Maximus Wood Fired Pizza Oven Review

  • Maximus Wood Fired Pizza Oven

    Description from the vendor:

    The outer wall is aluminum, the inner wall is stainless steel. In between the double walls and underneath the floor tiles is an insulating ceramic blanket. The design allows for much quicker heat up times: approx 20 min. as opposed to approx 1 hour for brick ovens. Of course this also means that the oven will not hold the heat for as long as refractory brick wood fired ovens. Maximus features an innovative stainless steel baffle inside which makes the hot fire smoke travel back and forth inside the oven thereby extracting more heat from the hot smoke and ensuring cleaner air emmissions. This is the system employed in most modern EPA heating wood stoves, made for higher heat efficiency and reduced air pollution.
    The stainless steel chimney is removable for easy transporting.
    The oven floor is made of (removable) refractory tiles, and the front of the oven is in decor bricks refractory cement (Lafarge).

    My experience and opinion:
    I've had the pleasure of using a Maximus Wood Fired Pizza Oven for approximately a year. In that time I've used it somewhere between 30 to 50 times to make a variety of food.
    I've been able to make some fantastic pizzas and have also used it for a few roasts and some focaccias. I'll share some of my cooks in subsequent posts in this thread. Maximus is an absolute marvel for pizza and it is amazingly adept at Neapolitan style 400c pizzas cooked in 90 seconds. At high temps and with the Neapolitan style of dough the results are simply amazing for such an economic and small oven.
    Making focaccias and roasts takes a little more management, but is equally satisfying. I've found that the top of these cooks faster than the bottom, but with a few flips and turns the outcome is still excellent. The main limitation for roasts is that you can really only fit one food tray in, this is generally fine if you're cooking a roast for up to 4 people, but it would be difficult to practically feed larger numbers. Having said that, the flavour imparted by the wood fire is amazing. To date, the best roast potatoes I've ever cooked have been in the Maximus.


    The good:
    It shines at making pizza and it does a particularly brilliant job with fast pizza where many other wood fired ovens fail.
    Cooked at around 400c pizzas are ready in 60 to 90 seconds and cook evenly top and bottom. This is a rare and major feat, particularly for such a small oven.
    You'll only ever fit one pizza in at a time, but it will cook so fast that you'll barely be able to keep up.
    Roasts develop a great flavour thanks to the wood fire. Roast potatoes are amazing!

    Managing the fire in a Maximus is straight forward. For extended cooks you can keep adding wood as you go and I've found temp management to be easy. Like all wood fired cookers, it generates a large amount of smoke until the fire is going. Thereafter you'll hardly detect any smoke at all.

    Maximus weighs around 50Kg (including firebricks). When mounted onto a wheeled trolley it can easily be wheeled and moved around the deck. The light weight also allows usage of this oven in spaces that would normally not be suitable for a WFO, such as a wooden deck. I've seen videos of the "Pizza Party" WFO (which is a very similar unit that is not available in Australia) being used on an apartment's balcony. With careful and judicious management I think Maximus would be fine to use on a balcony also, but the specifics of strata, friendliness of neighbours and wind patters of each apartment unit differ, so proceed with caution.


    The not so good:
    My Maximus developed a couple of hairline cracks after the first cook. They are still exactly the same now, more than one year later, so I don't deem this to be a big issue as it doesn't affect the cooking in any way and they are also not very visible.

    The unit is sold as portable and the fire bricks can be removed. However There is a good chance that they will break in handling when you do this, so I would not recommend it.
    I recently needed to move house and had to do this. 2 fire bricks broke. Fortunately the seller (http://www.my-woodfiredoven.com.au/maximus-ovens) is fantastic. They kindly sent out two replacement fire bricks for me and I was back in action.


    Verdict:
    I love the Maximus Pizza oven. It has served me well for over a year and shows no signs of stopping. I've been able to recreate real Italian style pizza at home and cooked a few roasts and focaccia's along the way that were also excellent.
    In comparison to other WFOs Maximus is small. However this is also the very reason I bought it as I would not have been able to fit a larger or heavier unit in my cooking area.
    The small size of Maximus does not impact it's temperature range and the oven easily reaches 400c and above, making it ideal for anyone that has space or weight restrictions in their outdoor cooking area, but that would still like to produce 90 second pizzas.
    The baffle at the top of the oven directs heat in all the right ways for pizza and the results are better than what is achievable in many high dome brick WFOs.


