A week ago, I took my Pizza Kettle on its maiden voyage.
The pies came out very good, but with the help of gtsum, who is a pizza kettle and dough expert, I made some changes.
If you didn't read the original thread, you can check it out here:
http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=94116
First, I lined the inside part of the kettle with HD aluminum foil to seal up any gaps between the edges of the stone and the kettle. This prevented heat and air from coming up along the edges of the stone.
I also used his dough and prep techniques, in addition to hand stretching the dough vs. rolling it out. This dough stretched beautifully and was very easy to shape into rounds. I dusted the pizza peel with semolina flour just before putting the dough on the peel, which made sliding them off the peel onto the stone a piece of cake. Here is the first pie being dressed with homemade sauce:
We made two kinds of pies: Sausage & sage with whole milk mozzarella, and Tomato, Prosciutto, Fresh Mozz & Basil(didn't put the basil on till after it cooked):
It took the pizza kettle 20 mins to reach a stone temp of 675. The pizzas cooked in about 3.5 minutes.
Here they are after we pulled them from the pizza kettle:
Now check out the underneath of the pie:
These pizzas were GREAT. The dough recipe and prep techniques, along with hand stretching really were a game changer. While I didn't take pics of a slice, the inside of the dough had lots of little bubbles. The outside was crispy, while the inside was soft and chewy. Best of all, was the flavor...
The verdict? We'll never order another pizza delivery again!
BTW, if you're sitting on the sidelines, wondering whether to build one of these, DO IT!
Here's the dough recipe, copied exactly as I received it, although we used AP flour:
this would make 2 13 inch pies:
Flour (100%): 399.7 g | 14.1 oz | 0.88 lbs
Water (68%): 271.8 g | 9.59 oz | 0.6 lbs
IDY (.85%): 3.4 g | 0.12 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.13 tsp | 0.38 tbsp
Salt (2%): 7.99 g | 0.28 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1.67 tsp | 0.56 tbsp
Oil (2%): 7.99 g | 0.28 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1.78 tsp | 0.59 tbsp
Total (172.85%): 690.88 g | 24.37 oz | 1.52 lbs | TF = 0.0918
Single Ball: 345.44 g | 12.18 oz | 0.76 lbs
This is with Sams Club Bread Flour. This is for a thickness factor of about .09 - this is a little thinner then a NY style pie (traditional NY pie anyways). I have tried hand mixing, bread machine (bad!), and kitchen aid mixer..I use the KA...I put my water and yeast and salt in the bowl and mix to dissolve. I then slowly add about 2/3 of the flour with the mixer on speed 1. I only mix long enough to incorporate the flour into the water. Stop and let sit for about 20 minutes. Continue mixing on speed 1 and slowly add in the rest of the flour and mix for another 5-8 minutes. Let rest for about 10 minutes. I then take the dough out and either bulk rise and then divide into balls or I divide into balls and then do a few stretch and folds to trap air (light and springy rim) and then let room rise for 2-3-4 hours - when they get to about 75% increase in size, I make the shells and cook them. This is quite a bit of yeast..if you are going to cold ferment in the fridge for a few days you need to reduce the amount of yeast. I actually prefer same day dough to cold fermenting usually. The sweet spot on mine is about 615 degrees stone temp and the dome temp is about 800...mine cook in about 3:45-4 minutes, rotating every 45 seconds or so.