitting segments.
The Performance
Getting the unit fired up simply involved scooping up some of the pellets, putting some lighter fluid on them and flicking a lighter. It took about 10 minutes to get the fire really going, and maybe another 10 to get the temperatures up to the apparent maximum. There’s no thermometer, unfortunately, so there’s a bit of guesswork involved. The chimney pulls the smoke out very efficiently, so the interior of the oven just gets hot with flames licking the upper section.
Once we had a pizza prepared, we popped it in and closed the front door. We knew of the claims of 90 second bake times, so we were careful… but not careful enough. The first pizza we made came out somewhat burned on one side. We figured there was a learning curve, so the next one we decided to rotate after about 40 seconds. That did the trick and the result is what you see above. It was… amazing. The crust was crispy on the underside, the top was perfectly cooked with little bits of burn but mostly just melted goodness. It literally took about 100 seconds to cook, maybe even a bit less.
It does require constant attention. The device burns through the pellets quickly, so you have to keep an eye on them if you don’t want temperatures to drop. Replenishing the hopper is easy though, with the included scoop. Then, since it cooks the pizzas so quickly, you pretty much have to stand next to it for two minutes, which makes it impossible to do anything else simultaneously. So between keeping the Uuni 2S fed, baking the pizza and making the next, you’ll find it hard to actually eat. Your guests however will be delighted to devour some of the finest pizza we’ve tasted, with perfectly cooked dough, just crispy enough to satisfy even the most demanding pizza snobs.
Everything does get covered in a good layer of soot, but that’s kind of unavoidable with this kind of setup.
Conclusion
All in all, we’re really impressed with the Uuni 2S. We were able to bake delicious pizzas at home in 90 seconds. The baking stone did an excellent job of crisping the underside, while the top was cooked to perfection. Setting up was a breeze, and given the $300 asking price, we’d be hard-pressed to find a better way to make pie than this.
We would have liked to see an integrated thermometer to take some of the temp-related guesswork out of the equation, but that’s a minor quibble. If you’ve been eyeing this unit but aren’t sure if it’s worth the price, we wholeheartedly say: it is.
[ Product Page ]