    Masterbuilt Gravity 800 | Maximus Pizza Oven | GMG - Daniel Boone | Cyprus Grill | Big Steel Keg | Blackstone Griddle | Fire Pit | Weber Genesis |

  • A pizza oven was a tool I was missing in my Outdoor cooking arsenal. The size and weight (and logistics) of most units ruled them out for me. Then I found the Maximus almost by accident as I was searching around for BBQ bargains. I did some research and finally pulled the trigger. The seller (my woodfiredoven dot com dot au) were a pleasure to deal with and very helpful from start to finish. I ordered the oven on Sunday, and received it a few days later. This is the box:
    I rushed home from work early so that I can cure it and be ready for the weekend.
    Started unboxing just after 5pm and had the fire going less than one and a half hours later, inclusive of building the trolley that it came with.

    Without further delay, here's Max in the nude!


    These are Max's legs:


    Helpful instructions:


    Ooooh the thermometer is made in Italy!!! Qualitay!


    Maximus getting warmed up:


    ______________________________

  • ince last Wednesday when I received Max, the sense of urgency to make pizza has been growing. With Saturday pizza not being possible due to other commitments, I thought friday night after work WFO pizzas would be my best option.

    When looking at my attempts below, please keep in mind that not only is Max a new experience for me, but I've never cooked in a WFO before this and making these kind of pizzas is a distant memory for me. I made mistakes all the way through the process, but the best part of this hobby is that you get to eat your mistakes so here goes:

    Started preparing the dough on Friday morning at almost 6am with the view of a friday dinner pizza meal. The result were 7 pizza blobs:

    Got sent an MMS update at around 2.20pm (I forgot to take a pic of the dough when I was preparing the pizzas):

    The first pizza goes into the oven. It had to be a Margherita as I wouldn't have had it any other way:

    The finished product took only a few minutes. I didn't have the timer on, but it felt like around 3 minutes:

    The second pizza, a simple rosemary/evoo/salt combo:

    Third pizza, tomato sauce/chorizo/evoo:


    Fourth pizza, blood sausage/rosemary/evoo:

  • A few more pizzas from my early days of using the Maximus Wood Fired Pizza Oven.

    Crunchy Broccoli, ham and mushroom pizza:


    Margherita:

    That's me taking it out of the oven with the "palettino":


    I'm beginning to get the hang of the dough:

    and how to handle it:

    The first pizza goes in (spanish salami, cabanossi and bocconcini):

    and WOAH!!! Less than 90 seconds later:

    Second pizza, prosciutto and bocconcini:

    The grown up's favourite of the night, goat's cheese, bocconcini, rosemary:


    Lastly, the potato and leftovers pizza (thinly sliced potato, a few mushrooms, a few onions, rosemary, bocconcini):

  • Roasted pork skewers and potatoes. I was impatient and did not wait long enough for the heat to come down, so the pork got cooked too quickly:

    The potatoes could have used an extra 10 minutes, but they cooked in the pork drippings so no complaining about the taste:

    A Chicken dish:

    A few more pizzas:

  • All I can add is that I have one of these too. Narm has covered it all. :D

    I did pizza in the Weber Q the other night, just 'cos i felt lazy and while i love my Q, there's no comparison to what I get from my Maximus.

    Big Green Egg - Asmoke Pellet Grill - Weber Kettle - Maximus Pizza Oven - Dragon Hibachi - Ziggy Portable - baby kamado - Grillz 2 burner - Cobb BBQ - Converted Gas Bottle Spit - Charbroil Grill2go - Anova sous vide - Digi Q controller - plus Tip Top Temp - Smokeware cap - Grill Grates

  • Nice post.
    A pizza oven is something I want to add to the collection but want a home of my own before investing in one. The maximus seems like a great entry level one that's small enough to move between houses though.

    What's best Bob, is that it heats up and is ready in no time. The Maximus will hold heat well too, with just a small fire keeping it at 200c if you are doing a roast or sour dough bread, which we do after the pizzas.

    I have a mate who built his own outdoor pizza oven with all the right stuff and while it retains heat for up to 24 hours, it take 4 hours to get it ready to go. The result is that he doesn't use it much.

    Big Green Egg - Asmoke Pellet Grill - Weber Kettle - Maximus Pizza Oven - Dragon Hibachi - Ziggy Portable - baby kamado - Grillz 2 burner - Cobb BBQ - Converted Gas Bottle Spit - Charbroil Grill2go - Anova sous vide - Digi Q controller - plus Tip Top Temp - Smokeware cap - Grill Grates

  • I have a mate who built his own outdoor pizza oven with all the right stuff and while it retains heat for up to 24 hours, it take 4 hours to get it ready to go.

