How I Cook a Crusty Wood Fired Pizza!
We made a Crunchy Crust Pizza in the Ooni Karu 12 Pizza Oven with homemade pizza dough. Check out the cook in this video here!
The Ooni Karu 12 is a portable and lightweight wood and gas-fired pizza oven. The gas burner is an optional extra.


Pizza Ovens
The Ooni Karu 12 is a super pizza oven for those starting their pizza cooking journey and enjoy cooking with wood!
To get a nice crusty, crunchy pizza crust you just have to do the following:
- The heat on the stone ideally should be 420c to 430c in the centre.
- Once the heat on the stone reaches 430c in the centre of the pizza stone your pizza is ready to be cooked.
- Ensure that you have a good strong wood flame and keep that flame going before you launch your pizza. I normally add some logs just before my pizza is launched into the oven but for a slow cook I prefer to cook with a smaller/weaker wood flame.
- You have the option of cooking with the door on or off or both. Cooking with the door off takes longer but will ensure that the crust cooks slower. This is how to develop a lovely crunchy, crust!
- For this pizza, I cooked with the door on and off. The advantage to using the door like that is you get a nice top-cooked pizza as well as a crunchy crust!
for a crunchy crust I prefer a weaker/smaller wood flame for the cook
- The challenge is to cook your pizza for longer without burning the crust, base and toppings!
- If you find that your pizza is cooking too fast in the wood flame, then launch the pizza using a smaller wood flame.
Check out our pizza dough recipe here.
Check out our Pizza Stone Cleaning Video here.
Enjoy your outdoor pizza oven cooking!
I’ve created a Pizza for Beginners – Learning to Cook Pizza and How to Use Pizza Ovens YouTube playlist that gives some great tips to help you with your learning to cook pizza journey!
Check out our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/Got2EatPizza
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