Alfa One Pizza Oven Review

Pizzas from pizzerias are prepared in specific ways and cooked in specialized ovens at high cooking temperatures (up to 1000°F/500°C). Your home stove can't get that hot, so your favorite dish can never be just like the one from a pizzeria. Or maybe it can?

Instead of a stove, you need a home pizza oven with a cooking chamber to produce and keep high heat. And the Alfa Nano pizza oven (formerly named Alfa One), in both gas and wood versions, is an excellent solution to make perfect pizzas at home with a crispy crust and authentic smoky flavor.

Quick Overview of Alfa Nano Pizza Ovens

Alfa Forni knows how to make top-notch ovens, and Alfa One (or Alfa Nano) is its smallest model. But despite that, it's a serious pizza oven and your best ally in making your favorite dish in a traditional way.

This Italian brand uses patented Forninox technology in its products. A combination of a powder-coated stainless steel shell, refractory bricks, and ceramic fiber insulation retains heat and bakes pizza super-fast. And with a removable door and efficient flue system, it provides an extra-efficient cooking space.

Still, the manufacturer might just cut corners on the size of the cooking surface in this Alfa pizza oven. It's great for making a few pizzas for a family pizza night or cooking Sunday lunch. But when you throw a pizza party, you'll need patience due to the small oven capacity. Luckily, the baking time is short, so everyone will soon get their pizzas fast.

Alfa Nano pizza oven is available as a gas and a wood-fired model. Neither has dual fuel capabilities. But that shouldn't be a stumbling block since both models ensure fast pizza prep with optimal fuel usage.

Alfa Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

If you like the traditional way of baking pizzas on logs, a wood-fired Alfa Nano pizza oven is your thing. It gives your pizza a perfectly crispy crust and authentic smoky flavor.

Construction

The oven's shell is made of stainless steel with an elegant copper finish that makes the wood version of Alfa One stand out. But it's not just attractive; it's a high-performer, thanks to its dome-shaped cooking area and a double layer of insulation that retains heat without fuel overusing.

The removable door provides efficient temperature control. It comes with a peephole, allowing you to check up on fire and the cooking process. Also, there's a built-in thermometer on the right side of the oven's opening.

This Nano pizza oven comes with a handy wood holder that lifts the logs and allows better airflow and faster heating. Also, it comes in handy when it's time for oven cleaning.

Fuel Consumption

In a wood-fired Alfa Nano pizza oven, the average fuel consumption is about 15 lb of wood per hour. You can burn any wood you want, and the result will always be perfectly cooked pizza with a smoky flavor. The manufacturer suggests using logs of no more than 1.9" in diameter for maximum oven performance.

Setting Up

This Alfa Nano model is bulky, but assembling it won't be a problem. The top usually comes almost completely assembled, and the manufacturer has provided easy-to-follow instructions.

So you need to screw and tighten the flue and wood holder and fix handles to the pizza peel and door. Still, due to its 110 pounds, you might need some help to set this oven up. You can leave it on the barbeque island or put it on the movable cart with enough space to store logs.

Cleaning

With wood models of Alfa One, it's necessary to clean the ash from time to time. Just remove the wood holder and swipe the ash with a brass bristle brush to the middle of the cooking floor. Then, throw it out with an ash shovel.

Product Specs

• Fuel: Wood

• Max Oven Temperature: 1000°F (500°C)

• Heating Time: 15 minutes

• Weight: 119 lbs

• Dimension: 28.8" x 25.4" x 18.8"

• Chimney Length: 22.3"

• Chimney Width: 5.1" ⌀

• Cooking Surface: 23.6" x 15.7"

• Baking Capacity: one 12"-pizza at a time or 2.2 lbs of bread

Pros

• Sleek design and quality craftsmanship

• Super-fast heating up, with the oven ready for baking in just 10 minutes (it's already 745°F)

• Setting up takes just a few minutes

• Pizza peel, wood holder, and all-weather cover included

Cons

• Small baking capacity

• Hassle of preparing logs

• Accessories like an ash shovel and a bristle brush should be purchased separately

Buy the Alfa Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

Alfa Gas-Fired Pizza Oven

If you're not into sawing logs or can't burn wood due to legal restrictions, you could use a gas Alfa Nano pizza oven. The gas model also comes in handy when the wood isn't available, for example, at the beach or on a terrace in your downtown apartment.

Construction

Because of their shape and dark-grey copper finish, Alfa ovens have that sophisticated, traditional look. But it's not just an attractive garden and porch accessory.

