5 Small Upgrades That Can Improve Your Pizza Game

One of the great things about owning a pizza oven is the constant improvement to your pizza game that comes from both practice, confidence and adding the odd upgrade to your set-up. That said, you don’t need to reinvent your whole set-up to make noticeably better pizza. Most of the biggest improvements come down to small tweaks rather than expensive new kit. So, in our latest blog, we’ve pulled together five upgrades that genuinely move the needle, whether you’ve had your pizza oven for years or you’re just getting started on your pizza journey.

Get a Digital Scale

If there’s one upgrade that quietly fixes more dough problems than anything else, it’s this. Measuring flour by cups (or by winging it!) is wildly inconsistent; depending on how packed it is, you could be off by as much as 50%. A digital scale means your dough turns out the same every single time. It also opens the door to baker’s percentages, which sounds fancy but really just means you can scale any recipe up or down without doing maths in your head!

Upgrade Your Peels

This is two small swaps really, but they solve quite different problems. First up is upgrading to a perforated launching peel. This lets excess flour and semolina fall through the holes instead of sitting on your oven floor, where it burns and can make everything smoke and taste bitter. 

Next up is a turning peel. These are small, round, and much easier to slide under a pizza mid-bake than a standard peel. They allow you to rotate your pizza easily, even in smaller portable pizza ovens. Rotating around the 20-30 second mark is what stops one side scorching while the other’s still pale.

Use an Infrared Thermometer

Guessing your oven temperature is one of the easiest ways to end up with an inconsistent bake. An infrared thermometer takes the guesswork out completely and, importantly, it lets you check the floor of the oven, not just the air temperature, which is what’s cooking the pizza from below. You’re aiming for somewhere around 350°C floor temperature and 400°C – 450°C ambient temperature. Once you know what that actually looks like on the thermometer, you’ll start hitting it consistently rather than by chance.

Cold Ferment Your Dough

This one costs nothing except a bit of planning. Instead of using your dough the same day, pop it in the fridge for around 16-24 hours before you cook with it. The slower fermentation does two things. One, it helps to develop flavour, and it helps the crust brown better once it hits the heat. It’s probably the easiest “upgrade” on this list because it doesn’t involve buying anything at all, just changing your dough-making method slightly.

Simplify Your Toppings

We know how tempting it is to pile everything on (especially when you’re starving!), but the best pizzas usually have two or three toppings, not seven or eight. Good quality tomatoes (San Marzano if you can get them), Fior di Latte mozzarella that’s been dried out a little so it doesn’t add extra moisture, and a couple of toppings that actually complement each other. Less really is more here because an overloaded pizza usually just means a soggy base thanks to too much moisture, and flavours that fight each other instead of working together.

Final Thoughts

None of these upgrades requires ripping up how you make pizza and starting again. A scale, the right peels, a thermometer, a bit of patience with your dough, and some restraint with toppings- that’s genuinely the long and short of it. Try one or two at a time rather than all five at once, and you’ll notice the difference pretty quickly. If you’re after any of the accessories mentioned above, take a look at our range by clicking here.

If you’d like to learn more about the range of pizza ovens we sell here at The Pizza Oven Shop, or have any questions you need answering, our friendly team is here to help. You can reach us via our social channels, give us a call on 01423 608648, or drop us an email at sales@thepizzaovenshop.com.