Grilling Pizza
 

Has anyone used one of these for making pizza in a smoker?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...lance&n=286168

I make a lot of pizza and unless your smoker is capable of reaching 500 degrees, a charcoal or gas grill with a stone is a much better way of making pizza.
If ya want some smoke flavor, just use a couple of wood chunks or some chips.

Absolutely right. Charcoal and a stone is the way to go. I have had mixed results trying to add smoke (seems like always too much) and have settled for using smoked meats on the pizza.

This is what I use, and pizza on the smoker is da bomb!
http://www.pamperedchef.com/our_prod...ategoryCode=FH

Maybe with the stone it would be ok, but it is hard to see getting a smoker hot enough to cook pizza. Needs to be around 475.

I like doing pizza right on the grill with no stone. you need to flip the curst, and you need to be fast.

Does anyone have a really good crust recipe?

My vote is for the stone too. As a little insurance against burning the crust (we make the thin crust ones) I went all-out for the 3 pack of screen's at WalMart for $.89. The package says "disposable" but I fooled those farkers at corporate headquarters and have been using the same 3 for almost 4 years. You can make two or three ahead of time & hold them in the fridge. With the screen you don't need a peel either.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...e/623f6422.jpg

Don't forget about using flour tortillas for mini-pizzas, or quesadillas on the grill either. Then everyone can pick their own toppings and build their own. They don't need quite the heat and simple ones like cheese and onion are good instead of bread with dinner.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...e/201a1460.jpg

Copied this from a post I made at another forum. This is a really good NY style crust recipe (medium thickness). If your oven or grill will get to 500-600 it is awesome.

I've made bad pizza crusts for years. Finally decided I was going to learn to make something better. There dozens of different types of pizza, I wanted to make something like I got at a place in NoCal back in the 80's called Flatt's Pizza Factory. Some research showed that I was after NY style pizza.
NY style pie features a crust which is thin and foldable in the middle, with a rim that puffs high in the oven, that is crispy on the outside and light and airy on the inside.
The other big improvement I wanted to make was getting rid of the pasty flour taste my crusts have always had in the past.
Did pretty good on both accounts. Texture was good, flavor was excellent. Can't wait to try this again.


If you have kitchen scales, use them to weigh the flour and water, the ratio of these 2 ingredient is really important and weighing is the most accurate way to ensure this. I only have wal-mart cheapy scales and they worked great.
Look at your local grocery for a "bread flour". These have a higher gluten content and will greatly improve the finished product. If you can't find any, maybe you can find "vital wheat gluten" (comes in a small jiffy cornbread sized box) to augment all purpose flour. This will be better than AP flour alone, but not as good as the bread flour. I found pilsbury bread flour and Gold Medal "better for bread" (used this one) at Wally Super and my local grocery store, so hopefully you can find it too.

This recipe is a retarded dough (cold rise in fridge for 24 hrs), it's worth the wait.

Ingredients for 2 16" pies (my stone is only 15" and this recipe worked fine)

Flour 25.5 oz (5 3/4 cups)
Water (bottled or filtered if handy) 15.9 oz by weight or 1 3/4+ cups volume
Salt (kosher) 1 3/4 tsp
Oil (light olive oil or canola) 1 1/2 tsp
yeast (instant or acitvated dry yeast) 1 tsp
sugar 1 tsp (I used honey instead and really liked the results)

If using ADY (activated dry yeast, std individual pkg yeast) take a 1/4 cup or so of the total water, warm this to ~100* and dissolve yeast in small bowl.
If using IDY (instant dry yeast, fleischmanns from sam's) you can skip the above proofing step.

Put cool (60-65*) water in mixer bowl with dough hook, add about 3/4 of the total flour, mix on stir speed for 2 mins just until it look sorta like smooth pancake batter. Turn off mixer, wait 20 mins. Add yeast, sugar, salt and oil. Set a timer for 10 mins,mix on stir speed, gradually adding flour until you can up the speed without making a mess, then go to speed 2. Mix until timer expires.

