Wood-fired pizza carries a lot of romance. The physics is plainer: wood and gas ovens bake a pizza in much the same way, with a few differences that matter at home. This page compares the fuels from Modernist Pizza’s oven research and the makers’ manuals, without first-hand testing.
What actually heats the pizza
The pizza bakes from two directions. The hot floor conducts heat into the base, and the hot dome and walls radiate heat onto the top.
The flame does surprisingly little of that. Modernist Pizza’s authors measured it, and confirmed it with French scientists who study wildfires: a gas or wood flame is “optically thin” and gives off no significant radiation for baking. The pizza “sees” the hot ceiling and walls. In a gas oven, the authors compare the flame to a spotlight shining on the ceiling, heating it so that it bakes the pizza indirectly.
A wood fire adds one thing a gas flame doesn’t: the burning wood and embers themselves radiate a great deal of heat. That changes where the hot spots are:
- Gas. The floor right by the burner is the hottest place, and the pizza bakes most evenly there. The area near the door, the coolest part of the oven, varies most across a pizza.
- Wood. The area near the fire varies most; a Neapolitan pizzaiolo the authors consulted said a pizza placed near the wood fire tends to burn on one side. The heat also shifts as the wood burns down or you add more.
Hotter surfaces give off much more radiant energy, and the effect grows quickly with temperature. The fourth-power law behind that works in kelvin, though: for equal areas with the same emissivity, a surface at 400°C emits about 4.1 times as much thermal radiation as one at 200°C, not 16 times. That figure compares emission only. It doesn’t predict how fast a particular oven bakes.
Does wood flavor the pizza?
Not in a pizza oven that’s working properly. Modernist Pizza explains that while wood smoke can flavor food, it doesn’t flavor pizza baked in a wood-fired oven: the smoke rises to the top of the dome and exits through the vent. If you can taste the wood, the authors say, either the pizza maker’s technique or the oven’s cleanliness is at fault. (Some pizzaioli worry that smoke at the top of the dome can contaminate the pizza; the authors aren’t convinced.)
Their broader view is that for pizza “the fuel really doesn’t matter”, as long as it gives consistent heat. Any difference you notice between a wood-fired and a gas-fired pizza comes from how the heat is delivered, such as the embers’ extra radiant heat and the fire’s uneven pattern, not from smoke.
Wood: what it gives you and what it asks
What you get. The fire, the embers and their extra radiant heat, and a process many people enjoy for its own sake.
What it asks:
- Fire management. Modernist Pizza notes that no two wood fires are alike, so the oven’s temperature varies and takes considerable skill to control. Charcoal, it adds, has the same variability, with less soot.
- The right fuel, prepared properly. Makers specify what to burn. Gozney’s Dome Gen 2 manual asks for kiln-dried hardwood at 10 to 20% moisture, ideally 16%, and rules out softwoods such as pine, sappy wood and painted or stained wood. Ooni’s Karu 2 Pro manual calls for dry, untreated hardwood no more than 9 inches long and 3 inches across. See the best wood for pizza ovens.
- Waiting and cleaning up. Ooni says not to cook until charcoal has a coating of ash, and not to remove the ashes until the oven has cooled completely.
Our recipes reflect the extra variability. On a wood or charcoal fire, the oven guide covers Neapolitan-style and Roman tonda pizza. It doesn’t offer New York-style on wood, because that needs controlled, lower heat and we haven’t validated a wood-fired protocol for it.
Gas: what it gives you and what it asks
What you get. Modernist Pizza calls natural gas, propane and butane the cleanest-burning pizza-oven fuels, easily metered with valves and temperature controls. You turn a dial, the flame holds steady, and you turn it back up while the floor recovers. On gas, the oven guide covers Neapolitan-style, New York and Roman tonda pizza, including New York at a lower 700 to 750°F (375 to 400°C) on the floor.
What it asks:
- Turning. The hot zone by the burner is still there. Ooni’s guide for the gas Koda 16, for example, says to turn a Neapolitan-style pizza every 20 to 30 seconds.
- The right gas supply. Use the gas, regulator and hose specified for your oven and region.
- Shelter from wind. The gas-oven manuals we checked warn against strong wind, and say not to block the oven’s airflow or cover its mouth.
