Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven Review – Is that Powerful Portable Outdoor Oven?

Ooni Koda is a powerful oven in the 12″ portable oven category. However, it’s only the hero for some chefs due to its various limitations.

This is where Gozney Roccbox, as a hungry opportunist, takes the lead.

Though not the lightest or cheapest in the portable oven category, its indestructible build quality and quick conversion to achieve 500°C make it a sublime option for long-term investment. Rivaling against Ooni’s award-winning Koda 12-inch, the Gozney Roccbox pizza oven provides better safety, durability, and performance, furnishing well-rounded maturity than its counterpart.

And meeting APVN standards, in a nutshell, it’s also not a big deal for the Roccbox oven. Below is a detailed Gozney Roccbox review to address the majority of your curiosity and inquiries

Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven Review – The Innocent Looking Dynamite:

The 12″ portable pizza oven category is adored by domestic chefs, and Roccbox faces intense competition from the Ooni 12″ Koda, BakerStone, Alfa Nano, and Bertello outdoor ovens. Each contender caters to a specific audience, so let’s explore which audience the Roccbox is best suited for.

Who’s it for: Users looking for robust performance, versatile fuel compatibility seekers, durable and long running oven, less complex assembly, Neapolitan, artisan, and thin crust lovers, Newbie chefs, brand conscious,

Who Should Avoid It: Aggressive travelers, Budget users, high-volume Kitchens,

Design and Safety:

Design is what doesn’t showcase aggression but creamlike usability and trustworthy safety. However, we have a lot more to say.

The overall design looks straightforward, but it isn’t what it looks like. These were Leonard’s comments in the design report. Like the other portable pizza ovens, you won’t find a stylish design with lots of knick-knacks and frills that may confuse the newbies. 

However, we found a built-in thermometer that is itself a perfection when it comes to mapping the cooking temperature with utmost accuracy. 

Many pizza ovens with embedded thermometers measure ambient temperature higher than stone temperature. This is where people burn most of the initial runs.

Gozney, with its thermocouple beneath the stone, reports stone temperature with sheer accuracy, so you don’t waste your resources in the name of tries. Positively, this was an interesting fact unearthed during the Roccbox review. When it comes to Gozney Roccbox dimensions, the 16.3 x 21 x 18.6″ size isn’t extraordinary, but a cumbersome 44 lbs with this size will surely raise many eyebrows. We found 2 factors for it.

First of all, the Roccbox oven has been mastered to perfection, considering safety and heat insulation. The multi-layered commercial-grade calcium-silicate ensures no heat leakage to make the exterior sizzling hot, allowing you to have a satisfying peace of mind even with wandering pets and hyperactive kids in your house.

Secondly, the 12.4″ cordierite pizza stone is significantly thicker than the lightest weighted Ooni Koda. With 19mm/0.75″ thickness, it surely increases the overall weight but also adds valuable points to its heat retention capability.

These both scenarios boost the practicality and performance of the Roccbox portable oven but make a cut in the portability department. If you are an aggressive and frequent traveler or holidaymaker, handling this chubby boy will not be a sweet candy to swallow..

Performance and Temperatures:

A little sluggish than its counterparts in reaching temperature heights, yet rock-n-roll with 550c.

The multi-fuel Gozney Roccbox pizza oven’s performance revolves around “Rolling Flame” technology. It was amazing for Brian how a 14330BTU burner, which was relatively smaller than its counterpart, achieved 500°C. Yes, amazingly, the Gozney Roccbox is a 500°C club member.

While it reaches 500°C in under 30 minutes, it’s slower than the Koda (15 minutes) and Burnhard Nero (17-18 minutes) but provides above the APVN standards of heat for Neapolitan and artisan pizzas.

Anyway, the Roccbox oven has a default propane gas burner that effortlessly fits at the oven’s rear side. As there is no door included in the package, the burner, with the assistance of airflow, creates a superb convection effect that distributes heat evenly throughout the cooking bay.

With this scenario, we rotated the pizza after every 20-25 seconds. This seemed to be a slight struggle, but the tremendously puffy, crispy, and evenly cooked pizzas will make you forget all the hassle. Alongside, we tried multiple breads, steaks, and cookies, and the Roccbox oven didn’t disappoint us with toasty menus.

This is worth mentioning here that the propane gas burner has a knob to control temperatures so you can manage the temperature according to your menu. The only drawback we faced was maintaining the temperature due to the unavailability of a door that led to the ejection of hot air. That’s why it creates a dire need to check on your pizza cooking and rotation.

