Halo Versa 16 Pizza Oven Review | The Real Game-Changer

I was drawn to it by two things rather than just one. I first saw the rotating stone, which wasn’t even connected to anything. Since portability is assured, I can use this for tailgating, camping, and more, I thought. Second, there was food other than just pizza, that could be cooked in this oven. But, the decadently baked pizza sitting there was seemed to beckon me towards itself.

It’s a pizza oven, yes, but it’s so much more than that. Because I can do so much more than just cook my pizza, this is a device I would genuinely utilize.

Without further ado, let us just have a look at this beauty!

Now that you are flattered by its mesmerizing looks, let us talk a bit more!

To surmise, even if you believe you are an expert in pizza ovens, wait till you see the Halo Versa Pizza oven. This pizza oven is exceptional in terms of quality, design, usability, setup simplicity, portability, and cooking performance.

Although, after carefully examining this pizza oven, I came to the conclusion that it works better with some types of pizza than others. Let’s take an in depth look at the oven and its qualities.

Background on Halo

The Versa’s creators, Halo Products Group, go above and beyond to support their creation. Every product that receives the Halo badge is said to have been created with pride and effort. Halo Products Group was founded on the principle that anything that might be done better should be done in said manner, even if it requires doing it yourself.

According to Halo, they pride themselves on the notions that they create goods that their staff members enjoy using, which they think results in happier consumers. At our very heart, we value real genuineness. We’re all a little bit like you in that we enjoy eating, are parents, travelers, and entertainers. We want to share this with you because we love it.

Unboxing

I’ve never seen a product packaged this well; taking the packaging materials out will take some time. In order for this pizza oven to arrive at your door broken, it would have to be dropped from a plane, it’s that well packed. I really do mean everywhere when I say there are hidden packaging materials everywhere. Before lighting, make sure to turn the pizza oven over and take out the foam inserts.

Assembly

One of the more complicated setups I’ve seen when evaluating ovens is the Versa 16. It takes about 20 minutes to finish, but nothing was tough, and their quick start instructions were really useful for a successful setup. In the box are the following:

• the body and legs of a pizza oven
• motor and stone rotator assembly
• Debris guard for the pizza stone
• adaptor for a 1 lb. propane canister
• 20-pound propane tank fitting and hose assembly
• Versa 16 Essentials Guide Quick Start Guide for Screws covers maintenance and cleaning guidelines, recipes, directions, and more.

Keep an eye out for the bundle of screws that will be used to fasten the legs to the body and the rotator motor to the base of the oven. Be aware that the rotator switch and two D batteries for the rotator motor are not included (one AA).

At first glance, I like how everything is accessible and how the movable lid would make cleaning simple. This is a highly useful configuration that promotes portability without compromising the actual design.

Design

Cold-rolled steel with a high-temperature powder coating and 430 stainless steel make up the Versa 16 outdoor pizza oven. The cooking surface is a standard 16′′ cordierite pizza stone that has a massive logo engraved on it. You can move pizzas up to 16 inches in diameter with ease through the oven slot. And a total of 21,100 BTUs of heat are produced by the Versa burners.

You can slide your pizza into the open space that is located on the front of the oven. Two buttons and one knob are also visible on the front. The ignitor button is located on the push button on the left, and the stone rotation can be started and stopped using the button on the right. Your heat may be adjusted using the central knob.

Additionally, there is a sizable, easy-to-read temperature indicator on the front. This is really appreciated since it is angled as such that I don’t have to bend over to check the temperature. I can easily see the temperature by standing up.

This oven’s quality is one of my favourite aspects. They didn’t take any short cuts when creating the design for this oven. This is really important to me since I believe that many products aim to minimize costs and save money, but ultimately the consumer loses out. With the Halo, it’s quality throughout, which I’ll discuss in more detail later.

When I initially saw the oven, I wasn’t sure how I felt about how it looked. It had a vague resemblance to an indoor countertop oven or a product that was made for the camping sector. But after seeing it for myself, I was not only impressed by the superb build quality (everything feels extremely high-end and substantial – nothing “cheap” about the materials, as I felt with some of the newer ovens), but also by how well thought out the design is. A rotating stone, twin burners to keep a hot stone warm, an easy ignition system, and a very useful hinged top are all features of this oven. It also has a big opening for a large peel. On a handful of them, let’s go into further detail.

