Unleash your culinary creativity with the Witt Etna Fermo pizza oven. Featuring a U-shaped main burner for rapid heat up, it claims to perfectly cook pizzas in just 90 seconds. A pretty impressive feat that had us intrigued, we decided to test this premium pizza oven to find out if it performs as well as it claims.
Witt had humble beginnings as a distributor for white goods in Denmark in 1993. Now with products being sold across the entire Nordic region, UK and Ireland, Witt has expanded its development in the pursuit of pizza ovens. Its latest venture is the Witt Etna Rotate (read our full review) and the classic Witt Etna Fermo Pizza Oven.
While Ooni and Gozney are more well-known in the UK, the Witt Etna Fermo is in the same price range and has received rave reviews from customers for its efficiency, high-quality build and delicious results. A worthy competitor to the big dogs, we tried out the WITT Etna Fermo for ourselves...
Witt Etna Fermo Pizza Oven overview
Amazon/WITTPros
- Sleek design
- Cooks pizzas very quickly
- Easy to set up
- Regulator included (in ours anyway!)
Cons
- Didn't come with crucial accessories
Testing the Witt Etna Fermo Pizza Oven
The first thing we hadn't expected about this pizza oven was its size. The box it arrived in was huge and very heavy. Once we'd unwrapped the Etna Fermo, we were impressed by the sleek design, it looks very smart in matte graphite. There are a range of colour options available, including black, stone and orange. But yes, it is quite a hefty piece of kit, so take that into consideration.
I read on the Witt Pizza website that the gas regulator and hose weren’t included, so we went out to buy one before we unboxed it, but there was actually one inside the box! So, it's worth double-checking this before your first use/before you go out to buy a separate regulator. No harm done as we just returned the additional regulator we'd purchased. Other than attaching the gas to the hose, you simply fold out the legs, and you’re good to go. We don't have a table that can fit the pizza oven, so we're just using it on the floor at the moment. The legs hold it off the ground so it's fine, but long-term we're going to buy a table.
Performance
The instructions provided were simple to follow. There’s just one knob, and it lights really easily – just like a gas BBQ. We had a little trouble getting the ignitor to spark, so we used a lighter instead, and that was fine. The gas lights in a U-shape around the pizza stone, and it gets hot quickly. We did a burn-off before cooking. Simply let it heat for 30 minutes before turning off and letting it cool down again. Then, it takes less than 15 minutes for the oven to be ready for pizza. There is no temperature gauge, so there’s a bit of guesswork involved.
Now this is not necessarily a fault of the pizza oven – more our pizza skills and lack of the right tools – but we had trouble getting homemade pizzas into the oven. They’d just end up a complete mess. If we did manage to get one in almost pizza-shaped, it would then come apart when we tried to rotate it or remove it from the oven. It may have been due to the low height; hopefully, once we have it on a table, it will be easier to use. Also we don’t own a metal pizza peel, just a wooden one. So perhaps after purchasing some additional tools, we’ll have more luck.
I was quite disappointed that it didn’t come with a pizza peel for the price. Witt Pizza have accessories available to purchase separately on their website, but I would have expected at least the cover to be included.
The pizzas we did manage to cook were ready-made (sturdier bases than our handmade ones). It was a shame we didn’t get to have the experience of cooking our own homemade pizzas, but the shop-bought ones did come out lovely. Cooking them on the stone gave them an extra flavour you don’t get in the oven, and they cooked so quickly. Witt claim 90 seconds, and they’re not joking; one of our pizzas almost ended up getting cremated because we didn’t keep a close enough eye on it.
Final verdict: Is the Witt Etna Fermo Pizza Oven worth it?
It is on the pricier side and a big investment when you also have to buy the gas, a table and the tools so you can safely cook pizza. The cover is another additional cost unless you have somewhere undercover to store it. Even then, you need someone to help you carry it as it’s quite heavy.
If you have an outdoor kitchen and around £800 to invest in a good gas-fired pizza oven, I would recommend it based on its sleek design and functionality. Had we been able to get our own bases to work, I have no doubt they'd have cooked quickly and tasted delicious. As mentioned above, we’re going to invest in a table, also a metal pizza peel, and we'll keep trying to perfect our pizza skills. Hopefully, we will be successfully getting our own pizzas in and out of the pizza oven soon.
FAQs: Witt Etna Fermo Pizza Oven
What kind of gas do I need?
F-gas, LPG, Bottled gas, liquefied gas, propane gas – different names, same product. LPG stands for Liquified Petroleum Gas, which covers a collective term for the hydrocarbons propane and butane. It's standard bottled gas used for both cooking and barbequing in general.
You can get LPG bottled gas at gas stations, hardware stores, campsites, etc.
How long does it take to cool down?
The cool-down time varies due to the ambient temperature. The Etna Pizza Oven is one of the most temperature-consistent pizza ovens on the market. With effective insulation, it takes approximately one and a half hour to cool down completely.
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Stephanie Spencer is the Deputy Digital Editor of Yours.co.uk and a contributor to ModernGardens.co.uk.