If you’ve ever had the chance to cook over a live fire, you know it’s a lot of fun. There’s just something special about the experience of building a fire and watching (and smelling) your food cook over an open flame. The Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven is the only pizza oven we’ve tested that gives you a true campfire-cooking experience.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Breeo pizza oven is how big it is. This is certainly not a portable or compact pizza oven, but the industrial design also means it’s extremely durable. You won’t have to worry about the elements (or kids) causing any lasting damage. And if you are looking for something more compact or portable, our guide to the best pizza ovens has some great options.
I used this pizza oven on our back porch for about a month, across three different pizza nights where we cooked over a dozen pizzas with a variety of toppings. With the exception of one pizza night, (after a very long and tiring week for us) we used my wife’s homemade pizza dough.
Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven: Price & availability
Breeo is clearly targeting this towards their existing customers or to those looking for a whole outdoor cooking experience (they have an entire lineup of live-fire cooking accessories), but it’s still a hefty investment any way you look at it.
As of the time of writing, Breeo is only shipping within the US and Canada. I don’t know if they have plans to launch internationally, but with the size and weight of their products, I’m sure that is a huge logistical challenge to overcome. For now, you can buy it from Breeo and Home Depot. It comes in both Stainless Steel and a Corten Steel which is more of a rust color.
Pricing for the Live-Fire Pizza Oven is a bit tricky. By itself, it’s $850, but like we mentioned earlier, it literally only works with one of Breeo’s own fire pits, the X24, X30, or Luxeve; without one of those, it’s just a big piece of steel. I guess you technically could set it on top of another fire pit as long as it fits, but they specifically state it’s only compatible with those three.
So, that means you’ll need to buy a fire pit as well if you don’t have one. The X24 starts at $599 for the Corten Steel, the X30 starts at $1,199 (add $200 for each to get the Stainless Steel) while the Luxeve is a whopping $1,899. Now, as you can see from our Luxeve review, they are great fire pits, but just keep in mind the extra cost of getting a fire pit for your pizza oven.
Score: 3 out of 5
Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven: First impressions
To put into context the size and build quality of the Breeo Live Fire Pizza Oven, the whole thing literally showed up on a full pallet from FedEx. No joke, the delivery driver used a pallet jack to unload it off the truck and just dropped it in my garage. To be fair, I was sent the Luxeve fire pit along with the oven which is bigger than most of their other fire pits (review coming soon), but still the pizza oven alone took up more than half the space on the pallet.
The good news is that the entire thing came completely assembled. Literally the only thing I had to do once I got it out of the box was put the pizza stones in. The bad news is that getting it out of the box requires a bit of effort.
First of all, it’s quite heavy. At 61 lbs and over 27 inches in diameter, this is not something you’ll be able to move by yourself. In fact, there are handles on each side for the specific purpose of having two people to move it. I was physically able to get it out of the box by myself (only by literally cutting the box away from the oven) only because my wife was gone at the time, but you should absolutely have someone around to help you unbox it.
The other good thing about the unboxing was that there was hardly any plastic at all. In fact, the only plastic I could find was the bags for the pizza stones, but that’s it. Everything else was cardboard so kudos to Breeo for figuring out how to package and ship such a big product fairly sustainably.
Included with the oven was the Breeo Pizza Peel, which you’ll certainly need if you don’t have one. There’s also a ton of Breeo brochures and stuff included, but you’ll need to check their website for the user guide.
Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven: Design
If there’s one word that comes to mind about the design of the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven, it’s ‘quality’. The pizza oven – like all of Breeo’s products – is hand-made in the US, and the craftsmanship is incredible. Just by looking at the weld joints you can tell it’s handmade and built to last.
Aesthetically, it almost looks like a round, two story chimney. The front has two openings: the top shelf is for cooking the pizza while the bottom opening is for accessing the fire pit during cooking if you need to add more wood or spread some coals around. There are two handles on the side for carrying it, and the top has a much smaller chimney that you can also use to help control the temperature. By loosening the two screws, you can raise or lower the mini-chimney to increase or decrease airflow.
There’s also a small thermometer built into the side of the oven with the ‘pizza zone’ labeled clearly so you know precisely when it’s time to launch your pizza. There are two built-in clips on the bottom that hook onto the rim of the fire pit so it won’t slide around or, God-forbid, get knocked off while you’re cooking. It’s also quite heavy so it shouldn’t move around much while cooking, and you will certainly need help taking it on and off.
One of the more unique parts of the design is the thicker pizza stones. Every other pizza oven I’ve tested came with half-inch stones while the Breeo one comes with 7/8 inch stones. The thicker stones retain more heat so theoretically there’s less need to reheat the stones between cooking which I found to be mostly true.
Small note: if you get the Corten Steel color, it will come with a blueish tint to it that will turn into a nice rust-colored patina over time.
Score: 5 out of 5
Breeo Live Fire pizza oven: Key specs
Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven: Performance
Obviously, to begin using the Live-Fire Pizza Oven, you’ll need to build a fire. It’s a good idea to light the fire about 45 minutes to an hour before you’re ready to eat to give the fire plenty of time to burn down. It may seem counterintuitive, but for most live fire cooking you want more coals in the fire than you do actual flames. This will give you a more even, consistent cook than roaring flames.
Once you have the fire about where you want it – I’d recommend a small to medium-sized fire that spreads out across the fire pit – you can put the pizza oven on. Luckily, the clever design of the oven helps it heat up pretty quickly once it’s over the fire. We were typically ready to start cooking in about 10-15 minutes once the oven was on.
For most pizza, you’re looking for an oven temperature of around 750 -950 degrees and a stone temperature of between 500-600 degrees. The thermometer on the side will give you the oven temperature, but you can use an infrared thermometer to check the stone temperature if you want.