Dimensions and Cook surfaces

• Size of the cooking surface: 16″ (201.06 Square inches) Oven Opening for a Cordierite Cooking Stone: L=18in H=3 1/4 (at peak) H=2 34 (at lowest point)
• High-temperature powder-coated cold rolled steel and 430 stainless steel are used in the construction of oven bodies.
• Dimensions of the product: 24.3, 21.64, and 14.82 (61.7 x 55 x 37.65cm)
• Weight of the Product: 43.21 lbs (19.6 kg)
• Dimensions of the carton: 25.59″ x 22.5″ x 13.98″ (64.9 x 56 x 35.51 cm)
• Weight of Carton: 55.12 lbs (25.0 kg)
• Foot size: 15in (back) – 17 14 (front)

Dual Burner System

The Versa’s twin burner technology, which has a patent pending, is arguably its most remarkable feature. The oven has a back-oven burner for conventional convection heating.

The other burner is a bottom infrared burner for maintaining consistent stone temperatures between bakes.

Since both the bottom crust and the toppings on top receive the high heat required for a delicious pizza, the Versa should theoretically outperform some of the other ovens on the market (we’ll cover this topic in more detail in the performance section).

I particularly appreciate how the bottom burner keeps the pizza stone warm in between batches of pizza. We’ve dealt with this when cooking in other ovens, such the Ooni Koda 16. After a pizza, the stone likes to cool down, and you must wait 10 minutes for it to re-heat in other ovens, but with the Versa, that time is reduced significantly.

Rotary cook surface

This could completely alter the landscape of handmade pizza. To avoid having to manually rotate the pizza, the Versa has a battery-operated (or plug-in, provided there is an outlet nearby) rotating pizza stone.

This guarantees even cooking and helps keep the edges of the pizza from burning. When the rotate switch on the front of the oven is clicked, the motor spins the pizza stone.

The rotation can be started or stopped at any time while cooking.

Fuel injection

My favourite feature of the Versa is its adaptability. For maximum portability when travelling, use a smaller 1 lb. canister instead of a conventional 20 lb. LP gas tank at home.

What do both configurations do best? Quick disconnect regulators were provided by Halo. This demonstrates what I meant before when I said that quality should never be compromised.

The Versa 16 is built exclusively for propane out of the box, but the Halo team promises a conversion kit for natural gas will be made available soon (fingers crossed).

Performance

Preheat time and Maximum temperatures

According to Halo, the Versa 16 will reach 950F and start cooking in 12 minutes. The manufacturers of nearly every pizza oven I looked at promise greater temperatures in fewer time periods than are actually possible. It looks that the Versa was affected in the same way.

The built-in thermometer reached 900F few minutes after the oven was turned on, rendering it essentially useless for timing the launch of a pizza, since that was not the actual temperature of the cook surface. An infrared thermometer, like those for all ovens, is advised to check the temperature of the stone, since that is where the cooking will be happening.

I continued the preheating process and started taking 5-minute interval temperature readings on the stone (pointing at the middle). The stone rotator, which is a truly wonderful feature, was also employed during preheating to guarantee a constant stone temperature from front to back. These temperatures were recorded:

• Five minutes: 437F
• 588F after 10 minutes
• 30 seconds: 639F
• 732F in 20 minutes.
• 25 minutes: 773F
• 30 minutes: 803F
• 35 minutes: 805 F

The temperature growth started to slow down after 20 minutes, and between 30 and 35 minutes, there was barely any movement. At this point, I concluded that NY style and pan pizzas should go well in this oven, however Neapolitan style pizzas may be less successful because they demand a hotter, faster bake. But as I prepare food in all styles, we’ll soon find out.

Results on Pizzas

The section you’ve been anticipating! Can this oven produce pizza of the highest caliber? Does it perform better than other pizza ovens available? In that case, which ones? I tried several well-known pizza variations before I began my study to see how the oven performed. These are my findings.

Neapolitan

As I indicated before, I was a little concerned that the Versa 16 wouldn’t be able to make a proper Neapolitan pizza without a more powerful single-flame burner. As soon as I placed it on the stone, I understood that the bottom would cook much more quickly than the top and side crust. Simply put, the flame in the back was insufficient to cook the pizza in two minutes or less (which is what you want with Neapolitan).

I was still able to complete the job with a decent pizza, though, by simply taking it up with my turning peel, holding it higher in the oven and nearer the back flame, and rotating it manually as needed to finish the crust. The crust took approximately 2 minutes to reach my desired level of doneness (with one tiny burn, whoops!). Even if a Neapolitan pizza isn’t the best type to bake with this product—since the oven has a self-rotating stone—you can still get one out of the oven.

Note: After using this method of cooking more frequently, I discovered that preheating the oven on LOW rather than HIGH allows for a longer bake without the bottom burning. By doing this, you’ll need to rotate the pizza less frequently and bring it closer to the heat (but not eliminate it entirely).

