In this hands-on review of the Gozney Arc Lite pizza oven, we test heat, recovery, portability, user experience, and real cooks!
Gozney just announced a brand new outdoor oven in the Arc series called the Arc Lite, and in this article, we're going to put it through the Barbecue Lab series of tests to determine if it's worth your hard-earned money.
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Where does the Arc Lite fit in the Gozney lineup?
Gozney now has 3 different ovens measuring 12 inches.
The Roccbox has been around for many years now, and it's been their standard 12 inch oven until this past summer when they released their super portable Tread oven. Here's the Roccbox and the new Arc Lite side by side for comparison.
Gozney Roccbox (L) and Gozney Arc Lite (R)
Gozney Arc Lite (L) and Gozney Arc XL (R)
In 2024, Gozney released their Arc series, available at the time in 14 and 16-inch ovens, and while we don't have the Arc, here's the new Lite next to the Arc XL for reference. The look is very in line with the Arc series, minus the digital thermometer, and a departure from the older Roccbox design.
It's worth noting that all of the Arc ovens are propane only, so if you want to hook up to natural gas, you'll have to upgrade to the Dome series from Gozney.
How does the price compare to other ovens?
Currently, the MSRP of the Arc Lite is $399, which puts it competitively priced with the Solo Stove Pi Prime with an MSRP of $449 and the first-gen Ooni Koda 12, also with an MSRP of $399, all of which are 12-inch gas-only ovens.
How to use the Arc Lite pizza oven
Igniting the Arc Lite is easy. Just turn the knob to the left, and the oven will spark, and the lateral gas burner will ignite.
If you leave the dial in the ignition position, that's high, and if you continue turning to the left, that's the lowest setting.
I like that Gozney has placed the knob in the front of the oven where you can easily see any adjustments you make to the propane flame. It seems like an obvious choice, but we've been surprised in the past to test pizza ovens with really inconvenient control locations.
Cooking Pizzas
We invited some friends out to the Lab on a Saturday, and fired up the Arc Lite to make some pizzas.
This is a 63% hydration dough that we cold-proofed in the fridge for 24 hours before our cook, and if that sounds strange to you, just know that we've started down the slippery slope of different types of pizza dough here at The Barbecue Lab.
The morning of, we got the dough out of the fridge and let it get to room temperature for about 5 hours, and the Arc Lite did really well with this dough.
We preheated the oven for about 30 minutes before launching our first pizza. I was quite happy with the rise of the crust and even the charring on the bottom with the toppings remaining melted and not burned.
We made 8 pizzas during testing, and they ranged from 9 to almost 12 inches in width. The smaller pies were easy to turn in the oven, while the larger versions were more of a challenge. With those, I preferred pulling the pizza out with the placement peel instead of using the turning peel and just turning them with my hands outside of the oven.
In my experience, with a 12 3/4" wide opening, you "can" make a 12-inch pizza in the Arc Lite, but a 10 or 11-inch pizza is a lot easier to manage.
Whenever we review pizza ovens, we always get asked about stone recovery time between pizzas. We started out with stone temperatures between 750-800, and that's pretty much where it was temping every time we had another pizza ready to launch.
We were making pizzas at a pretty casual pace; it's not like we were racing to cook a massive quantity in a short amount of time, but we never had to wait on the oven to be ready; the oven was always waiting on me.
Cooking Steak
I'm a firm believer that outdoor ovens aren't just for pizza, and I love a good steak in a pizza oven. We put the Smithey #12 griddle in the Arc Lite and let it heat up for 20 minutes.
Using an infrared thermometer, we got in the 700° F range on the pan, and we laid our steak down for 60 seconds to see what kind of sear we could get.
We turned the steak over to the unused part of the pan to sear the second side, and after a little internal temperature monitoring, we ended up with a nice sear using cast iron in the Arc Lite.
How hot can the Arc Lite get?
When set to the highest heat, the Arc Lite can reach 950° F (or 500 ° Celsius). Remember, that this oven doesn't have a door, and it also doesn't have an exhaust stack, so you're not retaining any of the heat that's being generated. It's achieving 950 degrees by the sheer continuous running of the flame.
How much does the Gozney Arc Lite weigh?
This is a compact little oven, weighing only 26.4 pounds (11.97 Kilograms) which is less than a bag of softener salt, so it's easy to carry around if you want to take it with you. It's also small enough in form that it's not awkward to carry. Melissa is only 5'2" and she had no trouble carrying and moving this portable pizza oven.
Warranty
The standard warranty is 1 year, but it's extendable to 5 years if you register the product within 60 days.
Who is the Gozney Arc Lite best for?
My opinion is that this is a perfect oven for someone just getting started with cooking outdoor pizzas.
If you've been thinking, "man, that looks like fun, but I don't know if I would really like it or be any good at it, or I don't know if I would actually use it very often," the Arc Lite is a great oven to start with to test the waters. It's lightweight and not complicated at all. Pull it out of the box, stick the stone in, and light it up.
The hardest thing is learning to launch your pizza from the peel to the stone, but that has nothing to do with the actual oven. Any novice pizza lover should be able to find success with this oven.
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