Patented Forninox technology uses 1.2-inch tiles under the cooking floor in this Alfa Nano oven. They retain heat and distribute it through the cooking chamber to reach desired cooking temperatures without fuel overusing.

With a pre-installed temperature gauge and control knob in this model, you can easily set the heat to cook the best pizza. Also, gas models feature a gas tank inside the oven, which takes up some space, meaning the cooking surface is slightly smaller than in a wood-fired version.

Fuel Consumption

The Alfa Nano that uses gas can be connected to a propane tank that can stand above the countertop. It uses just a little more than a pound of natural gas per hour.

If you plan to move this fixture around, you can get a custom-designed base. It has enough space to store a propane tank and wheels to turn your gas version of the Alfa Nano pizza oven into a freestanding one.

So you can connect your oven to a natural gas line and use a control knob to set the desired temperature. It'll need as much gas as a single plate on the stove, which is about three pounds of gas per hour. You can switch between propane and natural gas by using a gas converter that comes with these Alfa Nano ovens.

Setting Up

Just like the wood-burning model, setting up the gas version of the Alfa Nano pizza oven is a two-person job due to its weight. But it's a bit more complex to assemble, mostly because of the gas connections. The Alfa Nano gas model comes with hardware for attaching the propane tank and a converter if you plan to use it on natural gas.

But it can be a no-brainer if you follow simple assembly instructions. For instance, you'd have to attach the flue and connect the hose from a gas regulator to a gas tank. That wouldn't take more than an hour. But if you don't know how to do it or have no time, you can call professionals to set up your new Alfa Nano pizza oven.

Cleaning

Unlike wood-burning models, Alfa One using gas has no combustion residues. There's no ash or soot, so cleaning it is a breeze. You just have to swipe drippings from the oven floor once it cools down.

Gas-fired Alfa stoves get so hot that they literally clean themselves. In other words, the high temperatures will burn down the food residues inside the cooking space the next time you light a fire, leaving the oven tidy.

Product Specs

• Fuel: propane/natural gas

• Max Oven Temperature: 1000°F (500°C)

• Heating Time: 15 minutes

• Weight: 123 lb (top only)

• Dimension: 28.8" x 21.3" x 18.8"

• Chimney Length: 22.6"

• Chimney Width: 5.1" ⌀

• Cooking Surface: 19.6" x 15.7"

• Baking Capacity: one 12"-pizza at a time or 2.2 lb of bread

Pros

• Low-maintenance product

• Easy temperature control

• Having pizzas done in less than 90 seconds

• You can purchase the custom-design base if you want a movable pizza oven

Cons

• Not for camping trips since it's a heavy oven

• A bit on the pricier side for pizza ovens

Buy the Alfa Gas-Fired Pizza Oven

Cooking in Alfa Nano Pizza Ovens

The cooking surface of both Alfa Nano pizza oven models is only 12'' wide, so you can't place a larger pizza in it. But a 15-inch-wide opening provides enough room to cook pizzas, casserole dishes, bread, grilled vegetables, roast, etc.

Alfa pizza ovens are ready for action in about 15 minutes, although leaving it for a few more minutes to reach desired cooking temperatures won't hurt. The manufacturer even suggests leaving the oven for about 45 minutes to heat up with the door closed.

After preparing the dough with your favorite toppings, you put pizza directly onto hot refractory bricks. It'll be ready in less than two minutes (to be precise, 90 seconds). It's desirable to turn it mid-way to ensure even baking.

Right after taking the first pizza out of the oven, you can place the second pizza inside. The slide-in-slide-out pizza peel that comes with the Alfa Nano pizza oven makes the process go a little faster.

Are These Pizza Ovens Worth It?

Alfa One can cost you more than two thousand dollars for the gas version, while the wood-burning model is a little cheaper. Still, buying these will cost you less than building a brick pizza oven from scratch.

Compared to other similar ovens on the market, Alfa One performs quite well, despite its small capacity. So if you find this product worthy of your attention and money, you can search online shops for the best prices. If you're lucky, you might find the best bang for your buck for this excellent pizza oven.

Final Thoughts

In Alfa's pizza ovens, beauty really meets innovation. The Alfa Nano pizza oven combines clean lines and elegant design with high performance for fast food prep and optimal fuel usage, regardless of the fuel type. So if you don't mind minor flaws such as small oven capacity and a bit high price tag (especially for a gas model), this product can be a worthy investment.