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Ooni Karu 2 Pro Review: Versatility and Quality in Your Outdoor Kitchen

I like to keep this site ad-free. If you find this review helpful and decide that the Karu 2 Pro is the oven for you, please consider using one of the affiliate links below to make your purchase. I may receive a commission to help with purchasing more pizza ovens to review in the future. Although I received a sample of the Karu 2 Pro to test out for free, many of the ovens reviewed on this site have to be purchased. Thank you!


The new Ooni Karu 2 Pro is one of the most versatile ovens out there—you can make everything from pizza to steak using your choice of wood, charcoal, or gas. Below, I will explain the assembly experience and show you the results I got cooking a few types of pizzas across several cooking sessions. I’ll spoil the ending and tell you my conclusion up front: this oven looks fantastic and can be a true workhorse in any outdoor kitchen.

By the way, if you want to cook with gas in the Karu 2 Pro, you need to purchase the propane burner that is sold separately (or the natural gas burner if you prefer). Thankfully, once you have the burner, you can easily swap between wood and propane by loosening two screws and changing out the part.

Unboxing & Design

The Karu 2 Pro comes in a large box that weighs roughly 83 pounds, so it’s not easy to move yourself without a helper or a hand truck. Assembly is simple, and it comes with the tools you need to put it together. You’ll need to attach the thermometer and connect it to the temperature probe with an included wire. Next, you need to insert the stones, connect the glass door, and join the smoke stack to the vent on top. This is pretty easily done solo. Fully built, the Karu 2 Pro weighs about 60 pounds.

The interior cooking surface is about 17 inches wide with just under 5 and a half inches of vertical height—more than enough room to cook 16 inch pizzas, calzones, steaks, vegetables, and larger pieces of meat. The included digital thermometer has Bluetooth connectivity so that you can monitor the oven temperature from your phone. There’s also a temperature probe you can stick into large cuts of meat so that you can keep tabs on the progress of your cooking. There isn’t a probe to measure the temperature of the pizza stone itself, so you’ll need an infrared thermometer to check that yourself.

All the pieces of the Karu 2 Pro prior to assembly on a table.
A slice of sausage pizza held in front of the Karu 2 Pro with the flame turned on.

How Does the Heating Perform?

Ooni’s website claims that the oven will be fully heated to 950 degrees Fahrenheit in 15 minutes. In my test with the gas burner on full flame, I had a different experience. Using both my infrared thermometer and the built-in thermometer, you can see on the graph below that it took 30-40 minutes to get the oven fully heated for Neapolitan pizza cooking. This amount of time is pretty similar to most other pizza ovens. I suppose it’s possible if you built a roaring wood fire that it could heat up faster, but I didn’t test the heating speeds with wood since there are too many variables. It’s worth noting that it was cold on this day, so the stone started at 44 degrees.

Graph that shows how quickly the Karu 2 Pro heats up over time.

Speaking of cooking with wood, getting a fire going in the Karu 2 Pro is easy. There’s a metal tray designed to sit in the back of the oven that you can fill with split firewood while it catches the ash under as the wood burns down. A removable hatch on the rear of the even makes it easy to add wood as you cook. You just need to make sure the vent on the back of the oven is opened to allow air flow. I rarely cook with wood fire, so I was impressed with how well the process went.

An onion and cheese pizza cooking in front of a wood fire in the Karu 2 Pro
It was pretty simple cooking this Argentine-style pizza with wood fire.

Performance

I tested the oven through multiple high-temperature cooking sessions using both wood and gas. I started with a 65% hydration dough made with 00 flour and a poolish starter. Using that, I made an Argentine-style pizza topped with olive oil, cheese, onions, salt, and (on one of the pizzas) green olives. I got great leoparding with the gas burner. I also managed to still get some nice color on the crust when cooking with wood.

Onion, olive, cheese pizza after cooking with propane
Argentine-style onion pizza fully cooked on display

When testing lower temperature cooking, I made several NY-style pizzas with my usual 65% hydration dough using King Arthur’s bread flour. The gas burner did a great job of cooking once you get used to the rear/top down heat distribution. My first pizza came out a bit more well done than I like, because I wasn’t used to how the heat hits the pizza yet. The flame is at the back of the oven, and it rolls up the ceiling toward the vent near the front center of the cooking area.

As usual, I launched my pizza in, lowered the flame to allow the bottom of the pizza to firm up, and then cranked up the heat to brown the top while rotating with my turner. This sausage pizza turned out particularly nice. As you can see, the oven is capable of good color and a crisp undercarriage.

A cooked New York style sausage pizza, with one slice lifted to show how the undercarriage is cooked.
This sausage pizza turned out wonderfully. My guests loved it.

One minor criticism I have is that I wish the legs required more force to keep them from folding up. When moving the oven around on my cooking table, a couple times I had the legs buckle when sliding the oven into the position I wanted. As long as you’re careful, this issue is no big deal, but I can see someone getting surprised by this small design flaw.

Overall I was extremely impressed with the Karu 2 Pro. Like I said earlier, it’s a great-looking product that will impress guests in your outdoor kitchen. While it’s not as easily portable as some other smaller ovens, you could even take it camping and use wood to make some amazing pizza or other meals. If you’re a serious pizza maker, or if you’re just looking for a versatile outdoor oven for cooking all sorts of things, I’d highly recommend the Karu 2 Pro.

The good.
Spacious interior for cooking a wide variety of foods.
Versatile with the options to cook with wood, charcoal, or gas.
Product design looks great in your outdoor kitchen.
The bad.
The legs fold up a little too easily.
No built-in pizza stone temperature probe.
Cooking with gas requires a separate burner purchase.
4.8

Written by Kevin Hansen

Kevin is the Lead Editor for Pala Pizza. He’s been a prolific home cook for over 20 years. Kevin began making pizza in 2019 with a focus on New York style, US Sicilian, and Neapolitan. He graduated from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.

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