Derek Gaughan
I’ve been eyeing up this unique Denmark-designed pizza oven for months, and finally got my hands on one to review. Originally only available in the EU, the Witt Rotante pizza oven is now available in the US on Amazon and features a big 16” rotating stone with a wrapped U-shaped burner.
The idea of this design is very much “launch it and forget it”. The U-burner effectively cooks half the pizza at a time, and with it rotating, it creates a very uniform bake. But the most interesting thing to me is how similar it is in design to the Everdure Kiln 2 that I reviewed a couple weeks ago (we’ll talk more on this later).
So, whether you’re a fan of auto-rotating stones or not, let’s test this puppy out and see if it can bake great pizza.
Witt ETNA
Unboxing & Design
The whole package weighs just under 80lbs, so watch your back as you lug it off your front porch. The packaging is great; consisting of a brown shipping box (however, it’s clearly marked as a pizza oven) and then a nicely designed retail box on the inside. And tons of molded styrofoam helps keep it secure.
The oven is inside a large bag, but upon opening it, I noticed the oven had some small marks or scratches, and a light dust. It seems like whatever dust that was inside the bag, roughed up the exterior in a couple spots. Definitely not anything that will cause a long term durability issue, but I wanted to call that out.
You may even want an extra hand to pull it out of the box, because the oven itself weighs 59lbs.
Setup
Setup is super straight forward for this oven. Unfold the legs (watch out for pinching your finger; it got me pretty good) and place it on a sturdy table.
The pizza stones are tightly wrapped inside the oven. Once you unpackage these, you’ll notice one round stone which is placed on the turntable toward the back, and one uniquely-shaped stone that acts as a mantle up front. You won’t be cooking on this stone, it just acts as a shelf to help with launching and retrieving pizzas.
Connect your 20lb propane tank, and we’re all set.
Design
At this point, I realized some striking similarities between this oven and the Everdure Kiln 2 that I had reviewed weeks prior. The pizza stones looked exactly the same shape, which was the first giveaway. Then I noticed the turntable is the same. And the U-burner. And the gas dials…
This is the same oven. The only difference is the exterior design. And it’s oddly coincidental I’m reviewing these so close to one another (the Everdure was still on my patio from finishing up the video).
I emailed both companies to see if they had any partnership with one another (and hoped one wasn’t straight up copied). Turns out, they worked on the overall development of this oven together, but they kept the design-work (from my understanding they are referring to the exterior look) separately.
So, in a way I was right! This is the same oven.
The difference is that this Witt Etna has more of a portable-look to it with foldable legs, whereas the other oven sits on its own base similar to the Gozney Dome S1.
Features
Dual Burners: I couldn’t find exact BTU measurements for the Witt pizza oven, but the Everdure model is listed as 23600 BTUs for the top burner, while the bottom burner provides 1850 BTUs. I think we’re safe to assume these are accurate.
Two separate knobs control each burner. Only the top U-shaped burner has a low-to-high adjustment, whereas the bottom burner is either on or off. A little peephole is used to see the flames of the bottom burner.
Auto Rotation: A button on the right side of the oven, next to the gas dials, activates the rotation. I like how responsive it is; some auto-rotating pizza ovens continue spinning for a second or two until it slows down to a complete stop, but this one seems to completely stop right away.
Performance
Just as I tested the preheat times on the Everdure KILN 2, I fired up both of the burners on the Witt Rotante and turned the rotation on. It’s important to turn the rotation on during the preheat of these ovens in order to evenly heat the stone. Remember – since you won’t be turning the pizza manually, the stone needs to be equally hot all around for a proper bake.
And just like the Everdure oven, I noticed the Witt Etna gets slightly hotter on the edges than it does the center.
But as is tradition with all of my reviews, here are the 5 minute temperature recordings when pointing at the center of the stone.
Neapolitan Test
As expected, it bakes exactly the same as the Everdure. If you leave the flame on high, the pizzas cook in about 80 seconds, but the bottoms usually end up a little underdone.
However, if you lower the flame to medium just after launching, this evens the bake out so that the bottom finishes nicely as well. Doing this increases the bake time closer to 2 minutes, but in my opinion, is the better option.
New York Style Test
For my first attempt, I launched when the center stone read 579F degrees and baked it for about 5 minutes on low flame. I didn’t stretch out the dough enough this time, so it’s a bit thicker than I’d like for NY, but it still baked great.
I like how low you can get the top flame, which allows you to extend a bake of this style to get a super crispy crust, and the under-stone burner crisps the bottom wonderfully.
Performance Summary
The Witt Etna can bake some amazing New york style pizza. Many of you know how much I love the Halo Versa 16 for this style of pizza – so good in fact, I ranked it among the best pizza ovens overall. Well, the Witt can bake them just as good, if not better, but retains the ability to cook Neapolitan, where the Halo cannot.
And if you’re debating between the Witt vs Everdure, normally I would say go with the one you like the looks of, since they perform the same. But… as of the time of this review, the Everdure Kiln is over $200 cheaper. Time will tell if the Witt will go on sale like its counterpart.