New York Style

This is the area where the oven REALLY excels. The Halo Versa 16 is without a doubt the best pizza oven for making New York style pizza, I’ll say it out loud. I used to use my Koda 16 by switching back and forth between a very low flame and completely turning off the heat, but this was complicated and cooled the oven down too much for the subsequent bake. It’s a start it and forget it ordeal with the Versa 16. My pizzas were nearly ready on time or just a little earlier, so the 5 minute bake that Halo advertises is relevant here.

The outcomes pleased me to the core. Even as I type this, I’m still enthused about it. Additionally, I strongly advise purchasing a Lloydpan 16-inch pizza screen because it can be quite challenging to place a 16-inch pizza onto a 16-inch round stone.

Pizza can be prepared directly on the screen and baked for the entire time, or it can cook for 1-2 minutes until the dough becomes firmer before being transferred from the screen to the baking stone (which is what I do). The outcome is an expert-quality NY style pizza that is precisely circular. See my outcomes below. And I created my first New York pizzas in this oven with these.

Once more, I advise preheating the oven on low or medium for this style and turning it to high when you put the pizza in. When I tried it with both, the bottom crust was a little too black but not fully burned.

Detroit Style

Pizzas made in the Detroit manner also worked incredibly well. When par baking my dough for a wonderfully even bake without having to turn it myself, I adore the rotating functionality. Additionally, the final bake produced flawlessly crisped crusts and a pleasantly golden bottom. I advise preheating the oven on HIGH for this particular style because the pan pizzas may benefit from a hotter stone surface for good browning.

The cheese in the middle of the pan might have used a little more browned, that’s the only thing I noticed. I quickly fixed this by raising the pan with a pizza peel for about 20 seconds so that it was close to the top of the oven.

Maintenance

Prior to your first cook, the Halo team advises seasoning the Versa 16 outdoor pizza oven for at least 30 minutes. I’m glad I did this before putting a pizza in the oven because after I did it, I noticed some very faint smoke coming from it. Let the oven cool before cleaning the cooking surface with a dry cloth or paper towel. This will eliminate any production waste that remains.

Cleaning: The Versa’s ease of upkeep and cleaning is another feature we value. Before doing any cleaning, let the oven cool fully. Two rubber tabs on the side of the oven’s hinged top provide access to it. Simply crack it open to access the cordierite stone and clean it as necessary. You can quickly pick up any trash and crumbs that fall into the catching tray below once the stone is out of the way.

A nylon pan scraper or a spatula can be used to remove any leftover food from the Cordierite cooking stone when it has completely cooled down. Do not use detergent or soap. If there is truly stuck-on debris, Halo advises soaking the stone in hot water before washing it once more. However, the stone is clean and safe to use as long as there are no food particles on it that could harbor bacteria. I personally never advise using water on pizza stones. In the future, any spills will be baked off.

Storage & Care

Though it’s a very solid built, but harsh weather and conditions can do a damage to your lovely halo versa 16. So, I always recommend buying a proper pizza oven cover so that your oven remains safe when not in use.

This ensures that your investment is safe and your toy runs perfectly at any time as it used to run when bought new.

you can buy the Halo versa 16 pizza oven by clicking here.

Once more, you receive a lot more than simply a pizza oven. You get efficiency, portability, and a consistently good cooking experience. Anyone can purchase this at a low price.

Pricing Information

What is the price of this then? This is available for $500. Yes, it costs more than some of the other pizza ovens available, but you get far more for your money.

$500 is a terrific price for this oven when you consider its quality, rotating stone, simplicity of use, and the results of what you can prepare.

Once more, you receive a lot more than simply a pizza oven. You get efficiency, portability, and a consistently good cooking experience. Anyone can purchase this at a low price.

Final Verdict

Overall, and before we even discuss the pricing, I’m quite pleased with this oven’s performance. The performance to cost ratio is astounding at only $500.

The Versa 16 Outdoor Pizza Oven is a fantastic option for anyone who enjoys preparing a variety of pizza styles and isn’t particularly intent on exclusively making Neapolitan, which is the only category in which it lagged behind other products. This is the sole option you should consider if you’re a huge lover of New York style pizzas. It is simple to use and consistently produces excellent results. I adore this oven, especially the rotating surface and two burners.

In addition to the one-year standard warranty, Halo additionally provides a five-year warranty with website registration. It takes a lot of pizza to last five years! The fact that the Halo team is ready to back their product for five years when I generally only see up to three-year guarantees speaks a lot.

You won’t be dissatisfied with the effectiveness or build quality of this outdoor pizza oven, in my opinion.