Pizza

[scottcgrable]

Looking delicious Alan. I need to try making my own dough. Usually we just buy the frozen dough at Harris Teeter when it is on sale.

Here is my second try at pizza in the Big Green Egg. Cooked on a pizza stone @ around 450 degrees for 10 or so minutes. I want to try it hotter next time to see if there is much difference (BGE can go up around 900+)

This one is fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. Also did a BBQ Chicken, which took the smoke a little better. Forgot to get a picture of that one though.

[Alan]

Looks good to me. Be careful with the stone. Sometimes if they get too hot they'll crack. Making dough is pretty easy if you have a mixer. Probably not that bad if you don't but don't know about that. There are 20 cups of flour in a 5# bag. 4 cups of flour makes two 14" pizza doughs. So...you can make 10 pizza's with a $2.00 bag of flour. My biggest expense is the toppings, cheese, pepps, sausage and whatever else you want to throw on it. Marinara sauce is relatively cheap because a large jar goes a long way.

[andy10917]

Anyone here use a Pizza Steel?

[Alan]

I haven't, but I'm interested in this too. From my little research, you want to get the dough(crust) pretty damn hot ASAP. A pizza should only take about 10 minutes max to cook.

[andy10917]

My youngest son is a Culinary Institute ("CIA") grad, and swears by them. I wanted to see if any "normal" people use them.

[LouisvilleGrubber]

I've used my Gig Green Egg to make pizzas for the past 10 years or so. I've decided the optimum temp is about 550 or so. You could go hotter if you go light on the toppings. But the crust will burn pretty quickly trying to melt a thick pie. Im not the only one that thinks 550 is the number. The fancy-pants Italian restaurant in town uses an egg to fire their flatbreads and pies and the chef told me he's found 550 to be the perfect temp.

A few other tips- all learned the hard way I might add:

1. Add a little honey to the dough to get a subtle sweetness

2. Use three or more cheeses. Using one cheese will make your pie taste like frozen pizza. It makes a HUGE difference. Be sure to salt it a little and add oregano.

I use obviously mozzarella, but buy the fresh ball and grate it yourself-the stuff in the zip bags at Wally World is not mozzarella. (Come on, you buy $100 bags of fungicide for your lawn for christ sakes. Don't skimp on this). I also use Provolone, Asiago,and fresh grated Parmesan ( same thing- stuff in the green can isn't cheese). The better the cheese the better the pie.

3. The key to not cracking the stone is to heat it slowly. Don't throw a cold stone onto a 600 degree fire.

4. Basil or anything leafy goes on after the pie comes off the fire or it will burn and taste bitter.

5. Have more than one peel and let everyone make their own pie. Set the ingredients out like a buffet. Kids and adults love it! While one pie is on the egg another one is being "built".

6. It takes a while for the stone to heat up. A good 45 minutes on the egg. A cool stone won't produce a good, cracker-like crust. It will be chewy and flavorless.


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[Alan]

All good tips up there.

We had a number 5. at my critic's house on Saturday night and it was quite a blast. Everyone got to make their own pie, add whatever they wanted and it was buffet style as you mentioned. It was almost an assembly line process with 3 pizza peels working, two wooden one's to build pizza's on and one metal one to get the cooked pizza's out of the oven. I bet we cooked 10 pizza's of varying sizes and flavors.

[Green_Disease]

I just started making my own pies on my weber with a pizzaque kit for kettle grills

http://m.homedepot.com/p/PizzaQue-Pizza ... /205581858



I can get the temps up to 900 with coals and a couple logs. I've found 700 to be easier to maintain. I used the bobby flay recipe for dough and used a couple different sauce recipes:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010 ... sauce.html

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2012/02/ ... h.html?m=1

The wood fired pizzas are great and the kit ($80) was relatively cheap (The other brand of pizza kits for kettle grills can run a few hundred).








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[Alan]

Yum!!

[Pway]

Hey Andy. I make pizza with homemade dough several times a month. I use a stone (actually a couple of them). I was considering getting a pizza steel and researched them on the Internet. Seems like just about everyone agrees they cook pizza faster than a pizza stone because they conduct heat better. It appears there are differences of opinions as to which is better overall. Some think the steel chars the dough more on the bottom while providing a better overall dough texture. Others (I'm talking about food critics and reviewers in both cases ) prefer the stone overall. I make between 2 and maybe 8 or 9 pizzas at a time and enjoy the "process" so speed isn't important to me. Having said that, I may get one and will post if I do.

By the way, thanks to everyone for posting on this. I'm always interested in reading about (and making/eating) pizza!

[Alan]

Please post your experience with a steel. I've read that they're available in different thicknesses. Of course the thicker ones take longer to heat, but they take longer to cool too. So if you're cooking multiple pies one after another, then the thicker one may be a benefit.

[SACole]

I'm cooking two pizzas Tuesday night on my Kamado Joe (ceramic egg). Will take pics and post.


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[Alan]

Yes, please post pics, we all love pics.

[Ware]

I'm cooking two pizzas Tuesday night on my Kamado Joe (ceramic egg). Will take pics and post.


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I had a Big Joe before migrating to pellets. I really liked it. My only complaint was cooking rectangular things (ribs) on a round grate. I'm a little OCD though.

[trussin]

Great stuff!

We cook pizzas on a BGE a couple times a month (though my kids wish it was more often). First few are boring and kid friendly, while the remaining are my wife's chance to empty the refrigerator and experiment with leftovers. Those pizzas are the best.

It took me ages to learn to make a circle. Getting a dough rolling mat (or template) made the difference. And the mat for the egg has a recipe in one corner I still have a problem with the edge of crust unrolling - I think I need to press it with a fork or similar implement.

Kid pizza:


And a tasty pizza:


We make the crust thin... I get 4 - 13" diameter pizzas from each dough recipe. I usually have to spritz the stone with water before the 4th pizza to keep it from burning.

[Alan]

trussin: Is that parchment paper? If so, do you leave it there for a while or do you do the pull the rug under your feet trick?

SACole: Where are the pizza pics

[SACole]

trussin: Is that parchment paper? If so, do you leave it there for a while or do you do the pull the rug under your feet trick?

SACole: Where are the pizza pics

we had to push it by a week. Forgot about tee-ball. Doing it tomorrow night (Monday). Will share pics.

My buddy at work does his On his BGE with parchment paper. He leaves it in instead of using corn meal.


Sent from Lake Cole.

[trussin]

Alan, it is parchment paper. Since my stone is 14" diameter, it makes it easier to position a 13" pizza over the heat. I leave it there long enough for the crust to start to harden, then yank the rug and let the crust cook directly on the stone for the remaining time (say half of the cook). The parchment paper also makes the pizza assembly line more efficient since I can just slide it across the counter or shift it on to a cooking sheet.

[SACole]

Ok I got my chance to try pizza on the Kamado Joe. I got the dough from whole foods ($4) on my way home from work. I definitely learned that when everyone is hungry this is not a food to do on a work night. We usually eat around 6. It was close to 6:45. I didn't let it get hot enough before putting the kids pizza on so it took a while. I also made the wife a calzone and it busted open dripping out a lot of its cheese.

Overall the end result was good. Took a while to get there. I also put a tad too much cheese on there. Next time this will be a Saturday or Sunday cook.

ImageUploadedByYard Help1461030265.088113.jpg

ImageUploadedByYard Help1461030301.960689.jpg

ImageUploadedByYard Help1461030359.076488.jpg

Sent from a Kamado Joe.

[dfw_pilot]

That looks like it was worth waiting for.