Turn Your Weber Kettle Grill into a Kettle Pizza Oven

[Moose]

Originally Posted by PatioDaddio

Why not just get one of these? It'll withstand something like 2300*, and even
accommodates hinged Weber grates. Sure, some of the heat will escape when
you open the lid, but that stone is a serious edge-to-edge heat sponge. The
heat recovery time with a good fire should be seconds.



John

John,

I have one of these. They work fine. The problem is the bottom of the crust cooks far faster than the top. With the LBE Weber mod, you have a heat reflector on top, in addition to a side vent on the the cover of the kettle which duplicates the convection style heat you get from a pizza oven. This method allows for even doneness on both top and bottom of pizza , plus very short cook times, plus, super crispy outer crust.

[PatioDaddio]

Originally Posted by Moose

John,

I have one of these. They work fine. The problem is the bottom of the crust cooks far faster than the top. With the LBE Weber mod, you have a heat reflector on top, in addition to a side vent on the the cover of the kettle which duplicates the convection style heat you get from a pizza oven. This method allows for even doneness on both top and bottom of pizza , plus very short cook times, plus, super crispy outer crust.

Ah, gotcha.

Thanks,
John

[gtsum]

Originally Posted by PatioDaddio

Why not just get one of these? It'll withstand something like 2300*, and even
accommodates hinged Weber grates. Sure, some of the heat will escape when
you open the lid, but that stone is a serious edge-to-edge heat sponge. The
heat recovery time with a good fire should be seconds.



John

Nice find..I might need to look into one of those...the old stone brand of stones is supposed to be pretty good. I do know that pampered chef stones and any stone you get at wal mart, target, bed bath and beyond, etc are junk..I have cracked several of them. BGE or Primo pizza stones are very good though...picey, but mine are still going strong with no cracks

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by willkat98

I thought the same thing.

I see gtsum is knocking one out, which is cool, but I hope no one is paying for these.

Pampered Chef Pizza Stone was like $18. Empty a lit chimney around the outside edge of the entire kettle, center the stone so coal are not directly under it, put on lid for 20 min to heat stone, and you have a pizza making machine (I use this at least once a month when cranking out bigger pizzas)

Yes, this device looks neat, but as SIDE repeats, why invest in a Uni Tasker

"Pampered Chef Pizza Stone"
Not to hi-jack this thread, but, is this stone ware any good?? At a thrift store I found a pizza plate, a small and large shallow rectangular pans, they have been used. No price yet.

Thanks,

Paul B
SS UDS

[gtsum]

Originally Posted by Paul B

"Pampered Chef Pizza Stone"
Not to hi-jack this thread, but, is this stone ware any good?? At a thrift store I found a pizza plate, a small and large shallow rectangular pans, they have been used. No price yet.

Thanks,

Paul B
SS UDS

no..not good at all..I have 2 of them and they are now used for indoor use for fries, bread, etc. For pizza, they do not have enough mass in my opinion. I have much better luck with my Primo pizza stone (BGE stones are good too). Or, look at a soapstone.

[Bill-Chicago]

My Pampered Chef stone (gift) seems to be the exception to the rule as when I tell people I use it in a 650* egg they say that it should crack and break but it never has.

All I know is it works, but I don't have anything else to compare it to.

Yet.

.

[gtsum]

Originally Posted by willkat98

My Pampered Chef stone (gift) seems to be the exception to the rule as when I tell people I use it in a 650* egg they say that it should crack and break but it never has.

All I know is it works, but I don't have anything else to compare it to.

Yet.

.

I have to say I have not broken a PC stone (they seem to be good in that regard). For me, they did not have enough mass and I ended up with a lot of burned crusts. Using thicker, ceramic material stones seems to work better for me

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Moose

Ok, but he's not the same guy as http://kettlepizza.com/, or is he?

Take a section out of a 55-gallon drum, make a opening to slide the pizza in and out of and I should be good to go; right?

[Mark]

Originally Posted by landarc

The Pizza Hacker is San Francisco, have been following this guys efforts for a couple of years. I thought he was nuts with the mods, but, his product and rep is great.

Here's a site with detailed pics:
http://pizzacommander.blogspot.com/2...za-hacker.html

[Moose]

Originally Posted by Mark

Take a section out of a 55-gallon drum, make a opening to slide the pizza in and out of and I should be good to go; right?

You could do that, yes. No reason why it wouldn't work.The opening in the sleeve seems critical to achieve the convection effect. I see the guy who makes these uses wood logs on top of the coals all banked to the back of the grill. Also, you could go a step further and do one of the little black egg mods and attach an 8 inch pizza stone or metal pan to the inside top of the kettle lid, as well as line the inside of the cover with HD foil...

