FINALLY! By Popular Request! How To Build The FrankenWeber Pizza Kettle!

Moose - your pizzas look great and I'm from Chicago. I know this is an old thread, but I would like to build one for myself. I have been looking at other other builds, but many need welding - which is currently above my skill set. Best part is, other than the Red Sky pizza stone (which is tough to find these days), I have almost everything else laying around to make your pizza oven.

Question for you guys - anyone try to put some smoke to the pizza to make it more "wood fired taste"? I was thinking maybe like many do in gas grills when you put wood chips in aluminum foil when trying to smoke in a gas grill?

I love my gas grill and I love my charcoal grills, but would like to have the option to put some wood taste in my pizzas if I'm feeling for that taste in that cook.

Just curious on what you guys think.
 
Jdawg said:
Moose - your pizzas look great and I'm from Chicago. I know this is an old thread, but I would like to build one for myself. I have been looking at other other builds, but many need welding - which is currently above my skill set. Best part is, other than the Red Sky pizza stone (which is tough to find these days), I have almost everything else laying around to make your pizza oven.

Question for you guys - anyone try to put some smoke to the pizza to make it more "wood fired taste"? I was thinking maybe like many do in gas grills when you put wood chips in aluminum foil when trying to smoke in a gas grill?

I love my gas grill and I love my charcoal grills, but would like to have the option to put some wood taste in my pizzas if I'm feeling for that taste in that cook.

Just curious on what you guys think.
Click to expand...


Have you looked into the Pizza Kettle? If you have a Weber kettle and you're looking for some smoke flavor, this may be the way to go.

https://www.kettlepizza.com/


There's a number of Kettle Pizza owners here who crank out some fine pizza using this setup.
 
Thanks for the reply Moose! The Pizza Kettle looks pretty mice and gets solid reviews on Amazon. I wonder how long the wood or charcoal will last using it while cooking at high heats? I would imagine it would not nearly be as consistent as your pizza maker. I was thinking that wood chips could be wrapped in aluminum foil and placed over the burner until they start to smoke. Then, while still wrapped in the foil, lay them in the sand to allow smoke to rise into and over the pizza. Has anyone tried something like this?

My other question is - Pizza Kettle uses a round pizza stone. Since there does not seem to be any "D" shaped stones on the market, how does the circle version perform on your pizza maker? Their design looks similar to yours with the opening in the front. However, there's is larger so you can put a pizza in and take out. Does the larger hole help the circle stone? Lots of questions, but I'm looking forward to this build and I have most of the pieces fornit laying around the house!!
 
Jdawg said:
Thanks for the reply Moose! The Pizza Kettle looks pretty mice and gets solid reviews on Amazon. I wonder how long the wood or charcoal will last using it while cooking at high heats? I would imagine it would not nearly be as consistent as your pizza maker. I was thinking that wood chips could be wrapped in aluminum foil and placed over the burner until they start to smoke. Then, while still wrapped in the foil, lay them in the sand to allow smoke to rise into and over the pizza. Has anyone tried something like this?

My other question is - Pizza Kettle uses a round pizza stone. Since there does not seem to be any "D" shaped stones on the market, how does the circle version perform on your pizza maker? Their design looks similar to yours with the opening in the front. However, there's is larger so you can put a pizza in and take out. Does the larger hole help the circle stone? Lots of questions, but I'm looking forward to this build and I have most of the pieces fornit laying around the house!!
Click to expand...


Please keep in mind I retired this contraption over 5 years ago when I got the Blackstone Pizza Oven, a far superior cooker by a longshot. The Frankenweber was great at the time, it was fun to build, but there's much better options available now.



Never used a full circle stone on the Frankenweber, so can't answer that question, though I would think a full round stone would result in even less cooking evenness than the D stone, which required several rotations of the pie while cooking. Also, without a D shaped stone, you won't get as much heat coming over the top of the pie, so you may have an issue with the bottom of the pie being done before the top, which is a real PITA.


Also, I would not recommend putting a foil pouch of smoking chips on the top of the Bayou Classic burner - that could create some real problems!


Seriously, I would just get a pizza Kettle Kit - you can't miss with this model:


https://www.kettlepizza.com/product/kettlepizza-oven-pro-plus/
 
Have you ever cooked on the Pizza Kettle before or seen it in action? It looks like a cool product, but not sure I can justify the cost of it.
 