Side by side
| Wood or charcoal | Gas | |
|---|---|---|
| Heat control | Managing the fire; heat shifts as it burns | A dial; steady flame |
| What bakes the top | Hot dome and walls, plus embers | Hot dome and walls |
| Hottest area | Near the fire | Near the burner |
| Smoke flavor | None in a working oven, per Modernist Pizza | None |
| Styles our oven recipes cover | Neapolitan-style, Roman tonda | Neapolitan-style, New York, Roman tonda |
| Upkeep | Dry fuel storage, ash | Gas cylinder, burner checks |
Multi-fuel ovens: choose each time, never both at once
Several ovens let you pick the fuel for each session. Prices are each maker’s US listing for the oven alone, checked October 14, 2026:
- Ooni Karu 2 Pro, listed at $849: wood or charcoal in the supplied fuel tray, or gas with a separate Karu 2 Pro gas burner. Advertised for 16-inch pizzas.
- Ooni Karu 2, listed at $449: the smaller 12-inch version, formerly called the Karu 12G, also with a separate gas burner. Ooni says the Karu 2 can’t be used with solid fuel and gas at the same time.
- Gozney Dome Gen 2, listed at $2,299.99: a large hybrid oven for gas, wood or charcoal, advertised for 16-inch pizzas and weighing 62 kg (about 137 lb).
- Gozney Roccbox, listed at a sale price of $399.99, with $499.99 shown as the regular price: a gas oven for 12-inch pizzas. Gozney sells a detachable wood burner as an option, which has its own manual.
Older descriptions sometimes say the Gozney Dome can burn gas and wood together. It can’t: the manuals for both the original Dome and the Dome Gen 2 say never to use gas and wood simultaneously. The Gen 2 manual also says never to use the gas burner to light wood, and not to use a door while the gas burner is on.
Matching the fuel to the style
Modernist Pizza recommends gas-fired pizza ovens over wood-fired ones for Neapolitan pizza, and notes that a wood-fired oven takes considerable skill because no two fires are alike. For pan pizzas such as Detroit and deep-dish, the authors find the pans hard to move and rotate in a wood- or gas-fired pizza oven, and say a wood fire’s erratic temperatures can make deep-dish bake unevenly.
That matches what our Planner supports. Detroit and Sicilian-style are home-oven pan bakes, New York-style needs gas or a home oven, and Neapolitan-style and Roman tonda work on any fuel in a portable oven.
Which should you buy?
- Gas if you want the simplest route to Neapolitan-style pizza, steady heat, and New York-style in the same oven.
- Wood or charcoal if cooking over a live fire is part of the appeal and you’re willing to learn to manage it.
- Multi-fuel if you want both, accepting that the gas burner is often an extra purchase and that you use one fuel at a time.
- Your home oven with a steel if you mostly bake New York, Detroit or Sicilian-style pizza. See Ooni vs. Roccbox vs. home oven.
Sources
- Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, Modernist Pizza (2021), volume 1, printed pages 354–357 (flames are optically thin; how heat varies in gas and wood ovens; embers), 380–381 (notes on ovens by style: gas recommended for Neapolitan pizza; wood fires vary; pan pizzas in pizza ovens) and 388 (types of oven fuel; wood smoke and flavor).
- NASA Goddard, blackbody radiation (emitted flux proportional to the fourth power of absolute temperature); the 4.1-times figure is calculated from (673.15 / 473.15)⁴.
- Ooni: Karu 2 Pro US product page and Karu 2 Pro oven manual (fuels, wood size, charcoal and ash, price); Karu 2 product page and Karu 2 tools and fuel guide (no gas and solid fuel together); Koda 16 cooking guide (turning) and Koda 16 North America propane manual, Ooni’s PDF as hosted by WebstaurantStore, PDF page 4 (ventilation air, wind). Checked October 14, 2026.
- Gozney: Dome Gen 2 product page and Dome Gen 2 Series US/Canada manual, pages 8 and 51–52 (fuel safety, wood to use); original Dome US/Canada manual (never gas and wood together); Roccbox product page and Roccbox US/Canada manual (wind, never cover the mouth). Checked October 14, 2026.