That being said, Gozney also struggles a bit when there is a windy climate under 10°C. Even for our Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven Review, We tried it on an 8-9°C evening, and it took 17 minutes to reach the standard 350°C, which isn’t THAT bad at all.

Assembly and Burner Interchangeability:

Almost everything comes pre-assembled, Burners Interchangeability is a breeze.

Being a multi-fuel pizza oven, it’s surely a versatile thing when it comes to a choice of fuel. More specifically, it’s the right thing for wood pizza lovers. However, everything with the Roccbox oven’s multi-fuel capability isn’t a blessing here.

First of all, it comes with a dedicated burner compatible with propane fuel. On the second, you have to purchase a separate Roccbox wood burner like many other multi-fuel pizza ovens, which cost around 100 bucks. That said, Ooni Koda 12″ is its main rival considering a single fuel choice. Using a wood-burner as an add-on, the competition extends to the Karu series, and it is the cheapest multi-fuel outdoor oven than the Ooni’s most advanced Karu 16”.

Well, the burner interchangeability is cream-like. You don’t need any extra tools like screws or wrenches to make burners tightly fit with the primary appliance. Just a click fit type of mechanism, and you jump from 1 fuel option to another.

While this is sweet gameplay of fuel type shift, this hugely impacts the Gozney Roccbox pizza oven portability. The dome-shaped oven with retractable legs and 44 lbs of weight isn’t easily manageable in intense travel situations like hiking on tough trains. The big Roccbox wood burner makes it further challenging to enjoy easy portability. The manufacturer gives a Velcro strap to lift the oven body, but managing the additional attachments still needs multiple and strong arms.

But to extract good news from this scenario, the 156 cubic-inch wood container is the largest in the competition, which bars you from frequent refilling of wood pellets or logs.

Alternatives to Goznney Roccbox – Bertello, Alfa Nano, Ooni Koda/Karu, Bakerstone:

Gozney Roccbox pizza oven review is about to cross the finish line, and we have to see which other portable pizza ovens can fill up Gozney’s weaknesses.

So, we have two choices here.

If Gozney is being taken as a single-fuel oven, the closest contender to choose is Ooni Koda 12 – no questions about it. If you seek multi-fuel capability, Ooni Karu 12/16 will be a suitable replacement.

For single fuel, Koda matches most of the Roccbox oven’s capabilities. However, we know Gozney Roccbox isn’t that much more portable than Koda, so surely Koda wins big here with a 100% cut in weight. Moreover, the minimal differences in cooking space and baking quality. Koda still wins significantly with quick temperature reach, while Gozney has an edge with a built-in thermometer.

Furthermore, Gozney also comes in line with Karu 12/16. For a 12-inch, Gozney fights against the almost specification as Koda. For the 16-inch match, Gozney faces a serious challenge with a digital thermometer, bigger space to cook, lighter weight, and better portability features. But yes, Gozney has a justification for being significantly cheaper than the bigger Karu.

People Also Ask – FAQs:

Can you use a Roccbox pizza oven indoors?

Though the Roccbox oven is small and can also be used as a countertop oven, it is PRIMARILY rated as an outdoor oven. So, using it indoors is not advisable. Specifically, when you are using it as a wood oven, it may fill indoors with smoke which may be injurious to your family’s health.

What fuel does Roccbox use?

Gozney Roccbox pizza oven is a multi-fuel outdoor appliance. However, typically, it’s a propane enabled oven. You can also use it as a wood-fired oven with an optional wood burner.

Is Roccbox OK in rain?

For our Gozney Roccbox Pizza Oven Review, we tried it in a little drizzle and we can say, roccbox can bear a light drizzle. However, it’s not advisable to use it in the rain. You can use a Roccbox cover that is specially made to save your oven from weather effects. The double lined 900D polyester cover protects the Roccbox oven from the effects of hard sunrays, rain and other weather effects.

The Bottom Line:

To be very honest, Gozney is not as portable as “That” much as it gets advertised, even with the Velcro Strap. However, one can definitely trust the Roccbox oven’s cooking capabilities and quick climb to temperature heights. While this may not be the “biggest” deal for you, the built-in thermometer actually lives up to its purpose providing great temperature authenticity – not spoiling your food. In a nutshell, Gozney renders great practicality with its excellent set of features.