I may actually try this as I have as section of a drum I had planned to use as a rotisserie sleeve for my drum...

[pomah25]

Pretty sweet looking! I wonder if i can jerry rig something out of a drum.

[McGurk]

My thoughts, exactly. I literally JUST sketched out what it would/should/could take to make it.

-Cut the bottom 1/3 off of a drum (with bottom still on) at the rib, so it would sit on the bottom of the kettle.
-Put 4 SS bolts along the bottom hold a grate, elevating it off of the heat source about 6".
-Cut an access hole, about 4" high and wide enough to get a stone and the pizzas in and out, just above the rib with the top of the grate even with the bottom of the hole. No need for a door by this guy's design.
-Attach some sort of handles on the top of each side to allow for removal for the addition of fuel while it is hot.
-Attach a thermo if you want; it might not be a bad idea.

Tip it on it's side, put the grate in, and set it on your hot kettle. Let it get to temp with a stone in, and cook away! Seems easy enough, and you don't need his fancy shmancy laser-cut steel and custom milled handles...

[gtsum]

I got mine put together today and did a dry run. At 10 minutes the cooking stone (which was on top of the Primo Deflector stones) was at 300. At 15 minutes it was 450 and at 20 minutes it was at 625. I am going to cook some pies tonight on it and we will see how it goes. I cut out a vent in the front (side) of the lid and have my stones and d plates all the way to the front (near the vent). Have the top weber vents closed. Idea is to get the hot air moving from the back, across the pie, out the front. I dont think I have it tweaked yet because I dont think I have a hot enough temp up top (I am shooting for cooking at 650 stone temp and about 700 air temp above stone)....we will see

[bob80001]

Originally Posted by gtsum

I got mine put together today and did a dry run. At 10 minutes the cooking stone (which was on top of the Primo Deflector stones) was at 300. At 15 minutes it was 450 and at 20 minutes it was at 625. I am going to cook some pies tonight on it and we will see how it goes. I cut out a vent in the front (side) of the lid and have my stones and d plates all the way to the front (near the vent). Have the top weber vents closed. Idea is to get the hot air moving from the back, across the pie, out the front. I dont think I have it tweaked yet because I dont think I have a hot enough temp up top (I am shooting for cooking at 650 stone temp and about 700 air temp above stone)....we will see

Glad to see it can get north of 600. Can't wait to see your writeup here and some pics of what you produce. I would really like to build my own pizza oven in the back yard, but that's waaaay outta my budget, so I have been looking at alternatives.

[gtsum]

well, I could not wait to try it..so, I have 4 dough balls here, and I am also making 2 more as I type...so I thought I would go ahead with a test run. Within 15 minutes the stone temp was 600 and the dome temp read through a thermo in the lid was 750 (this is not accurate, but it gave me a general idea). I prepared a skin and found out I had NO pizza sauce...not enough time to make any, but we did have spaghetti last night, so I thought why not? Spread the skin out, slathered on the "sauce" or "gravy" as some call it and topped with whole milk shredded mozz. Slid it on and stood back to see what would happen.............I rotated every 45 seconds and after 3 minutes the bottom was perfect, but I had a ways to go on top yet, so I slid an cold aluminum perforated pizza pan underneath the pie directly on the pizza stone and cooked him another 45 seconds...took him off at 3 min 50 seconds and I must say, it came out fantastic. This was the best crust I have made (and that includes maybe 30 pies on the Primo ceramic cooker). It was charred nicely (no pics...only one I got was blurry) and the rim was nice and crunchy on the outside and soft and moist on the inside. Strange it sounds, the pizza sauce (meat sauce to boot) was actually not bad on the pizza! At least I know what to expect for my next pies now...at least I hope I do....For a first time on a rattle trap put together cooker, I am quite surprised it came out better then anything I have done on the Primo....

A few thoughts - I need a larger disk or stone up in the lid...I need more heat on top of the pie to get the nice leopard pattern on the rim and cheese - I need about an 18 inch stone though (hard to get). I think that will help me on heating the top. Once I get that fixed up, I will attempt higher heat pies (720 stone temps, etc). I am going to have to get a different grate as well, as the stock cooking grate is going to warp with the heat and the weight of the D plates and the Primo stone on it - I might use the 18 inch charcoal grate and drill long bolts in the side of the cooker to hold it....here are some pics - I am going to clean up some of the rough spots, but I was too anxious to try it out today!