Anyone regret the size of their oven?

[RandallSG]

I am considering the Casa110, Premio110 or the Premio120? Has anyone built a larger oven and wished they had built a smaller? Or built a smaller oven and wished they had built larger?

I am inclined to go with the Premio120... I have many acres of property so room is not a concern. Other than additional time to fire (I have lots of wood) I don't see many downsides.

Opinions appreciated.

[Wickolad]

Hi RandallSG, I would be inclined to agree. If space, wood and extra time on warm up are not an issue, then why not - Go for it. The extra cooking area available adds more flexibility in my opinion.

Best wishes and Happy cooking,
Lance.

[SableSprings]

Welcome to the forum Randall SG! The real questions you need to ask yourself are "Will I be baking & roasting...or just doing pizza?" and ""What will be my normal quantities?" I built a 39" ID dome & bake 15-20 loaves of bread most every Friday for my neighbors & friends with occasional meat & veggie roasting dinner parties for 4-6 people. David S (one of our forum cast oven experts), has a 21" diameter oven that he's used effectively to feed a lot of people. Also you do want to consider the width of sheet pans or other cooking utensils that you might be using...I use full sheet pans for biscotti & I need my full oven depth to accommodate that pan. I hope that gives you a few things to ponder while considering the oven size you want.

[RandallSG]

Lance / Mike,

Thanks you both for your responses.

I do realize that you could do a lot with a smaller oven, but at the same time unless there are real downsides to a larger oven I don't think I will regret building one. If you didn't gather from my original post, I was already leaning towards a larger oven (Premio 120), as very seldom have I purchased larger and wished it was smaller... the possible exception being my full sized pickup truck when trying to find a parking spot in a parking garage, but trucks do come in handy when doing projects like these.

I am certainly not a pizza purist... I want to be able to use the oven to cook a lot of other things. It will join my offset smoker which holds several briskets, 6-8 chickens and a dozen links of sausage for those times when 2-3 dozen folks show up for dinner and you want to send them home with leftovers.

Again, thanks for the input

[david s]

Size of course is personal preference, however because of the mathematics of volume, a small increase in diameter results in a massive increase in volume. The five drawbacks of bigger are increased volume of required materials, increased weight, increased labour required, increased fuel consumption and increased cost. These factors also go up by the cube of the radius.

[UtahBeehiver]

If I were to build another oven it would be smaller. I built a 42", while great for large parties, it is not very practical for just two of us to fire up for a quick pizza even with extended cooking.

[fox]

I am a fan of 32” ovens, I have found that to be the perfect size for the average family.
I have built smaller and larger but 32” offers a large enough door opening, is small enough not to use up too much fuel but, have enough mass to work efficiently.
As Dave points out a couple of extra inches makes a big difference!

[JRPizza]

Ours is 39" and we usually take advantage of the size to have multiple pans in the oven at the same time. I also make my pizza's as big as my peel allows and with the fire on the side I have plenty of room to move the pie around without hitting the coals or the side.