Take Your Homemade Pizza to the Next Level With Ooni's New Countertop Oven
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Ooni unveiled its first indoor pizza oven, the all-electric Volt 12, in March 2023 with a $999 price tag. Like the other pizza ovens in the Ooni family, it can work inside or out and brings the heat with a maximum temperature of 850-degrees.
It caught my attention, as I’ve been using a propane-powered Ooni Koda 16 for the last couple of years, but it wasn’t without drawbacks. I live in Colorado, and making pizza outside in the Koda 16 during winter was a non-starter.
The Volt 12 solves that problem for me and presumably countless others, requiring nothing more than countertop space and an outlet.
Over the last month or so, I’ve cooked everything from Neapolitan and Detroit-style pizzas to frozen chicken tenders and garlic bread in the electric oven that could. And I can’t get enough of it.
Ooni Volt Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Super fast to heat up and maintain temp | Limited cooking space for pan pizzas |
Consistent cook times | Finding space to store it can be a challenge |
It cooks way more than pizza |
Design and Getting Started
The Ooni Volt 12 comes in two parts. On top of the box, protected in a big envelope of bubbles, is a pizza stone designed to slide right into the interior of the Volt 12 and retain heat. Underneath the pizza stone is the Volt 12 itself. I recommend having someone help you carry the box into your home and for unboxing — it’s heavy, and the shape of the Volt 12 is somewhat awkward to handle on your own to get it out of the box.
More specifically, the Volt 12 weighs 39.2 pounds and measures 24.2 x 20.8 x 10.9-inches. It’s just long enough to take up the entire width of my countertop without much room to spare around it.
Inside, it has plenty of space for a 12-inch pizza, with a cooking surface of 13.27 x 13.27 inches. The oven requires a standard 120 Volt wall outlet and has a max power draw of 1600 Watts.
On the right side of the oven is a switch that provides power to the oven, and the front is home to all the controls. The Volt 12 has three dials and a digital button that turns the controls on or off.
The first dial sets a cooking timer with a maximum range of 20 minutes, while the second dial sets the temperature up to 850-degrees. The final dial lets you manually control the balance of the two heating elements; one on the top of the oven, the other underneath the stone on the bottom.
The dials are easy to use and understand, taking just a few seconds of reading the included manual and actually turning the dials yourself to get the hang of them.
The audible alerts you hear when making adjustments, when the oven reaches temp or the timer has experienced are a nice touch, as well.
The Volt 12 is built for indoor use, and with that, it’s smaller than I would have imagined an electric pizza oven is. That said, I have struggled to find a place to store it when not in use. I don’t have a ton of counter space, so leaving it out all the time isn’t an option.
It Makes Pizza, and So Much More
Over the past month, I’ve used the Volt 12 to make over a dozen pizzas. Most of those have been some form of Neapolitan style, which are meant to be baked hot and fast, along with a handful of Kenji’s Foolproof pan pizza, and even a Detroit-style pizza or two.
What’s impressed me the most about the Volt 12 is how fast it warms up when you first turn it on — taking just 20 minutes to get to its max temp of 850 degrees — and then recovering to that temperature while forming and topping the next pizza.
And for times when you’re in a rush, you can trigger the Volt 12’s Boost mode to heat the oven back up to its set temperature quickly. I got in the habit of taking a pizza out and immediately triggering Boost mode while I made the next pizza.
As you adjust the oven's temperature, the Volt 12 has several presets for the top and bottom heating elements that it will select based on the temperature. For example, when cooking a Neapolitan pizza, you want most of the heat above the pizza to ensure the crust rises and browns, with some heat on the bottom to get a nice cook.
However, when you’re making a pan pizza at 450–500 degrees, the heat needs to be spread more evenly between the two elements. The Volt 12 takes care of that guesswork for you while also allowing you to fine-tune its settings yourself using the third dial.
While making a pan pizza, I noticed the cheese had browned way too fast and was on the verge of burning. So, I turned the dial all the way to the left to focus all of the heat on the bottom of the oven — that slowed down cooking the top of the pizza and allowed the bottom to cook without burning the rest of the pizza.
My biggest gripe about the Volt 12 is the size of the cooking area. It’s just over 13 x 13-inches, which is great for 12-inch pizzas, but finding pizza pans to fit inside the limited space has been challenging. For example, the default Detroit Pizza pan is 10x14, which doesn’t fit. Instead, I had to buy an 8x10 pan that fits perfectly but isn’t quite big enough to make enough pizza for a family of five. So, on pan pizza nights, I have to make a smaller pan in the Ooni and a larger pan in my standard oven.
I’d love a bigger Volt, but I imagine there are inherent issues with getting enough power to the Volt using a standard 120V outlet.
The Volt 12’s pizza cooking skills are clearly up to par, but I think I unlocked its secret power: You can use it to cook anything.
True story: I took a lunch break while writing this review and cooked some frozen chicken fingers in the Volt 12. I’ve also used the Volt 12 to make garlic bread and to heat up some cheese sticks. Why not just use my regular oven? Because the Volt 12 preheats in about a fifth of the time, it takes my conventional oven to heat, saving me a ton of time.
Complaints about the size of the Volt 12’s internal cooking area aside, this is a fantastic pizza oven that does exactly what you’d want it to do. It heats up fast, keeps its temp, and will remain a constant in the never-ending quest to perfect your crust.
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Ooni Volt 12: Who Is This Electric Pizza Oven Best For?
If you’re someone or know someone, who loves pizza and has been trying to find an oven that will level up their pizza game, the Ooni Volt 12 is a great choice. It’s on par with the company’s gas-powered options in terms of performance and versatility, but you don’t have to worry about only using it during certain times of the year, or checking the weather report. As long as you have an outlet, you’re set.
If the $999 price tag for the Volt 12 is too much, but you still want a more advanced pizza oven, Ooni’s wood and gas-powered ovens range in price from $299 all the way up to $799. Any of them would be a fine pick.