Who doesn’t love a good pizza? What if you could get that same great pizzeria taste right in your own backyard? Thankfully, cooking great tasting pizza at home has gotten incredibly easy thanks to the best pizza ovens. And the Solo Stove Pi Prime is one of them.
If you’ve heard the name Solo Stove before, it’s probably because they also make great fire pits that have been popular lately. The Pi Prime takes inspiration from their fire pit oven to deliver a standalone, gas-powered pizza oven that stands among the best.
I tested the Pi Prime in my backyard for about three weeks where I made a wide range of pizzas. We used my wife’s homemade dough and used several different toppings including cheese, pepperoni, ground beef, basil, and mozzarella.
Jason has been reviewing tech gadgets and products for over 10 years and is an avid eater. His wife loves to cook and has pretty high standards when it comes to food.
They tested this pizza oven out for a bit over four weeks in their home with their two young kids and German Shepherd doggie.
Solo Stove Pi Prime: First Impressions
When the Pi Prime first arrived, it actually looked pretty big. I was a bit nervous I wouldn’t have anywhere to fit it on my back patio, but I was impressed that it was smaller than I thought. It’s fairly compact and won’t take up much space at all on your back porch. It’s actually compact enough that Solo Stove says you can travel with it. While it’s not as small and portable as something like the Ooni Fyra, you certainly could relocate it to a friend’s house for a pizza night if you wanted.
There was a fair amount of Styrofoam in the box, which was a bit disappointing and there was a lot of plastic covering everything as well. It’s not the end of the world, but I’ve received other pizza ovens with far more eco-friendly packaging so it was a bit disappointing.
Once it’s out of the box, much like the Cuisinart Pizza Oven, there’s very little setup involved. You simply place it where you want it to live, set in the pizza stones, connect your propane tank, and you’re ready to go.
Interestingly, unlike most other pizza ovens I’ve reviewed, the Pi Prime is completely round. The cylindrical shape certainly helps it stand out and the stainless-steel color gives it a clean, polished look. It won’t look out of place in almost any backyard.
Solo Stove Pi Prime: Price & availability
The Solo Stove Pi Prime is priced right alongside one of our other favorite pizza ovens, the Ooni Fyra, at $350. Also like the Fyra, Solo Stove offers both a Starter and Essential bundle for $469 and $499 respectively. I’d highly recommend picking up one of them if you’re new to cooking pizza as there are some things you’ll need – like a peel and temperature gauge - in addition to the oven itself. Personally, I’d recommend the Essential bundle as it includes a higher quality turning peel and a pizza rocker (which is a game changer for cutting pizza) for only $30 more.
You can find the stove itself on Amazon, Ace Hardware, Best Buy, Home Depot, Walmart and others while the Pi Prime bundles are only offered directly from Solo Stove.
There is also a dual fuel version of the Pi which you can get with either just wood or with the option of both wood and gas. It should start shipping at the end of May and it’s priced at $389 for the wood and $489 for wood and gas. Aside from the fuel flexibility, it’s the same oven.
Score: 5 out of 5
Solo Stove Pi Prime: Design
The design of the Pi Prime is both unique and unassuming at the same time. As I mentioned, it’s (ironically) the only completely round pizza oven I’ve tested which gives it a unique look, but the stainless-steel color and compact design mean it doesn’t stand out or look obtrusive in any way. It’s also unique in that it’s the only oven I tested with two pizza stones instead of just one. They’re also a bit oddly shaped, but hey, it works!
The entire oven is self-contained, meaning there are no additional controls or pieces to assemble (aside from the stones) and the single knob on the front both lights the oven and controls the temperature. This also means that the oven is portable. At just over 30 pounds, it’s not necessarily lightweight, but it’s easy enough to transport to a friend or neighbor’s house if you want – which could make for fun birthday parties. If you’re really adventurous, you could even take it camping.
Really the only thing missing here is a temperature gauge. There only way to tell the temperature is with an external thermometer, which, of course, they are happy to sell you for $34.99. The Ooni Fyra has the same flaw, but it’s bit odd here because it looks like there’s plenty of room for them to add one. Of course, I’m not an engineer so I’m no expert, but the Gozney Arc has one built into the base so I don’t see why they couldn’t have included one there. The markings on the knob are colored where Solo Stove says the temperature should be about 750°F, but it’s a good idea to have a thermometer as well.
The big, panoramic window on the front makes it easy for managing the pizzas in and out of the oven and aside from wiping down the stones occasionally (and washing the peel), there’s no maintenance required. Plus, the Pi Prime comes with a lifetime warranty, so you’ll be able to make great pizza for years to come.
Score: 4.5 out of 5
Solo Stove Pi Prime: Key specs
| Model name: | Pi Prime |
| Dimensions: | 20.5 in. diameter x 15.5 in. H |
| Pizza size: | 13" recommended |
| Weight: | 30 lbs. |
| Cooking temperature: | Up to 950℉ |
| Included accessories: | Propane connection hose, cover |
| Power | Propane/natural gas |
Solo Stove Pi Prime: Performance
By far, my favorite thing about the Pi Prime is how quickly it preheats. From the moment it’s lit, you can be ready to cook pizza in as little as 15 minutes. That’s incredible compared to up to an hour of preheat time I’ve experienced with other pizza ovens. In fact, it’s the shortest preheat time of any oven I’ve tested. And because it only takes about 90 seconds to actually cook the pizza once it’s in the oven, you can be ready to eat in less than 20 minutes (excluding prep time, of course). That’s a game changer for busy households like mine.