NOTE: If like me, you're used to making bread in the KA mixer, this dough is going to look hopelessly wet, it will puddle in the bottom of the bowl, something that would normally cause me to add another 1/4-1/2 cup of flour, DON'T!! It's supposed to be this wet and will be suprisingly sturdy for something this wet due to the high protein flour.
Also, as you work with this stuff, try to add as little bench flour as possible for handling, its a bit sticky like canned biscuit dough but isn't as sticky as it looks.
Check the temp of the dough as you take it off the hook, you're shooting for 75* or so. You start with water cooler than that, as the friction from the mixer will add heat. Mine came out 84* (water too warm) but it worked out fine anyway.

Remove from bowl onto work surface and divide into 2 equal sized parts (using scales if you have them, 20-22oz each). Hand work (as little as possible) into smooth balls, and place in either gallon ziplocs (lightly sprayed inside) or better yet, round rubbermaid type sealable containers (i used 1.5qt no. 3 rubbermaid). When it comes time to make crusts, the already round shape is a great head start. Lightly spray containers and dough balls. Seal in containers and put in fridge overnight.

Remove containers from fridge 2 - 2 1/2 hrs before making pies. When the dough is 65* it's ready. This stuff doesn't really do much in the way of "raising" like one is used to with bread dough, don't worry it's gonna be fine.

If you have a pizza stone, pre-heat it for an hour while the dough warms up, to the max your oven will go (mine goes to 550).
I use a stone, but my OL complained about the cornmeal mess using a peel left in the oven so a few years ago, I started prepping crusts on parchment paper precut to the size of the stone (maybe a touch smaller, and leave a tab to use for handle, kinda like a capital Q) and just sliding parchment, pizza and all directly from a peel, rimless pizza pan or upside down baking sheet onto the stone. No mess, no grief from the Boss!!
If don't have a stone, you can use a pan, although the amount of "oven spring" that produces the airy nature of this crust won't be as good.
4 8" unglazed quarry tiles from Lowe's or Home Depot will work in lieu of a stone just fine, and a lot cheaper than a stone too.

When dough reaches 65* put dough on pan (lightly sprayed) or parchment (lightly floured and dusted off). Gently as possible begin squishing the dough towards the edges of the pan or paper, if necessary lift it a little and allow it to stretch under its own weight around the perimeter (like shuffling your hands on a steering wheel as you make a turn). You want the thinnest area to be the center working gradually toward the thickest area at the edge. You don't need to make a pronounced rim on the raw crust, this will happen on its own in the oven if you leave the edge thicker than the rest of the crust.

Top with sauce, toppings and cheese as you like. Bake until the edges of the crust begin to brown a bit, (mine took maybe 4-6 mins total, but i never time pizza as it varies each time so I just watch it) check the bottom of the crust by lifting with a spatula. If it looks done and the cheese isn't as done as you like, just move the pie to an upper rack, and use the broiler for a bit.

Here's a thin crust recipe I've made a couple of times that's pretty good too, but I prefer the NY style.

http://pizzamaking.com/thincrust.php

KC: Now thats a farkin recipe. I will be heading to Bed, Bath and Beyond for a kitchen scale a little later and digging out the old KA tonite. Outstanding detail. I cant wait until tommorrow night. Thanks.

Most pizza places here will sell you their dough. Im sure it's the same all over the country. If u want to make your own dough these recipes sound good.

My wife has a recipe that she uses to make pizza's with that's just Fan"damn"tastic. It's a quick riser that has to be seprated 2-3 times before we roll it out for pizzas. I'll have to see if I can find it and post it sometime.

Here's a few more pizza tips that are worth mentioning.

If you have a stone and a high temp setup (450+) resisit any temptation to precook your sauce. With a hot oven and stone a very thin sauce will cook a lot in just a few minutes even under toppings. If you precook the sauce you'll get something verymuch the consistency of tomato paste or even drier. Traditional pizza joint sauce is usually just raw crushed tomatoes with herbs and garlic. I use canned (jarred) commercial pasta sauce and it works well, some brands can benefit from a little added water. A little parm or romano sprinkled over the sauce is a really nice touch.

Cool pizzas on a rack. I set one of the racks from the oven on some cans on the counter. If you cool the pizza on a cutting board or on the counter, condensation develops betweent the crust and the surface it's sitting on and makes the nice crispy crunchy crust you've worked to get soggy. Cool for 5-7 minutes depending on size of the pie and the toppings won't try to migrate off the ends of the slices as bad.

