I’ve Been Converted and I’m Only Cooking My Pizza Outdoors From Now On

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Summer may already be beset with extremely hot temperatures, but that isn't going to stop me from enjoying the ambience of a fire. Sitting around roaring flames is a great way to wind down and enjoy the evening as it begins to cool off, and an easy-to-use smokeless fire pit makes it all the more relaxing.

While I was able to turn a frozen pizza delicious on my grill, there's just something about cooking over an open flame. Hot dogs on a stick are fine and definitely an outdoor cooking staple, but sometimes I want more. In our search to find more ways to use our smokeless fires, we've come across some really helpful accessories from top fire pit brands. Aside from awesome grill attachments, my favorite might be turning the wood-burning pit into a pizza oven.

Backyard wood-fired pizza

I've been able to make meals on two of the best fire pits on the market, the Solo Stove Yukon 2.0 with its Pi Fire Pizza Oven and the Breeo Luxeve using the Live-Fire Pizza Oven. At 27 and 24 inches in diameter, both of these fire pits hold plenty of wood. This ensures you have ample heat to get pizza stones hot enough for cooking pizzeria-quality pies.

I've always been a fan of wood-fired pizza; The slightly burnt, bubbly crust and the flavor the wood smoke imparts are everything summer should be. Creating these authentic pizzas at home is even better -- and much cheaper than a flight to Naples. However, there is a learning curve to using these devices, and I'm still working to perfect it. 

It all starts with getting a fire going to cook with, which is more difficult than it sounds. It is not necessarily the starting point of the fire, but getting the right amount of fire so that it isn't too hot. Ideally, you want to have your pizza stone between 500 and 750 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the crust thickness and the toppings being used. So having something like a thermometer gun is helpful for checking the temperature of the stone before putting on your pizza.

This is especially true for Solo Stove's Pi Fire Pizza oven, since it doesn't have any kind of temperature gauge on the unit, unlike the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven. However, I still recommend using a temperature gun to check the pizza stone in the Breeo option. In addition to the included temp gauge on the Breeo, I also feel that its pizza oven is more durable, and I feel less worried about it tipping over when moving the pizza around inside.

It takes practice, but fire-pit pizza-making is fun

Along with getting the correct temperature, there are plenty of other factors to consider when making pizza over a live fire. First, the dough you use and how you keep it from sticking. I tried both canned pizza crusts, like canned biscuits, and a premade pizza crust. I very much preferred the canned crust's taste, but the premade was much easier to work with.

Read more: The Secret to Instant Pizza Dough Is Hiding in Your Cooler

I used cornmeal to keep the crust from sticking because I like the texture and crunch it adds to the crust. However, my first attempt at wood-fired pizza didn't go so well because I didn't use enough of the cornmeal, so the canned crust stuck. This led to an uneven bake and an ugly-looking pizza, but it tasted delicious. I used the Solo Stove option for this bake.

For the premade crusts, I had far fewer issues than on my first pizza-making attempt. The pizza still came out crispy and with great flavor from the wood fire. But the freshness that I got from the canned crust was missing. Breeo's pizza oven held temps very well, almost too well, as it took a while for the heat to fade to where I could cook without burning. But, of course, I got a bit impatient and put the pie on too soon, and it got a bit too crispy.

My family and I all look forward to practicing pizza-making with the fire pit ovens. These devices make complete sense for a smokeless fire pit, thanks to their high heat output and smokefree environment. I think the Solo Stove Pi Fire lets more heat escape from around the oven, which could be nice when sitting around it in cooler weather. But the cooking experience on the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven was better overall.

If you don't have a need or desire for a fire pit, there are some freestanding pizza ovens that'll enable you to cook fresh pizza at home. But there are also some new accessories for pellet grills to give you a similar experience to the fire pit options. I haven't tested any yet, but the Stanbroil Wood Fired Pizza Oven Attachment looks very interesting and works with many of the top pellet grill brands.