Derek Gaughan
The Chefman Home Slice is a new affordable indoor pizza oven that aims to rival the Ooni Volt. Complete with two adjustable top and bottom burner controls, a glass viewing window, and a max temp of over 800 degrees.
Its placement in Costco stores is what catapulted the popularity of this pizza oven, especially because of the price. However, it’s not entirely a unique design. You can find a lot of these available on Alibaba, but with slightly different digital displays.
But I never discount a pizza oven based on this. If it performs well, it performs well. So let’s make some pizza and see how it does.
Chefman Home Slice
Unboxing & Design
If you order this online like I did, it comes in a clearly-marked brown box (potentially important if left on your front porch) with the standard retail box inside. I love the retail packaging on this. They went for some nostalgic vibes with old-school coke bottles and a New York slice-shop feel.
Inside we’ll find a nice pizza peel with an angled handle and holes to help remove excess flour. The pizza stone is actually thicker than what the twice-as-expensive Ooni Volt has. However, indoor ovens work a bit differently than outdoor pizza ovens. For indoor, stone heat is easy to come by – it’s the overhead heat that lacks. So a thicker stone in an indoor oven won’t necessarily improve the bake.
I’m really surprised by how light the Chefman Home Slice oven is. Only 23 pounds – that’s almost half the weight of the Ooni Volt!
Design
I really like the look of this oven. It’s a very compact design but with some high-end looking components. As mentioned earlier, you will find a variety of similar ovens on Alibaba under different brand names and slightly modified controls. I never discount a product because of that – it always depends on performance. But I think this is one of the few times I really like the overall appearance and build quality of an Alibaba-esque product.
Upon looking inside, I noticed the door sits really loose against the oven, not making a very good seal. The door on the Ooni Volt is heavy and kind of snaps shut like a kitchen oven does. I don’t like this at all because it seems like heat and smoke can escape through it. We’ll see if it’s an issue soon.
Features
All we have to do is toss the pizza stone in and plug it in. The digital display looks great, but it can be tough to see what temperature you’re selecting; the indicator light showing the selection is in another shade of blue.
Two knobs control the top and bottom burners separately, allowing a very customized baking experience. A third knob on the right controls a timer (which can only be set once the preheat is complete).
The Chefman Home Slice uses 1700 watts total and a claimed max temperature of 800F. However, I later found out the temperature can indeed go higher, but it’s not recommended to.
Performance
There’s a bunch of presets for different pizza styles, including Neapolitan, New York, thin crust, pan pizza, and frozen.
For my first test, I’ll try the manual mode to see how hot it goes.
Neapolitan Test #1
I selected the max of 800 degrees fahrenheit for both top and bottom burners. Once I hit start, a 22 minute timer counts down.
The outside doesn’t get too hot during use, and it seems perfectly safe to use under a cabinet. But it is a little loud – sounding a bit like a microwave.
It also burned off some oils from the manufacturing, which appears to be spilling out the door – the first sign that the door should have been designed more like a kitchen oven, where it snaps shut.
After the 22 minute preheat, the stone temp measured 788 degrees; pretty close to the setting. By the time I got my first pizza ready, it climbed up to 820. After two minutes of baking, I noticed a lot escaping from the front door again. And the top crust was not cooking nearly fast enough for the bottom, so I pulled the pizza.
Not a good first run. Clearly the stone needs to be at a lower temperature to match the top heat.
Neapolitan Test #2
I lowered the stone temp to 725 and kept the top burner on 800. This resulted in a stone temp of 763.
The top and bottom crusts were more evenly baked, but it took too long for Neapolitan. The cheese is overcooked and the crust is too crunchy.
Neapolitan Test #3
Then I noticed something. The top burner gets red-hot when it’s powered on, but once it reaches temperature, it seems to turn off, which could be affecting the performance. If you preheat the top to 700, then switch it to 800 and launch a pizza, you’ll time it so that the top burner is actively on. This provides slightly more top-down heat during the bake.
Note: a few commenters on Youtube mentioned that you should set the timer in order to fire up the top burner. But I tested it out and could not replicate that. Turning the timer on didn’t seem to turn the top burner back on. The only time the top burner turns back on is when it needs to maintain temperature from heat loss.
New York Style Test #1
As for New York styles, it works great. I’ve been playing with different flour mixes recently. This one here is a 50/50 mix of Great River wheat and King Arthur bread flours. I used the New York preset button which puts the lower temp to 650, the top to 600, and starts a 5 minute timer. The result was pretty good, but the bottom was darker than the top.
New York Style Test #2
So I changed the temperatures to 600 on the bottom and 625 on top. And these results were fantastic. A great cheese melt, excellent color on the crust, and a super crispy bottom.
Performance Summary
The Chefman Home Slice missed the mark on Neapolitan, coming nowhere close to what the Ooni Volt is capable of. It’s so close to being an incredible unit, but the top burner is really finicky, seeming to turn off at the worst times and significantly reduce top-down heat.
But the performance for New York style is just as excellent as the Ooni, and at a fraction of the cost. So if you’re not completely set on Neapolitan and prefer New York anyway, this can be a great indoor pizza oven for you.
