Solo Stove Pi Prime Review: Our Expert Gives This Budget-Friendly Pizza Oven Her Stamp of Approval
Updated: Aug. 18, 2023
Make restaurant-quality pies in your backyard any day! Read our tested review of the Solo Stove Pi Prime pizza oven.
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Homemade pizza is the ideal dinner. Whether you’re having friends over or you need an easy weeknight meal, pizza is a universal crowdpleaser. And thanks to the number of pizza ovens on the market, it’s become even easier to fire a pie with your favorite pizza sauce and go-to toppings and have it on the table in less than two minutes.
I’ve tested multiple outdoor pizza ovens, including the Ooni Koda 16, Ooni Volt and the original Solo Stove pizza oven. But none of them are as budget-friendly as the new Solo Stove Pi Prime, recently released and retailing for just $349. To see how it stacks up to other options, I put this new pizza oven to the test.
What is the Solo Stove Pi Prime pizza oven?
The Solo Stove Pi Prime is an outdoor pizza oven powered by gas. It hooks up to a propane tank, just as you would hook up a barbecue grill. The front dial allows you to easily turn the oven on and adjust to the ideal temperature, whether you’re cooking pizzas or making roasted vegetables or burgers.
The oven is sleek with its stainless steel exterior and partial black coating at the bottom. It weighs about 30 pounds and measures 15.5 inches tall by 20.5 inches wide. The opening is 13 inches—making it ideal for pizzas that are 12 inches or smaller. In the box, you’ll find the pizza oven, gas hose and pizza stone to get started. Essential pizza making tools, such as a pizza peel and turner, are sold separately.
How We Tested the Solo Stove Pi Prime Pizza Oven
I set the Solo Stove Pi Prime up straight out of the box and tested it by making multiple pizzas.
Set Up
The pizza oven comes in a large box with the oven intact all in one piece. It’s simple to pull the oven out of the box and place it on a heat-safe surface. The pizza stone was wrapped separately, so I had to place it in the pizza oven. Once set up, I connected the hose to a propane tank.
Lighting the Pizza Oven
The front dial on the pizza oven serves as the lighting and temperature control. To turn on the pizza oven, I first opened the gas tank and then turned the dial to the ignition symbol for it to light. It’s quick and easy to light the pizza oven, and once it’s lit, it takes 15 to 20 minutes to heat up to the proper cooking temperature on high.
The insulation of this oven is incredible, and even with it at 900 degrees, you can’t feel the heat on the exterior. This design helps to alleviate heat transfer on the bottom of the oven, which makes it much easier to put on just about any surface, including wood, marble and stainless steel tabletops.
Cooking
While Solo Stove’s original pizza oven had the option for cooking with wood, the Pi Prime is gas-only. This update provides much more control over temperature and the live flame. After the oven preheats, I like to turn the dial down to medium, which reduces the height of the flame for more control.
The pizza oven has a wide enough opening to easily fit a 12-inch pizza. Once I slid my prepped pizza off the pizza peel, I allowed the base of the crust to set for about 30 seconds before turning. The heat from the stone cooks the base of the pie in no time, while the ambient heat from the flame helps the crust to rise and the toppings to cook. Keeping a consistent eye on the pizza while it’s in the oven and turning frequently is crucial to cooking a crust with even browning. Once the pizza is cooked, all that’s left to do is retrieve it with the pizza peel, allow it to rest for a few minutes, slice it up with a pizza cutter or rocker and dig in!
I found that my pizzas cooked within 90 seconds to two minutes each, depending on the toppings and cheese choice. The crust around each pizza was fluffy with just a touch of char. And while I always choose to use homemade dough and my favorite pizza toppings, you can also choose to order pizzas online to cook in this oven. Just be sure to defrost your pies before placing them on the hot pizza stone!
Solo Stove Pi Prime Product Features
Solo Stove is known for its clever smokeless backyard fire pits, which utilize a signature design to promote airflow. (One of our editors is smitten with the Solo Stove Bonfire.) The same technology is apparent in their pizza ovens; the circular dome design of this pizza oven allows the heat produced by the gas flame to radiate within the oven, creating an ambient temperature of 800 to 900 degrees.
The stainless steel construction provides great heat retention, while still being durable and long-lasting under Solo Stove’s lifetime warranty. The front dial is easy to turn and control, and its placement makes it much more convenient to turn the pizza oven on and adjust temperatures as necessary.
Pros
- Budget-friendly price point
- Simple to set up
- Front temperature dial for easy adjustments
- Cooks pizza in 90 seconds to two minutes
- Sleek stainless steel design
Cons
- Can only accommodate 12-inch pizzas
- Accessories sold separately
Product Comparison
The Solo Stove Pi Prime is the second gas pizza oven in the Solo Stove line-up. I have thoroughly tested the Solo Stove Pi pizza oven for over a year and a half and love using it. However, the Pi Prime offers some significant improvements.
While the original Solo Stove pizza oven had a detachable gas burner, the Pi Prime has a built-in single gas burner in the bottom of the oven, making set up much simpler. The location of the front dial is easier to turn on and control, rather than reaching toward the back of the original oven. The two pizzas ovens are very similar in size, but the new Pi Prime is slightly more compact, making it more portable and offering a much more stylish, modern look. The base construction also helps prevent heat transfer, making it easier to set on a variety of surfaces.
Another major difference is the price point. The new Pi Prime retails for $349, whereas the original Solo Stove Pi pizza oven retails for $399 for wood only or $499 for the option to use wood and gas. While you can score great deals through pizza oven sales, especially with deals on Amazon, the Pi Prime’s price point makes it possible to order a well-constructed oven anytime without needing to wait for a discount.
Final Verdict
Solo Stove’s new Pi Prime pizza oven is making it much more approachable for people to enjoy cooking homemade pizzas. With a price point of $349, it’s one of the most affordable pizza ovens on the market. And it comes from a line of high quality products from Solo Stove, along with the brand’s lifetime warranty. The pizza oven is easy to set up, fun to use and has an improved design from the original Solo Stove pizza oven. For those looking to make pizza night a regular occurrence at home, this is definitely worth the investment.
Where to Buy the Solo Stove Pi Prime Pizza Oven
Ready to whip up pizzas at home? Purchase the Solo Stove Pi Prime on Solo Stove’s website for $349.