But that short preheat time doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice quality, quite the opposite. Every pizza we cooked in the Pi Prime was wonderful. We stuck to mostly thin crust pizza and they came out great. The crust was nice and crispy on the bottom while light and fluffy on the sides. We tried a variety of toppings including basil, tomatoes, ground beef, mozzarella, jalapenos, and salami and every time we had hot, fresh, delicious pizza in about 90 seconds.
First, we went with a classic cheese pizza because it’s hard to beat a classic – also that happens to be the favorite of a certain picky toddler. The cheese melted beautifully with a nice solid crust on the bottom and an airy crust on the side. Next, we threw on some pepperoni and again, were quite impressed with the results. Each pepperoni had that nice crispy edge that was extremely satisfying.
We even put some home-grown tomatoes and basil to class things up a bit and, no surprise, it was delicious. The tomatoes weren’t over cooked and the basil had a nice, oven-roasted flavor.
The oven is not as big as some others, so it might be a bit harder to cook anything other than pizza, but you technically could. Unlike some other pizza ovens I’ve tested, Solo Stove doesn’t have any specific recommendations or recipes (not even pizza recipes) for what to cook, but based on my experience with other pizza ovens, any sort of flatbread or even things you could fit in a skillet (like a steak) you could conceivably cook just fine in the Pi Prime.
I will say that while the results were always great, this stove required a bit more work than some others I’ve used. As I mentioned above, since there’s no built-in temperature gauge, the trickiest part was finding and maintaining the right temperature. We had to manually check with the thermometer between every pizza to make sure the stone was the right temperature. This may not be a deal breaker for you, but it does mean you’ll need to buy a thermometer if you don’t already have one, which will up the cost a bit.
Pizza, flatbreads, and things that need a little crisping up are perfect for Pi. Be sure to keep your recipes low-moisture and low-fat to protect your pizza stone from absorbing unfriendly flavors.
Score: 5 out of 5
Solo Stove Pi Prime: user reviews
Solo Stove is one of the biggest names in back yard fire pits and pizza ovens, so there’s no shortage of people out there who’ve been experiencing the Pi Prime for a few years. I looked into what some other folks had to say about it and found their experiences to be mostly positive.
Nearly all the customer reviews I found were positive with a 4.5 rating on Amazon and a 4.9 rating on Solo Stove’s website (out of 59 and 382 reviews respectively). The few negative comments I found on Dick’s Sporting Goods, Amazon, and Solo Stove were essentially about three things:
- The dough sticking to the stone
- Burning the pizza
- Lack of a peel included
The first two were mostly due to user error, at least from the context of the reviews. Sticky dough is usually because it’s too wet, so it wasn’t made properly in the first place, and the burning was often because they didn’t turn the pizza or didn’t realize the oven cooks hotter in the back than towards the front. Yes, I’d agree Solo Stove should maybe make a tad more of an effort to educate people on this, but if you’ve never cooked pizza before, a quick Google search can save you a lot of headache on your first outing.
I do agree that the peel should be included, even if the price of the oven were a few dollars more. This oven is very much targeted towards first-time pizza oven owners, so it’s natural to assume they would not already own one, and it’s virtually impossible to cook a pizza in the Pi Prime without one (without charring your fingers off, of course). Solo Stove only charges $30 for them anyway, so it would be very easy to include one.
Should you buy the Solo Stove Pi Prime?
| Attribute | Notes | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Price & availability | The low price and Solo Stove name make it a pretty compelling product. | ★★★★★ |
| Design | The circular, stainless steel design looks great, but the lack of temperature gauge makes it more challenging to use than others. | ★★★★ |
| Performance | The quick preheat time and even cooking environment makes for great tasting pizza that's ready fast. | ★★★★★ |
But it if...
Don't buy it if...
How does the Solo Stove Pi Prime compare?
The Pi Prime pizza oven from Solo Stove is a solid entry-level pizza oven from a well-known outdoor appliance maker – there’s a reason why we have rated it our #1 in our pizza oven shortlist. However, the lack of a built-in temperature gauge might push you towards something like the Gozney Arc and if you want something wood-fired, you’ll either need to dual-fuel Prime oven or for the same price you can grab the well-reviewed Ooni Fyra.
For a literal plug-and-play pizza oven, there’s the Cuisinart Indoor Pizza Oven and the Ooni Volt, both are electric instead of wood or gas.
How I tested the Solo Stove Pi Prime pizza oven
I used this pizza oven in my own backyard for about three weeks. We did our weekly pizza night for three weeks in a row with the Pi Prime and in that time I cooked at least a dozen pizzas in it, most with a variety of toppings.
We cooked Neapolitan and thin-crust style pizza using homemade pizza dough and sauce with toppings such as: cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, salami, basil, and tomatoes.
Aside from the included cover, Solo Stove also sent us their infrared thermometer, turning peel, Bamboo Peel, silicone mat, and pizza cutter. All pizzas were cooked using these accessories.
Learn more about how we test.
First reviewed April 2024
