If you're looking for a backyard pizza oven, Ooni’s tortoise-shaped gas-powered Koda is widely reviewed as the best entry-level oven on the market. On the brand’s site, the Koda 16 boasts an average of 4.8 / 5 stars, with over 3,100 reviewers weighing in. And if you're looking for an oven with clout, J. Kenji López-Alt named the Koda 16 his favorite pizza oven, and you can see the Koda appear in episodes of Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend.
But if the trusty Koda is at the top of your pizza oven wish list, one question might still remain: do you settle for the cheaper 12-inch model at $399, or pay an extra $200 for the 16-inch at $599?
While I can say both models have their unique advantages, after spending time testing Koda 16 and the past year with the Koda 12, it all comes down to one factor: if you routinely cook for more than three people, you're going to want the larger oven.
At a Glance: The Ooni Koda 16
Fuel: Gas/Propane
Dimensions (Unboxed): 25 x 23.2 x 14.7 inches
Dimensions (Boxed): 27 x 29 x 16.3 inches
Weight: 39.2 pounds
Preheat Time: ~15-20 minutes
What's Good About the Ooni Koda 16
Consistency at a turn of a knob
While lacking the romantic craft of a crackling flame and wood smoke, it's easier to make a habit out of cooking dang good pies when you don’t have to futz with keeping a wood fuel source at a consistent temperature.
After 15 minutes of the Koda’s L-shaped burner running at full blast, the majority of the pizza stone is piping hot at 600-plus degrees Fahrenheit. What’s also nice about the propane oven is once the pizza stone is up to temp, you can quickly adjust the flame down to achieve a well-cooked bottom without a burnt crust.
Entertaining is a breeze with 16-inch pies
The most important part of the 16 Koda is obviously the size. I’ve owned the Koda 12 for a little over a year now and although it’s still a fantastic oven, it only makes mini pizzas. While I love mini pizzas, two things are mathematically constant — a larger percentage of total pizza area is lost to crust on an 11-inch pie than a 16-inch one, and you get more total pizza surface area from one 16-in pizza than two 11-in pizzas.
In practice, this means to feed four people I'd need to cook 4+ mini 11-inch pizzas in one go with the Koda 12– although doable it’s a non-stop ordeal that takes over an hour of a constant shuffle of shaping dough, topping, and cooking.
With the 16 Koda however, you can feed four people with just two pies– something that will only take 30 minutes from the second you spark the oven. This huge time-saving means you can enjoy some hot slices yourself when it's time to eat.
Large flame coverage
Other than the size, the major difference between the 12” and the 16” Koda is the burner design. In the Koda 12 you have a single burner at the back, and on the Koda 16 you have an L-shaped burner stretching along the back and left side of the oven. Paired with a deflector that prevents direct flame from touching the crust, this L-shaped burner design makes for a unique cooking experience.
Since the L-shape burner is applying direct heat to half of your pizza at a time, you can make a perfectly cooked pie with just a single 90-degree turn — although I didn’t achieve this often.
The flippable stone makes for easy cleanup
My favorite part about all of Ooni’s lineup of pizza ovens is the flippable pizza stone. When mistakes happen and you poke through the bottom of your pizza, the resulting mess of cheese and sauce sticking all over the stone can be an emotional experience. Ooni’s answer to the problem? Just flip the stone over to the fresh side. No need to mess with a wire brush; all of the nasty debris will burn off over the next use.
What's Not Ideal About the Ooni Koda 16
Uneven stone temperatures
While this is more of a quirk than a con, the L-shaped burner in the Koda makes for a unique temperature distribution where the back left of the oven tested 200 degrees hotter than the right. While the L-shaped burner did mean it was possible to cook a pizza with a single 90-degree turn of the pie, it was harder to achieve a crispy bottom crust on the Koda 16 than it was on the smaller Koda 12. I can only speculate as to a few reasons like how the wide opening on the 16” lets more heat out of the front and maybe the bottom stone thickness doesn’t hold on to as much radiant heat when in use, but in practice pies still came out perfectly delicious.
The Koda 16 needs to live outside
With foldable tripod legs and a total weight of 39.2 pounds, the Koda 16 is both manageable to transport and set up, and not something I’d want to routinely move indoors between uses. In my testing, if you're looking to cook pizza at least weekly, your Koda will need a place to permanently live outdoors.
Ooni sells a cover, which seems like a good investment if you plan on storing the oven anywhere where water can splash onto it. I’d also advise moving just the stone indoors if you're expecting rain; pizza stones are made out of porous ceramic and it’s not something you want to get wet. As for the rest of the oven, it's built to handle the elements. I've stored my Koda 12 outside without a cover for the past six months, and it's a tad dirty — but totally fine.
The outer shell gets hot
If you're concerned about safety, one downside to the cold-rolled carbon steel shell of the Koda is the lack of insulation. Now I love the design of the Koda 16 — the inner dome is mirrored and perfectly angled to reflect heat down onto your pie, and there’s a smart use of air gaps between the interior reflectors and outer shell to cut down on heat transfer. But, after 30 minutes of use, you’ll need to wait an hour before the outer shell is cool enough to touch. While no outdoor pizza oven will be risk-free when you're playing with such high temps, ovens like the Gozney Roccbox have a calcium-silicate insulated exterior that stays cool to the touch when in use.
Ooni Koda 16: The Verdict
While there are more premium options in the market like Ooni’s Karu 16 and the Gozney Dome that bring more elements of a professional pizza oven into your backyard, the Koda 16 deserves praise for bringing quality pizza to the masses. The large size, reliability and low learning curve of the Koda make it the perfect entry-level oven for family pizza night. Over the past year, I’ve been able to make more pizza at home than I’ve collectively eaten in my childhood, all because of the simple design of the Koda.
