How Roccbox, the Portable Pizza Oven, Hopes to Revolutionize Your Pizza Making

How Roccbox, the Portable Pizza Oven, Hopes to Revolutionize Your Pizza Making

Nothing beats the taste of really well made pizza. Where an average pizza can be a huge disappointment, a stone bake pizza is quite the delight. It’s the kind of thing that makes your mouth water just thinking about it. It’s also an effect that’s very hard to replicate in your home, unless you’ve got expensive equipment or a garden in which to build your own stone bake oven. That’s where a device called Roccbox could dramatically change things.

It’s a portable stone bake oven that looks kind of like a covered BBQ. The oven promises to cook restaurant quality pizza in a mere 90 seconds, as well as cook plenty of other great meals. The oven offers a choice of a wood fired cooking method, as well as the consistency and convenience of a gas burner. The impressive part is how it’s portable, being lightweight enough for one person to carry, meaning you can take it anywhere you want and enjoy some tasty cooking. As the Roccbox team explained, it’ll even work on the beach, proving to be the ideal replacement to your conventional disposable BBQ.

The team and its founder, Tom Gozney, was inspired three years ago to develop a way in which people can enjoy this form of cooking. “Until now, stone floor ovens have only been for people with a budget in excess of £700 and with permanent outdoor space. Roccbox is affordable and lightweight and portable and solves these problems, bringing wood and gas fired cooking to everyone.”

Much like a regular BBQ, Roccbox doesn’t offer any timer facility, but that’s rarely needed when you’re dealing with food that cooks so quickly. As you’d expect with such relaxed cooking, it’s all a matter of checking the food regularly, until it’s done. That kind of thing might sound tedious at home, but it works well in a communal atmosphere when gathered around the oven. Thanks to Roccbox weighing around 20kg, it’s easy to take with you camping or to the forest, or simply in your back garden.

Unusually, it’s a pretty stylish oven too. A high heat silicone jacket protects it, with a choice of color options, w=and three stainless steel folding legs ensure it can stay secure on any surface. A modular burner port is available at the bottom for when you want to change up what kind of heat source you’re using. It’ll reach temperatures of up to 930F (500C) in 15 minutes.

While Roccbox promises to be able to cook pizza dough in about 90 seconds, it’s also ideal for cooking up roasted meat or fish, as well as vegetables or flatbreads. Remember when you first got your BBQ and you went nuts BBQing everything? It’s like that, only faster and less messy.

The oven’s been through an extensive design and testing process, as the team explained, “We just haven’t compromised on any part of the design. We wanted everything to be perfect so we have had many prototypes.” The key here was to “have a stone floor that was porous, dense enough to hold its heat but lightweight enough to be portable…As was ensuring the burners worked as flawlessly and efficiently as possible!”

That hard work paid off as Roccbox has garnered plenty of support throughout its development. It made it to the final 11 candidates in Virgin’s ‘Pitch to Rich’ campaign in 2015, before launching an Indiegogo campaign earlier this year.

The Indiegogo campaign has been a huge success too, with the project raising funds of over $1,000,000. While the campaign has since ended, there’s still time to buy an oven through Indiegogo In Demand — an example of the flexibility that Indiegogo is currently offering over the more recognizable Kickstarter name. Currently, you can pay $529 plus shipping for one Roccbox, a Pizza Peel, Wood Burner, Gas Burner, as well as Bottle Opener and a user manual/recipe book. Estimated delivery time is June, meaning you’ll be able to enjoy some tasty homemade stone bake pizzas throughout the summer.

 
Join the discussion...