FrankenWeber Pizza Kettle Cook, Round 2: 3.5 Minute Pizzas!

[Moose]

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.

[Saiko]

Awesome! Bookmarked and saved, I'll be trying this for sure!

[polishdon]

Nice work, those pies look fantastic.

[bob80001]

Great looking pies! Glad to see the additional mods worked out for you! I fired up the Pizza Kettle again this weekend as well. We also changed our dough technique to stretch vs rolling and found it to be superior. Thanks for the update!

[colonel00]

Hmm, no photo proof you cooked that in the frankenweber. Looks great though

[gtsum]

NIce job Richard! Those pies look fantastic! Did you use same day dough, or did you cold ferment for a day or two? I know I am in the minority, but I actually prefer same day dough usually. Lately I have been freezing the doughballs with my vacuum sealer and then using them later on...makes it easier to have pizza during the week!

And I agree..it is pretty hard to entertain the idea of ordering out for pizza when you can make pies like you just did! nice job!

Shaun

[Garyclaw]

Nice lookin pies. Been entertaining the idea a while now. Just need a stone and a peel.

[BamaRambler]

Those pies look great. I made pies on my UDS and used pizza dough from Publix deli department. We cooked 10 dinner plate size pizza's and they where all awsome.
These are my pies done in the UDS.

I saw the Frankenweber a few weeks ago and had to make one. Got the same dough again. This time we had a hard time stretching the dough out for thin pies. Every pie kept drawing back up so i cooked like that and every pie ended up burnt crust before the top was done. I followed the directions to make the Frankenweber and got the stone to around 600 deg.
Sorry no pics of pies done in the Frankenweber.
What did i do wrong with dough. Any advice

[Grillman]

They look Pizzarific.....

[Gore]

Well, this is terrible. I can't decide which one I want to eat MORE. Great job Moose!

[gjdad]

Do you have guarenteed 30 min delivery or its free?

[Moose]

Without pics and details of your build, it's hard to provide meaningful feedback...what size is your kettle, what kind of stone are you using, what are you using for a diffuser etc will all help. On my first cook, the tops of the pies were not cooking as well, so the simple foil mod I used solved the problem.

I can also tell you this: make your own dough! It will be way better than anything premade. I think you'll have good luck with gtsum's dough recipe...

Originally Posted by BamaRambler

I saw the Frankenweber a few weeks ago and had to make one. Got the same dough again. This time we had a hard time stretching the dough out for thin pies. Every pie kept drawing back up so i cooked like that and every pie ended up burnt crust before the top was done. I followed the directions to make the Frankenweber and got the stone to around 600 deg. Sorry no pics of pies done in the Frankenweber.
What did i do wrong with dough. Any advice

[BamaRambler]

My daughters took some pictures. I'll have to get the pics off her camera.
22" kettle, 16" Pizza Stone 1/2"thick, Diffuser?, did not use a diffuser.
Next time i will try the dough recipe you posted.

[Moose]

OK, that helps a bit. Did you mount a pizza pan in the lid of the weber to lower the ceiling of the "oven"? This is very important.

The diffuser is also important, unless you plan on using something really thick like firebricks. Also, I'm assuming you're using propane to power your oven, right? If you read the original thread which is in a link in this one, you can see I used a ten inch steel bowl 1/2 way filled with sand, which seems to work perfectly.

Last thing is creating a ''D" shape using your stone and HD foil. If you read the original thread I posted, the problem I had, just like you did was the top of the pies were not cooked as much as the bottoms. if your setup is similar to mine, it's easily remedied by a few tweaks as noted here and you'll be good to go.

There's also some good dough stretching videos on youtube that illustrate how easy it is to get a good round shape out of a ball of dough.

Originally Posted by BamaRambler

My daughters took some pictures. I'll have to get the pics off her camera.
22" kettle, 16" Pizza Stone 1/2"thick, Diffuser?, did not use a diffuser.
Next time i will try the dough recipe you posted.

[landarc]

Excellent pies man, great job. I normally prefer fermented doughs, but, I can see the argument for a same day pizza.