    Yeah good point! When I cook Pizza, I usually settle on 1Kg of flour and end up with 6 pizza. I can start the fire at 6pm and be finished by 7.15pm with the Maximus.

    The maximus seems like a great entry level one that's small enough to move between houses though.

    Yes it would be easy to move for 2 blokes without taking the fire bricks out. I had to do it on my own, which is why I ended with 2 broken bricks.

    Also the trolley is very flimsy out of the box. I added a few more supports and now am comfortable rolling it around. Before I was a bit hesitant as it would bend a bit too much. Fortunately the trolley is optional, so if you have a good surface you don't need one at all.

  • Also the trolley is very flimsy out of the box. I added a few more supports and now am comfortable rolling it around. Before I was a bit hesitant as it would bend a bit too much. Fortunately the trolley is optional, so if you have a good surface you don't need one at all.

    Mine just sits on a table until I get around to making a stand for it. It's no big deal unless you need to move it around, then the trolley is handy.

    Big Green Egg - Asmoke Pellet Grill - Weber Kettle - Maximus Pizza Oven - Dragon Hibachi - Ziggy Portable - baby kamado - Grillz 2 burner - Cobb BBQ - Converted Gas Bottle Spit - Charbroil Grill2go - Anova sous vide - Digi Q controller - plus Tip Top Temp - Smokeware cap - Grill Grates

  • Very good question. There are a number of significant differences:

    Flavour: I love charcoal cooked meat, but there's no doubt that cooking with wood imparts a different flavour. Which one you prefer is subjective. I prefer wood in most instances, but good charcoal is a close second for me.

    Pizza options: A Kamado will be able to cook a 5-10 minute pizza reasonably well, at least as well as an oven. It will struggle to cook top and bottom of a pizza equally quickly without some major fiddling around (if at all) if you want to cook pizza more quickly (and quicker pizzas have a different texture, thickness and flavour).
    The Maximus provides the ability to cook pizza both fast or slow. Most of the pizzas in the pics above were cooked between 60 to 120 seconds. Good luck trying that in a Kamado (I've tried). If you do achieve one pizza at those speeds, you then open the lid and the next pizza will suffer. The Maximus can keep going on and on.

    Practicality: Cooking pizza in a Kamado requires opening and closing a heavy lid, management of pizza stones, etc. It just isn't very practical when you want to cook more than a couple of pizzas.

    As a meat cooking device the Kamado is far superior (as are kettles, pellet BBQs, offsets, etc.), but when it comes to pizza in my mind there's no competition. The Maximus is vastly superior to a Kamado.

  • but when it comes to pizza in my mind there's no competition. The Maximus is vastly superior to a Kamado.

    I'll back that 110% and i love my kamado but it just isn't an ideal pizza oven. In fact, no oven or bit of cooking equipment does it all perfectly. Which is my excuse for having 8 BBQs ! =O:D

    It's the heat from above which sets a good pizza oven apart from others and the Max does it beautifully. It can roast too and we bake bread when it has cooled down a bit after the pizzas. I've done a nice chook in it but the kamado is better and easier.

    Big Green Egg - Asmoke Pellet Grill - Weber Kettle - Maximus Pizza Oven - Dragon Hibachi - Ziggy Portable - baby kamado - Grillz 2 burner - Cobb BBQ - Converted Gas Bottle Spit - Charbroil Grill2go - Anova sous vide - Digi Q controller - plus Tip Top Temp - Smokeware cap - Grill Grates

  • ok looks like after my stick burner offset next year I have to find a way to convince the Miss's how important good pizza oven is :/ might start a new thread to get advice on that lol :S:S:S:S

    ProQ Excel Elite2o<---> Weber Kettle<---> AKORN KAMADO<--->  WEBER GO ANYWHERE

  • after my stick burner offset next year I have to find a way to convince the Miss's how important good pizza oven is

    Take her out to the best pizza joint in the vicinity and spend big! She'll then see that a pizza oven is an investment and a cost saving. :D

  • Good luck trying that in a Kamado (I've tried). If you do achieve one pizza at those speeds, you then open the lid and the next pizza will suffer. The Maximus can keep going on and on.

    Yep, I've even tried it in the ole Tri-Fire. First Pizza came out good... second pizza got finished in the oven :whistling:


    I'll give it another go one day though... Unless I get a pizza oven :P

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