works best for people with patience who enjoy home cooking and don't mind a learning curve
I recommend reading the instructions at least twice. You can watch videos of people using their Piezano's, which is helpful, but be careful about the advice they give. I heard one review where they mentioned washing the pizza stone, which you are NOT supposed to do. You should enjoy cooking at least a little bit, because it will probably take you several tries to produce a cooked pizza that's exactly how you want it. So if you have no patience or you don't like to cook (you prefer to put the pizza in the oven, set the timer, and then take it out when the timer goes off) you probably won't like using this item. As others have stated, there is a learning curve, and you do have to babysit your pizza. You cannot walk away from this device while it's cooking your pizza, but the good news is that it cooks it fast. Ways to keep your pizza crust and the toppings from burning: make small pizzas with thinner crusts. Fork your dough before topping your pizza. Par-bake your pizza crust (instructions are in the recipe book.) Bake your pizza crust topping-less until almost done, then remove it with your peels and place your sauce and toppings onto the mostly cooked pizza crust. Then place it back onto the Piezano and bake it a couple more minutes until your cheese is melted and your toppings are cooked to your linking. Do not spread your sauce and toppings to the edges; leave a good sauceless and topping-less border around your pizza. Watch your pizza through the window and pop any bubbles with a fork. Rotate your pizza with the peels if one side starts to look darker than the other side. Adjust the bottom and top temperature controls as needed. As the pizza cooks, the dough rises, so if the dough is very thick, it will rise quickly, and your pizza and toppings will rise up towards the heating element. If this happens, you'll want to adjust your temperature knobs and also open the Piezano and rotate your pizza. Keep doing this until it looks done. You do not want any part of your pizza to touch the heating element, as this will cause burning and smoking as the ingredients burn onto your heating element. You also do not want any of your sauce, cheese or toppings to drip or fall off of the pizza and onto the pizza stone, as this will cause burning and smoking as they burn onto the pizza stone. Carefully scrape your pizza stone between uses/pizzas, and CAREFULLY dust off the crumbs and any burnt crumbs or pieces with a damp (not wet) rag. This thing gets very HOT and the heating element is exposed, so be CAREFUL! Keep your cooking area free of clutter to prevent accidentally starting a fire, and do not let young kids or pets play near your cooking area while you're using the Piezano. The dough recipe is basic and not difficult to make (make sure your yeast is fresh/not expired; the dough won't rise if the yeast is dead.) The hardest part about making the dough is getting it to roll out thin, but you can go online and read articles and/or watch videos, and learn about and experiment with different dough recipes and different techniques for making whatever type of pizza crust you like. The first time you use your Piezano, you might want to try using a store bought raw dough or raw pizza crust so you can focus on learning how to use the Piezano first, and then perfect your homemade pizza crust later on. I haven't had much trouble using the pizza peels, but I read a review that stated purchasing one large pizza peel worked better for her than these 2 half peels, so that's something to consider if you don't like the half peels (try the half peels first, though!) I have had a lot of fun using the Piezano, and I am learning a lot about making dough. (But then, I like cooking!) The pizzas you can make in this thing are restaurant quality or better, as when you cook from scratch, you know what you are putting into your pizza, so no mystery ingredients. On one hand I wish it was bigger so I could make bigger pizzas, but then on the other hand I know if it was bigger it would take up more room on my kitchen counter, where I keep it. So I'm fine with the size. I got the cream color, which is attractive and goes with my kitchen. Not much cleaning involved, just scraping and wiping with a damp (not wet) rag. If you accidentally burn your sauce/cheese/dough onto your stone, it's not ruined! Don't throw it away! Your stone is going to get really black and look burned, but you just need to scrape all of the burnt stuff off (this might take awhile) and wipe it down several times between scrapings with a damp rag until you get all the burnt stuff off and the stone feels smooth. The stone will still be very dark or black and will stay that way, but that's okay. Next time you warm up your Piezano, it might start to smoke, which means there is still some burned residue stuck to the stone. The high heat will help burn it off. You will probably also need to scrape it again and wipe it down with a damp (not wet) rag some more. It is a process to remedy a burned on mess (it happened to me!!) but it is totally doable, and you will be back to making homemade pizzas again in no time, so don't give up! This little pizza oven is not for everyone and some people will not enjoy using it, but I love it! And the more I use it, the better my pizzas get/practice makes perfect (or at least really good!) You can bake other things besides pizza on this, but so far I've only made pizzas.