Missed the TD for pizza. A few words from my experience.

Thanks for the edafacation! Awesome!!!

Hi Jed,
Thanks for sharing your expertise. I'm having a go at making my first pizza tonight so I'm studying the info I can find at my favorite forums. It was good to see your post at the top of the heap here.

I've already made the dough using a recipe I found for a whole wheat dough (2C whole wheat flour and 1 1/2C all purpose flour.) Probably won't be as good as your crust but hopefully better for us.

I'm going to bake it on a Weber kettle. I know I can't do 750°F but I think I can coax my 26 to about 500°F with two chimney's of lump. I understand that one of the issues when using a kettle is to get enough heat to the top of the pizza w/out charring the bottom of the crust. I bought some fire brick (1 1/4" thick) to build a platform on the middle of the cooker and will put the pizzas on 9" cast iron tortilla griddles to bake them. (I know that's pretty non-traditional, but lacking a proper peel it looks like my best fall back.)

Sorry to hear about the business. Chicago only just modified their laws to permit food carts/trucks. I'm sure there was a lot of pressure from brick and mortar restaurants to prevent that. Hopefully that will work out for the eating population in town.

rcbaughn said:

That upsets me about your pizza business. It's sad that the government can impede a business from staying in business with frivolous regulation measures.

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I don't want to take this off-topic, but food safety is incredibly important.
I've been in Florida, other restaurants and food carts appear to be able to comply. There are good reasons for health departments and their rules.
A few months ago, someone posted a story of a restaurant dragging in a deer carcass. Without these rules, there would be serious health issues with dining out as some people have no morals and would serve anything to make a buck.

Nice looking pizzas Thanks for the info

Awesome info, thank you!

Man I had mine at 650 and burned mine pretty bad. Def gonna try it again soon.

Hank B, I have been messing with my kettle for pizza, here is what I found. If I build a fire in the bottom, it is impossible to get the air to flow over the top to get the proper cooking of the top of the pie. If I build it the fire on the cooking grate, the top cooks fine, but, the crust does not. Since I cook small pizzas, my next test will be to build two fires, one on the bottom to heat the stone properly, and one on the top grate, to create heat in the dome.

I also keep the top vent closed, and leave the lid ajar, this allows for more air, a hotter fire and a side draft air flow, aiding in pizza cooking. The fire is built on the handle side, so I can rest the lid, so that the air flows over the pizza and cooks the top.

Wow, that is amazing. With all these "pizza oven threads" you folks are going to drive me to build a pizza oven. haha

Thanks! Beautiful pies! :thumb:

pmad said:

I don't want to take this off-topic, but food safety is incredibly important.
I've been in Florida, other restaurants and food carts appear to be able to comply. There are good reasons for health departments and their rules.
A few months ago, someone posted a story of a restaurant dragging in a deer carcass. Without these rules, there would be serious health issues with dining out as some people have no morals and would serve anything to make a buck.

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Here in Birmingham all the regulations have to do with brick and mortars lobbying the city council aggressively to make it hard for food trucks and food trailers to survive. I'm sure that safety has a little to do with it too, but mostly in this city it's politics. That's why I hold some angst against food regulatory bodies.

Sorry if that was off topic. But thanks for the link, I've been to the VPN site before but never done a whole lot of reading. I started making pies with my Ischia starter and have never looked back. I think that wild yeast leavening is so much better than commercially made yeast.