Jumbo Joe wants to be a pizza oven

[Charcoal_Guerrilla]

Hi all, long time non-poster but longer time reader,

I have a spare old Weber Jumbo Joe that I want to turn into a pizza oven/kettle. I've got a 18" pizza oven riser from Kettle BBQ Bits in South Australia. Now I plan to put a Weber chimney full of (about 40-45) lit briquettes snake like around the kettle and some good fist size chunks of oak on top of the briquettes at the back of the JJ. I'm thinking of using a 1cm thick square pizza steel either 14" x 14" or 12 x 12 inches).

Looking for advice generally including if I'm completely off track on making nice thin Neapolitan pizza with nice leopard spotting (putting aside my cooking skills). Will I get a high enough temp eg around 700F measured on the steel?

Thanks in advance!


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[smokin_3-5x]

I've got a 22 with the kettle pizza attachement. It gets to screamin' temps with what you describe.

How has it worked out for you since posting?

[smokin_3-5x]

Forgot to add - even with the size advantage of the 22" you end up using "indirect" or convection heat. the 18" might make for some smaller pizzas which is fun to crank out a bunch for friends/family.

[Charcoal_Guerrilla]

@smokin_3-5x  It went pretty well. Ended up using an oversized SnS basket filled with a chimney of briquettes and 4 chunks of apple wood. Placed the grate in the kettle then a knock custom made 18" Kettle Pizza styled attachment. On top of the attachment sat the Weber 22" deflector shield and a pizza stone followed by the kettle lid. The pizza stone for the cook was placed on the cooking grate already inside the pizza oven - then we let the oven to heat up for 30 mins. Chucked 3 more chunks on and waited for them to catch and then started loading our first pizza. Each pizza took about 3-5 mins so I should have cranked up the heat a fair bit more eg a few double splits to get the pizza stone up to 650c. Pizza tasted good though.


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[Transit98]

Sounds great - Any pics you can share?


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[Charcoal_Guerrilla]

Hi thanks for your interest, I've found some photos of the cook and one with the Jumbo Joe assembled. Unfortunately, I don't have pics with the "pizza kettle" unassembled.


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[Charcoal_Guerrilla]

Bonus pic of a Weber kettle charcoal pizza attachment in action (found when digging through older photos).


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[stillgriller]

Bonus pic of a Weber kettle charcoal pizza attachment in action (found when digging through older photos).


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Look at that bowl blush.