Don't use too much cheese, and there are lots of cheeses that are good on pizza besides mozzerella. I use mozz but always with some other stuff to go with it. A little colby or cheddar will help the top brown up and gives great flavor. Pepperjack (especially sargento's new jack with jap & habs) is awesome on smoked chicken pizza.
When possible shred your own cheese or use slices. Pre-shredded cheese has been dusted with a flour mixture (to prevent shreds from sticking) that gums up the cheese and changes the taste some too.



Hope it works as well for you as it has for me!! I owed you a recipe anyway. I printed up you jambalya recipe the other day and plan on giving it a try. I love the stuff but have never tried a traditional recipe without tomatoes.

Thanks alot KC. You know tomatoes or no tomatoes is the cultural divide in jambalaya. Tomato based is the more traditional creole/New Orleans form and often has seafood. Brown jambalaya, as it is called here, is favord in the acadian/cajun areas in middle of the state and nearly always uses pork. I love and cook both. Be sure and render that pork until you build up a good gradoo on the bottom of the pot. Thats where the unique coloration and flavor come from.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Pizza can be found in one book.

American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza by Peter Reinhart

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158...e=UTF8&s=books


This book is amazing. the first section is how the guy tours the world searching out delicious pizzas. The second half is an assortment of dough recipes, sauce recipes and step by step instructions on how to cook a pick a perfect pie. Read the reviews on Amazon

Good stuff. I use wholewheat flour ( better for diabetics plus I think it tastes better) and grill it on the grill so it gets good deep grill marks. Sometimes the dough firms up on the grill so it ends up like waffle fries. Then when you turn it over and add sauce cheese (etc.) it really grips. No bubbling hot topping sliding off that way.

I'm a little suprised that no one has spoken up and said, "I used to work in a pizza joint when I was younger".

If anyone has pizza parlor experience, I have some questions I'd like to ask.

Rockaway, Your book reference is an excellent choice. I haven't read it myself, but Reinhart is a real heavy in the world of pizza. There are alot of NY style crust recipes that bear his name and the one I posted earlier in the thread is a simplified version of one of his recipes.

My first job was slingin' pies at Little Caesar's. Most of my concentration, though, was spent trying to figure out how to get into Lisa Lively's pants. Alas, working wasn't the only thing I was inexperienced in . . .

My dad also worked in a Pizza joint in college- the original Hideaway in Stillwater, OK. (some of you may know Hideaway- seriously great pizza). When he graduated in 1965, the owner asked him to become a partner in the business. My dad asked his dad what he should do. My grandfater replied, "Son, pizza is just a fad. Don't do it."

Why is it they're always named Lisa?

Back OT....

Shohn, do pizza joints actually use different doughs for thick and thin crusts, or is it just a matter of how much dough is used for a given size pie?

I have found that the secret to a great grilled pizza is the crust. What we have done is go to Costco or Sam's club and buy a case of there pre-made pizza dough for about $22. You can roll it out pretty thin and it works great. We even cook this stuff on our Treager pellet grill, so all you "have to cook it on charcoal" people are nutz :-) And yes we do get the great grill marks on the pizza, great smoke flavor and NO burnt crust. We have used both the stone and no stone for making pizza's and we prefer no stone. You just need to remember to time the crust turning and have everything ready a head of time.

Bossman
[email protected]

IIRC, Little Caesar's didn't offer a traditional, crisp, thin crust pizza. There was a medium- thickness, sort of "homestyle," and deep pan. For both of these, the dough was the same concoction in different quantities. For the "homestyle," the pans were dusted with cornmeal before the dough was spread in it. For deep pan, the pan was oiled pretty heavily before dough application. The deep pans were square, but that probably doesn't make much of a difference. To the best of my knowledge, real thin-crust dough is baked some before the toppings are applied, then baked again as a pizza, sort of like a pie crust. I may be wrong about this as an industry-wide practice, but I've seen pizza recipes that call for this technique.