Thank you for sharing the links! I am on Meathead's website all the time reading his and the team's thoughts and suggestions. Plus, he is a fellow Chicago guy!

This has caused two issues:
1.) I'm now hungry for pizza and
2.) I was able to pick up a new top and bottom for a 22" Weber - no legs or bottom vent for $10 on CL and it deserves a good project. I thought a pizza cooker would be a good option, but Meathead says you can make just as good pizza with cast iron pans, stones, etc. I still am thinking a pizza cooker isn't a bad idea since I have most pieces laying around for almost any build that I would or could do.

So, what do I do with this new 22" incher if not a pizza cooker? Decisions.....
 
Sorry guys, my mind is in pizza mode now. What about if I took fire bricks, layed them over the flavorizer bars on my Weber gasser and then cooked with cast iron, pizza stone, or ? on the grates? It gets pretty hot, might take some time to get to temp, but thinking it should get to 600 degrees.
 
Jdawg said:
Thank you for sharing the links! I am on Meathead's website all the time reading his and the team's thoughts and suggestions. Plus, he is a fellow Chicago guy!

This has caused two issues:
1.) I'm now hungry for pizza and
2.) I was able to pick up a new top and bottom for a 22" Weber - no legs or bottom vent for $10 on CL and it deserves a good project. I thought a pizza cooker would be a good option, but Meathead says you can make just as good pizza with cast iron pans, stones, etc. I still am thinking a pizza cooker isn't a bad idea since I have most pieces laying around for almost any build that I would or could do.

So, what do I do with this new 22" incher if not a pizza cooker? Decisions.....
Click to expand...
The legs to my newer kettle disappeared during storage, so I did this.
picture.php
 
Jdawg said:
Sorry guys, my mind is in pizza mode now. What about if I took fire bricks, layed them over the flavorizer bars on my Weber gasser and then cooked with cast iron, pizza stone, or ? on the grates? It gets pretty hot, might take some time to get to temp, but thinking it should get to 600 degrees.
Click to expand...
Un-glazed tiles from Home Depot work in an oven, so they are a possibility.
 
That's good thinking there dadsr4! I love the performer look to it.

Is that the Kettle Pizza clone on the lower right side?
 
Jdawg said:
Sorry guys, my mind is in pizza mode now. What about if I took fire bricks, layed them over the flavorizer bars on my Weber gasser and then cooked with cast iron, pizza stone, or ? on the grates? It gets pretty hot, might take some time to get to temp, but thinking it should get to 600 degrees.
Click to expand...




Question: How are you currently making pizza now? I found it very helpful to learn the ins and outs of making pizza in my oven before doing it on an outdoor grill/cooker, which requires a bit of a learning curve.


When the weather doesn't permit and I can't use my Blackstone(or in the past, the Frankenweber), I've been able to cook great pizza in my gas oven using a high quality stone that is almost as good as from either of these cookers.


I have a 16 inch round from California Pizza Stones that has served me well for many years. I can get this stone up to about 600-625 in our gas oven, and has produced many fine pizzas.


http://www.californiapizzastones.com/


They might be able to cut a D shaped stone for you if you want to go the Frankenweber route.
 
Jdawg said:
That's good thinking there dadsr4! I love the performer look to it.

Is that the Kettle Pizza clone on the lower right side?
Click to expand...
Rotisserie. I just cook pizza on a raised rack with a pizza stone on it. Been a while, going to have to rectify that.

picture.php
 
Moose - I do a lot of grilling and barbecuing, and try to cook as much on my grills that I can - especially in the summer when you don't want to heat up the house running the oven.

Yes, I have turned out good pizzzas in our gas oven on a stone. Tried the stone on top of my 22" inch kettle, but ended up too charred and will need more practice with that method. Also, tried with stone on my gasser. Bottom of pizza turned out great, but cheese didn't melt enough as you have described many times. I'm thinking it might've need to possibly be elevated higher in the dome to get the top done better?
 
Dadsr4 - I like that raised grate build, I have this stand and stone. I want to give this a try to see if it helps brown and cook the top of pizza on my gasser.
 

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