Gozney Dome Gen 2 Review – Gozney’s Biggest Oven Gets Even Bigger

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Welcome the Dome Gen 2, what might be the nicest looking consumer pizza oven on the market today. Gozney also has a larger version called the Dome XL, but I’m sticking to the standard size for this review. Gozney was kind enough to send a press sample, and as usual you’ll get my honest breakdown of the Dome. The Dome Gen 2 is a multi-fuel oven, so I’ll show you pizza baking with gas and binchotan charcoal.

This massive oven arrived fully assembled, well protected in its cardboard box. Since the oven weighs 136 pounds (a bit heavier than the original Dome), you’re going to need to get a friend or two to help you set it up. All you need to do is remove the smoke stack from the oven and the rubber bumpers from the stone. After you attach the propane hose and charge the thermometer, you’re ready to go.

What’s New in the Second Generation?

So what’s changed from the first gen Dome to the second generation? The most obvious change is size, with the cooking area being about 16% larger. But the second change is in burner design. The original Dome’s flame jetted out of a hole in the back corner, while the new Dome’s burner resembles Gozney’s newer lateral burner that they introduced with the Arc-series. If you’ve read my reviews of their other newer ovens, then you’ll know I’m a big fan of this new burner design.

The updated digital thermometer got a major upgrade too. It’s powered with a rechargeable battery, and it shows both the temperature on the bottom of the stone and the ambient air temperature measured in the back of the oven. Plus, if you’re cooking meat, you can connect temperature probes to monitor your food’s temperature as it roasts.

Like the first-gen Dome, the new Dome’s stone is 30mm thick, which lets it stay hotter between cooking each pizza. However, it also takes longer to heat up compared to other Gozney ovens like the Arc XL. It was a cold windy day when I taking my temperature readings, so my oven definitely heated up more slowly than on other, warmer days. Because the stone is so large and thick, it took 35 minutes to reach temperatures for baking New York style pizza, and even longer for Neapolitan. Gozney claims it takes 50-55 minutes to reach full heat saturation, but the weather will affect your results.

The mouth of the Dome Gen 2 is 16.5-inches wide, perfect for making pizza up to 16 inches wide. The spacious interior is enough to cook two smaller 10-inch pizzas simultaneously. You could also roast vegetables or larger cuts of meat in a roasting pan if you enjoy cooking outdoors like that. If you want to go really big, the Dome XL has an even larger 18.5” door that enables cooking 18″ pizzas.

Pizza Baking Performance

Starting with propane, let’s make some New York Style pizza. I made my usual 62% hydration NY-style dough and got to cooking. With the thicker stone on the Dome, I got best results launching my pizza in with the stone temperature reading about 675 degrees. I killed the flame and let the bottom crisp up for a couple minutes. Then I turned the flame back on low and started turning. This pepperoni pizza turned out awesome. Check out the color; you can’t complain about these results. This other pizza with sausage, Anaheim peppers, and fresh ricotta was fantastic too.

I also cooked some with binchotan charcoal. It’s kind of similar to how pizza used to be cooked in New York with massive coal-fired ovens. The charcoal took a lot longer to get the oven hot than propane does. (It took me at least 3 hours.) But after it was hot, I still got good results. I also ended up needing to use the optional Neapolitan arch accessory to trap enough of the heat in the Dome. Don’t expect to be making Neapolitan pizza without a proper wood fire.

Speaking of Neapolitan, how did the Dome perform when using propane? With my poolish Neapolitan dough, I got the cooking surface to about 900-degrees, launched, and started rotating. These pizzas (pictured below) took only about 70-seconds from launch to completion. Now that’s fast. I had no difficulty during the cook and easily achieved the leoparding you want on your Neapolitan pizza.

Optional Accessories

Gozney offers an optional stand designed specifically for the Dome. It’s solid, easy to put together by yourself, and it holds the oven at a perfect height for cooking. You can still put the Dome on any heat-resistant surface and make awesome pizza without needing the stand at all. 

There’s also an optional door you can get for the Dome. But it’s purely meant to be used to trap heat inside with the flame off so you can roast meat for longer periods of time. The official Gozney cover fits the oven with the smoke stack still attached. They even have a larger option to cover both the oven and the oven stand. It’s well made, heavy, and protects your oven from the elements nicely.

Final Thoughts

So let’s recap. The New York style pizza was awesome. The Neapolitan style pizza was also awesome. Charcoal cooking worked well, but it takes a long time to get the heat where you need it. The oven takes longer to heat than some other ovens with thinner stones, but the thick stone gives you more heat retention between pizzas. All my testing was done on cold fall days, and I still got the awesome pizza you’ve seen in this review. The Dome Gen 2 is a gigantic beast of an oven. It’s more expensive than most of the ovens I’ve reviewed on this site. But if you’re serious about pizza or cooking other foods in the great outdoors, the new Gozney Dome is a winner.