I worked at Spinners Pizza in Brownwood when i was a senior in highschool. Was a great job most of our pies were thin crust and then deep dish, no homestyle or hand tossed. I came in and prepped dough before school and returned to work buffet at lunch when i got out of school. we kept our dough in 55 gal trash cans lined with trashbag, and kept them in the cooler till we needed it. we had a docker roller machine that rolled our dough out for us. and docked it to prevent airbubbles in the crust. It was a damn good pizza joint. but the owner/boss man couldnt keep his nose out the powder and eventually ran out of town after the drug dealers started showin up at 730 in the morning while i was prepping dough lookin for em. pretty scary.. he came in one and we ran the lunch buffet then he took all the money from the register and shut her down. Allways enjoyed it, hell ive even thought about working part time at dominos just to make pies.

I used to work in a pizza joint when I was younger.

I was one of the delivery boys. Does that count? :-D Delivering to the sororities at Northwestern University was always the hot run. Lousy tips, but you never knew what the girls would be wearing when they came to the door!

Sounds like a movie . . .

I delivered pie briefly when I was in college. I hated it, and never worked in the kitchen save for washing dishes.

This thread has really got me wanting to make some pizza- I think it just went on the menu for this weekend. I'm gonna try making some whole wheat crust.

Great idea. The power of suggestion has taken hold of me once again. Thin crust is my preference so I'll mix up the thin crust dough KC linked to today, and pie on the stone in the Chargriller it will be tomorrow. I can get the Chargriller up to 450* or so with direct heat. Can't wait.

One of my first jobs as a kid was at Shakey's Pizza Parlor. I was the skin man. We had only one type of crust though. My boss crushed his fingers in the dough press on my first day. I had to take him to the hospital and then go back and clean up the machine. I damn sure kept my farking fingers way clear of those rollers.

I think I smell roadmap in this thread.

If you have a Trader Joe's near you, they have bags of premade dough for 99 cents... regular, whole wheat and garlic pesto. They make about 3 individual sized pizzas each.

I like to do my pizzas on the grill, no stone, to cook the crust, then move that and toppings onto the smoker to melt the cheese, heat up everything, and add some smoke. I've tried doing it all on the grill, but this is my favorite way.

www.pizzamaking.com is the best..
I tried making pizza in my barrel smoker and couldn't get it hot enuff even with mesquite..useing a pizza stone works best..
I'll be buying a propane grill as soon as my deck is finished..with those you can get the temps up to 700 degrees..if you want to make good pizza you need 600 to 800 degrees..
making pizza with a good BBQ sauce turns out nice and get fresh mozzeralla not the rubberball stuff..
http://101MSDCF

I think it was in Cook's Illustrated where they discussed this... Different flours will yield different results at different temps. Meaning that the flours used for a real pizza oven don't work well at lower temps, and all purpose flours don't work well at the higher temps for pizza. Using the right flour will allow good crust at lower temps.

This whole thread has made me want to give this a spin. We actually have the PC round stone.....Sam's club even sells the dough....if the rain stops here maybe i'll give it a try!
Thanks so much for sharing!

Where are you at that you are getting rain?
I could cook a pizza on top of my smoker here.
It's so dry and hot.

Check the pic in post 15 here:http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/sh...ighlight=pizza

okay...I'm sold!!!
Off to Sam's....

Goshen in NY State....thundershowers...again. We've had really crap weather most of the summer.Hot and Humid..... But it helps the tomatoes in the garden grow!

Or post #8 here http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/sh...ighlight=pizza

Oh yeah!. Got 2 batches of the thin style crust from your earlier link rising in the patio fridge for pie tomorrow evening. 102* in Duluth MN and I'm planning pizza for tomorrow. Gotta love the outdoor cooking.

Way back when I worked at a pizza parlor I too had to take someone to the Hospital after he got his fingers in the dough roller. What made it worse was he pulled them out and pulled the meat back on his fingers.

Never made Pizza on the grill before.

I have a stone so I'm going to have to give it a try soon.

Attention Brothers. I farked up BIG TIME. In post #9 on page one of this thread, I made a serious typo in my NY style crust recipe. It has been corrected (correction in red) and double checked for accuracy.

I'm very sorry if anyone tried this and had problems with it, my sincerest apologies.

Now that the recipe is correct, try it and make some killer pie!!!