As a restaurant chef with over 10 years of experience at Dequte Restaurant LironBoylston, I’ve worked with various pizza ovens in both professional and home settings. In this article, I’ll be comparing the Blackstone Pizza Oven and the Cru Champion Pizza Oven, two high-performance outdoor pizza ovens that I have personally tested in my kitchen. I evaluated them based on quality and materials, temperature control, shape, first-time usage impressions, power source, size, ease of cleaning, and a real pizza cooking test to see how long each takes to make a great pizza. If you’re interested in the full breakdown of how I test pizza ovens, you can check out my separate article.
The Blackstone Pizza Oven is a propane-powered oven known for its rotating stone and high heat output, ensuring even, consistent cooking with minimal effort. Meanwhile, the Cru Champion Pizza Oven is a wood-fired oven designed for traditional pizza-making, offering an authentic wood-fired taste with a versatile cooking space.
This article features a thorough comparison between the Blackstone Pizza Oven and the Cru Champion Pizza Oven based on my personal tests.
To keep my blog running, I use referral links in this article. If you find my insights helpful and decide to purchase through these links, it helps support my work at no extra cost to you.
Blackstone VS Cru Champion: Quality and Materials
| The Blackstone Pizza Oven is made of high-quality stainless steel with a cast iron rotating tray and double-wall insulation for excellent heat retention. |
The Cru Champion Pizza Oven is built with thick ceramic stone, stainless steel, and aluminum. The chimney showed some wear over time.
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Blackstone VS Cru Champion: Temperature Control
| The Blackstone Pizza Oven reaches 900+°F in just 10 minutes with a powerful propane burner, providing steady and adjustable heat. |
The Cru Champion Pizza Oven heats up to 900°F in about 13-15 minutes. It retains heat well but requires manual fuel adjustments.
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Blackstone VS Cru Champion: Shape
| The Blackstone Pizza Oven has a rotating stone and a burner placed away from the pizza, eliminating hot spots and ensuring even cooking. |
The Cru Champion Pizza Oven has a semi-round dome with thick cordierite stone plates, offering good heat retention but requiring manual pizza rotation.
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Blackstone VS Cru Champion: First-Time Usage Impressions
| Setting up the Blackstone Pizza Oven takes some time, but once assembled, it’s easy to use. Ignition may take a few tries initially. |
The Cru Champion Pizza Oven is easy to assemble in 10 minutes, but due to its size and weight, positioning it requires assistance.
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Blackstone VS Cru Champion: Power Source
| The Blackstone Pizza Oven runs on propane with a 60,000 BTU high-pressure burner, providing instant and consistent heat. |
The Cru Champion Pizza Oven runs on wood or charcoal, offering an authentic wood-fired flavor, but requires more attention to fire management.
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Blackstone VS Cru Champion: Size
| The Blackstone Pizza Oven is large and heavy, making it best for outdoor kitchens and patios. It includes a wheeled cart for mobility. |
The Cru Champion Pizza Oven has a 24” x 24” cooking space, allowing for larger pizzas, but it’s less portable due to its weight.
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Blackstone VS Cru Champion: Ease of Cleaning
| The Blackstone Pizza Oven is easy to clean, featuring a removable pizza stone and wipe-down components for quick maintenance. |
The Cru Champion Pizza Oven has a removable dome for easy access, but requires regular cleaning of ash and soot.
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Pizza Cooking Test
When testing how quickly each oven heated up, the Blackstone Pizza Oven proved to be the faster option, reaching 900°F in just 10 minutes thanks to its powerful propane burner. In comparison, the Cru Champion Pizza Oven took around 13 to 15 minutes to reach the same temperature, requiring more attention to fire management. While the Cru Champion Pizza Oven retained heat well, it needed occasional adjustments to maintain a steady cooking temperature, unlike the Blackstone Pizza Oven, which provided consistent heat without much effort.
For the actual pizza cooking test, both ovens performed impressively. The Blackstone Pizza Oven cooked a Margherita pizza in just 70 seconds, producing a crispy, evenly baked crust with perfectly melted cheese and a slight char on the edges. The rotating stone eliminated the need for manual turning, ensuring that every part of the pizza cooked evenly. Meanwhile, the Cru Champion Pizza Oven baked the same Margherita pizza in about 96 seconds, delivering a delicious wood-fired flavor with a subtle smokiness. However, because it lacks a rotating tray, the pizza had to be manually rotated to achieve even cooking.
In terms of taste, both ovens created high-quality, restaurant-style pizzas, but with slightly different results. The Blackstone Pizza Oven delivered a perfectly crisp crust and uniform baking, making it an excellent choice for those who want consistent, high-speed pizza cooking with minimal effort. The Cru Champion Pizza Oven provided a more traditional wood-fired experience, adding depth to the flavor, but requiring more hands-on attention during the cooking process.
How We Tested
To fairly compare the Blackstone Pizza Oven and the Cru Champion Pizza Oven, I conducted a side-by-side pizza cooking test under the same conditions. I used the same dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings, making a classic Margherita pizza to see how each oven handled heat distribution, cooking time, and overall pizza quality.
Before launching the pizzas, I preheated both ovens to their recommended temperatures. The Blackstone Pizza Oven heated up to 900°F in just 10 minutes, thanks to its high-powered propane burner, while the Cru Champion Pizza Oven took about 13 to 15 minutes to reach the same heat level, requiring wood or charcoal management to maintain steady temperatures.
Once preheated, I placed the pizzas inside each oven and timed how long they took to cook. In the Blackstone Pizza Oven, the rotating stone and steady propane heat ensured that the pizza cooked in just 70 seconds, producing an evenly crisp crust without any manual adjustments. In contrast, the Cru Champion Pizza Oven baked the pizza in around 96 seconds, delivering a delicious wood-fired flavor, but requiring manual rotation to prevent uneven cooking.
After cooking, I evaluated the crust crispiness, cheese melt, and overall balance of flavors in both pizzas. I also took note of how easy it was to manage the cooking process, checking whether I needed to adjust heat levels, rotate the pizza, or add more fuel between bakes.
This test provided a direct comparison of how the Blackstone Pizza Oven and the Cru Champion Pizza Oven perform in real-world pizza making, highlighting their strengths in speed, heat consistency, and overall ease of use.
Final Thoughts
Both the Blackstone Pizza Oven and the Cru Champion Pizza Oven deliver excellent results, but each caters to different cooking preferences. The Blackstone Pizza Oven stands out for its speed, convenience, and consistent heat, making it the better choice for those who want a hassle-free, high-performance pizza oven. The Cru Champion Pizza Oven, on the other hand, offers a traditional wood-fired experience, providing a rich, smoky flavor, but requiring more hands-on fire and heat management.
Ultimately, the choice depends on your cooking style—whether you prefer the efficiency and ease of propane with the Blackstone Pizza Oven or the authentic wood-fired experience with the Cru Champion Pizza Oven.
If you decide to purchase one, I’d greatly appreciate it if you use my referral links. I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you, which helps support my blog.
Whichever oven you choose, you’re in for amazing homemade pizzas!