Weber Kettle Club Forums
Cooking & Food Talk => Charcoal Grilling & BBQ => Topic started by: addicted-to-smoke on May 16, 2015, 05:18:29 AM
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Just a leftover picture from last week. I forget the brand but this was a super-thin crust frozen pizza. I added the peppers to it however.
I already prefer thin crust, but thin crust is easiest to do well when you're not using a CI skillet or anything resembling a dedicated pizza oven.
I used my standard "low and slow ..." pizza setup, a Pampered Chef stone atop 2 firebricks on their long edge for height and running on a chimney's worth of charcoal spread around the perimeter. I could get more heat/faster time (don't ask how long this took) by lighting a 2nd chimney, but don't actually own a 2nd chimney, at least not full size.
(http://pics.weberkettleclub.com/images/2015/05/16/frozenthinpizza.jpg)
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Have you tried making your own dough and pizzas? Once you have made your own dough and pizzas on the kettle, you''ll never buy store bought or pizza restaurant crap again. It's a weekly tradition at our house. The wife makes dough on Friday and we have Pizzas or Calzones over the weekend. Mmmmmm........ Calzones......(Honey ! Get the dough out and I'll lite some coals)....Gotta go !!!!
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Rsmims, that's on the to-do list, yes. Just not an immediate priority for research. I suppose I could begin with grocery store dough and proceed from there.
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Little something I like to add to the flour before I start the kitchen aid a whirlin': A little cinnamon. and I mean just a PINCH. just adds this extra layer to the taste. at least we think so.
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I will say though, a very good ready made dough out here on the east coast is made by Portland Pie Co. Shaws carries it near me. They offer several flavors but you can't go wrong with either basil or garlic dough imho.
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and since we're talking frozen: Digiorno's Italian Style Favorites Meatball Marinara. OMFG! I have my wife buy every single one she can get her hands on 'cause I'm afraid they'll discontinue them!
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I burned the crap out of the last pizza I made. I didn't know what I was doing and piled the coals under the stone rather than around he edge, and had no way to raise the pizza higher in the kettle dome. Needless to say, the crust was asphalt by the time the top was anywhere near cooked, but the top half was salvageable.
I'm looking forward to giving it another go with some of the tips and tricks picked up here.
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Been, there, did that too. Yeah if you search you'll see some common ideas I think, such as:
* Keep heat towards the perimeter. It'll "curl up" on the kettle sides easier so that it hits the lid and comes back down; the toppings get done better and the middle of the crust doesn't get blasted.
* Doing the above, some guys will report a pizza stone isn't even necessary actually.
Do you have firebricks? Mine are solid clay from reclaimed construction, same thing essentially but have an insulating property about them that some firebricks don't have? For this reason I use them sparingly and for pizzas, only as height spacers. If I were to lay them down flat, necessary if using my 18, they absorb a little too much heat but guarantee the bottom crust can't be burned.
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"* Doing the above, some guys will report a pizza stone isn't even necessary actually."
That would be me.....never used a stone.....almost always small, personal sized pies (sorta like the Personal Turkey Meatloafs)