When the oven’s ready, you launch the pizza and watch it cook. Be sure to stay close by because you’ll need to turn it at least once or twice to get a an even cook and the whole thing will usually cook in about 90 seconds.
I also highly, highly recommend a long-handled turning peel like this fantastic one from Gozney or another similar one from Amazon since you’ll be standing directly in front of the fire pit window when turning the pizza and if you didn’t know, fire is hot. You could also grab a nice leather apron if you wanted to I suppose, but turning peels are pretty useful anyway so it’s worth it to pick one up.
The first pizza we tried was a standard thin-crust cheese pizza. It cooked quickly and was absolutely delicious when we tasted it. The bottom of the crust was crispy all the way across and the edges were lightly airy and fully cooked. We also tried different types of cheese to see what we got and the queso fresco cooked beautifully on top just like you’d want it to.
Next we added some pepperonis to see how it handled those and they came out with those crispy edges that are oh-so-tasty. We also added some pickled onions and jalapenos (cuz, delish) and they cooked perfectly.
Finally, we did honey mustard chicken with spinach, tomatoes, red onions, queso fresco, and artichokes and nothing was soggy or overcooked. There’s a hole in the back of the pizza-cooking shelf that directs heat up and over the pizza and I think that’s a large part of how everything on top cooked so evenly, without being over done (and yes, you’re more than welcome to come over for our next pizza night!).
With any proper pizza oven, you’ll start to see some burn spots on the stone after even the first pizza. That’s perfectly normal and honestly provides some additional flavor to the crust. This isn’t something you’ll need to clean off every time, and most of the time any toppings or bits of flour left on the stone will burn off while using. You probably should clean the stones off every third or fourth time you use it.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take a lot to clean as some warm water and a rag should take off most of it. The more stubborn pieces can be handled with a wire brush. Be sure you don’t ever run them through the dishwasher, however, as this can crack the stones.
I must say, that after testing several other pizza ovens, my wife and I both agreed that the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven delivers the best tasting pizzas. We really enjoyed how evenly it cooked and how well and consistently it cooked every crust we tried.
That being said, the Breeo was also, by far, the most work of any pizza oven I’ve tested. It’s not that it’s inconvenient, per-se, it’s just that the whole thing is designed to be an experience. It’s not meant to be a quick and convenient way to cook great pizza; it’s all about gathering family and friends around to enjoy a nice evening around a fire.
And in that sense, they’ve nailed it. Even though it was the most work, it was also, by far, the most fun pizza oven to use. It was such a joy to have family and friends over, to talk and watch our kids play together while we gathered around the fire pit, then to watch everyone’s face as we cooked the pizzas. Some of the older kids even got to join in on the action and it was truly a great evening.
Overall, the Breeo cooked better and provided a better experience than any other pizza oven I’ve used, just be ready to pay for the privilege.
A few things to keep in mind as you prepare for pizza night with the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven:
- Build your fire about 45 minutes before you’re ready to put the oven on (60 minutes before ready to eat)
- You will absolutely need a pizza turning peel
- The Breeo is all about the experience
Finally, I would recommend picking up the Pizza Oven Cover and the Pizza Oven Base. This pizza oven is meant to live outdoors, and unless you have perfect weather all year long, it would be helpful to have these to keep it protected. I recommend the Base because I wouldn’t want to damage the hooks on the bottom every time you take it off.
Score: 5 out of 5
Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven: User reviews
Other users of the Breeo Live-Fire LOVE this pizza oven. On the Breeo site, 10 reviewers have awarded it 5-out-5 stars. One user says: "Super heavy duty. Pizza oven is fun for the whole family!" with another sharing: "The very first pizza I cooked in it was absolutely PERFECT. I've made pizza in it 3 days in a row so far.
"The thermometer is on point and makes it easy. You also need a lot less wood to get it hot and keep it hot than I first anticipated."
Over on reseller site, Home Depot, these rave reviews are echoed. There are 40 Breeo Live-Fire users who have shared their experiences so far, although it's worth noting that these were gathered as part of a promotion and 5-star reviews were received even after the recipient admitted to not having tried it out yet. One reviewer says: "Absolutely love this pizza oven attachment for our Breeo Firepit" and another notes: "This things cooks so hot & fast with incredible flavor and results. I can’t wait to try and bake some bread in it soon..."
Should I buy the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza oven?
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How does the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven compare?
There’s no getting around the fact that the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven is quite an investment. Even if you go with the most inexpensive compatible fire pit, you’re still looking at well over $1,000 for everything after taxes and shipping.
The good news is that you also absolutely get what you pay for. The high-quality, hand-crafted, Stainless-Steel design means you’ll have a backyard setup to enjoy for years to come. And the quality of pizza and the experience you get from it are incomparable.
But the price alone will certainly put it out of reach for quite a few people, and there are plenty of other great pizza ovens out there. The Solo Stove Pi Prime was rated our Best Overall Pizza Oven for 2024, and the Ooni Fyra will give you the same wood-fired taste without the price or the hassle.
How I tested the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza Oven
I used this pizza oven in my own backyard for just over a month. My wife and I cooked at least twenty pizzas in it with a wide range of toppings. My best friend’s 8-year-old son even cooked a pizza in here, so it is certainly easy to use, albeit with plenty of adult supervision.
Overall, more than 10 people sampled the pizza cooked in the Breeo Live-Fire Pizza oven, including several picky toddlers, and every person gave great feedback.
We cooked thin-crust style pizza using our own dough and sauce recipes with a wide range of toppings including cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, queso fresco, spinach, pepperoni, basil, chicken, and others.
Every pizza was cooked using the Breeo Pizza Peel over the Luxeve Fire Pit.
Learn more about how we test.
