Halo Versa 16 Propane Gas Outdoor Pizza Oven with Rotating Cooking Stone | Portable Appliance for all Outdoor Kitchens

Halo 16 vs. Ooni Koda 12 – OUTSTANDING Customer Support!
I’ve been using the Ooni Koda 12 for the past year and 4 months and it has made some excellent pizzas. We’re a big family so I make 8 pizzas each session and we do this, on average, about twice per week. Do the math and that is a LOT of pizzas I’ve made with the Ooni. The following reasons are why I went looking for an alternative to my Ooni pizza oven and decided to try out this Halo 16 oven:Ooni Dislikes1) The stone does not hold its heat well enough after the second pizza. This requires blocking off the opening of the oven using a metal peel with holes in it to help force some of the ambient heat into the stone. This requires at least 1 minute extra between pizzas just to not have an undercooked bottom.2) The heat is not very evenly distributed throughout the cooking chamber. Obviously, the hottest points are at the back of the oven near the burner and at the ceiling. I cook each pizza using this method: Place pizza in the oven and let it cook for 45 seconds, use the peel to pull it out, rotate it 180 degrees then back in for another 45 seconds, then remove and turn 90 degrees for another 20 seconds then remove and rotate 180 degrees for the final 20 seconds. This results in a fairly evenly cooked pizza but there is always one half of the pizza that is puffy but a little overcooked and the rest of the pizza is flatter and very slightly undercooked.3) Semolina mess all over the floor due to the launch/remove/rotate/repeat of each pizza.4) The range of adjustment of the gas dial is very little and there are no detents that help you to set the dial to the same place each time you use it. I basically go off of the flame height and sound to get it roundabout where I want it each time I fire it up.I bought the Halo 16 solely for its second burner that is beneath the stone and the rotating pizza stone. Last night, I cooked my standard 8 pizzas in the new Halo 16 and they all turned out spectacularly! I slid the pizza onto the rotating stone and let it bake for 3 minutes and 30 seconds with the gas dial set to the Medium position’s detent. The finished consistency of the first pizza to the last was exactly the same. This made the best baked crust I’ve ever had. No issues at all with burning the bottom. I had no problem launching the pizza or removing it while leaving the turntable running. The fact that I did not have to pull and turn each pizza during the cooking process meant there was literally ZERO mess to clean up afterwards. My whole family agrees that this was a great improvement over the pizzas we’ve been making with the Ooni.I want to be clear that while I am picking on the issues I see with the Ooni, I’m not bashing it either. The Ooni is a great oven that has made many, many delicious pizzas for me and my family. It certainly turns out a better pizza than we ever could get from the oven. That being said, the Halo is just full of the right improvements to make the process easier, more consistent, and less messy. The build quality is right up there with the Ooni; it feels and looks like a high quality product that will last for years.For someone interested in buying their first gas pizza oven, I would easily recommend this Halo over the Ooni as there is hardly any learning curve to it. If you can launch a pizza with a peel (easy enough to get good at) and can operate a timer, you’re well on your way to making pizzas that rival the best you can buy at a fancy pizza joint.Update 01 January 2024:I contacted customer support for a motor issue (not really an issue – more on that in a moment). If you have any issues or concerns requiring customer support, use their online chat tool to get a case started. This is the fastest way to get help and I was immediately in touch with a very kind man based out of Kentucky (Halo’s HQ). I had contacted Halo, thinking my new oven’s motor had an issue as it would only work with the AC adapter and not on batteries. The person I worked with was very helpful to rush out a new motor to me. He even followed up several times to let me know the expected delivery date and to make sure I received it and everything worked. When I received the motor I went to install it and discovered that I had plugged in the power and switch connectors to the opposite receptacles on the motor that came with the oven. Sigh…. I have no idea how I missed that. The cables are labeled and I was paying attention to it (obviously not enough) when I put the oven together. Long story short, there was nothing wrong with my original motor, I was the problem. I replied to Halo Customer Support’s inquiry into how the new motor worked, explaining to them my embarrassing mistake. I asked them to let me pay for the new motor I got under warranty but they graciously refused and told me to keep it. They wanted me to know they were more interested in my satisfaction than the cost of the motor. When was the last time you had such excellent Warranty / Customer Service? Been a long time for me and what a breath of fresh air it is to interact with a company who truly cares about their customers.

Great unique pizza oven!
I don’t know what to say, other than this is a wonderful pizza oven! Gets plenty hot. The separate heating element for the rotating stone is awesome. The fact that the stone rotates is one of the unique features that makes this oven special. Then there’s the hood of the oven that opens for cleaning! Highly recommended!

There will be future issues with the switch.
We bought Halo 16″ because of the rotating stone. First use last night; heated up with turntable spinning so the stone would heat evenly. Shut off the spinning to load the pizza and we had to hold down the switch to keep the stone spinning. I flipped the oven over today to check the switch and noticed the casing was very loose. After tightening it the button clicked on and off again. This doesn’t bode well as I am reading a lot of issues with the switch. UPDATE: Made pita in the oven last night. 2 mins on the turntable and perfectly pillowey pita!

Cumplió ampliamente mis expectativas, calienta bien y las pizzas tardan entre 5 a 7 minutos en estar listas. Funciona bien con el gas comercial de México y con el regulador que viene incluido. Si lo vas a comprar, pide también una manguera más larga, la que viene no mide ni un metro.

Highly recommend this pizza ovenThe spinning stone is a winner as you don’t have to turn the pizza as it won’t burn.Corn meal is best to slide pizza on stone or a mesh pan than can stay or be removed once it starts cooking .A little pricier but worth it !!

I have it set up and everything works. Unfortunately I had to go away and haven’t had a chance to try it.