The Perfect Pizza Oven for Cheap People Like Me

If you follow my blog or follow me on Facebook, and I know not many do because sometimes it feels like I'm the only one in here (something like that poor dude who's job it is to try and communicate with the extraterrestrial life day after day waiting for them to answer), you will know I've been trying to perfect my pizza making skills this summer.  Some people might even say I am obsessing over it, well to be honest a guy at work did tell me that, but I am so close to making pizzas better than the local pizza joints I am determined to finish the job.  In a conversation with a fellow worker today, the same one that claims I'm obsessed with making the perfect pizza, we both agreed learning how to make great pizza takes awhile to figure out. My experimenting for the perfect pizza began over 6 years ago, maybe even longer. Now I think I have been making good pizza for awhile, at least in my opinion, but I wanted to take it to the next level.

I made a huge jump in my pizza making skills late this spring when I came across a tweet from Mario Batali when someone asked him what is the best pizza dough.  Mario tweeted his answer back as "Mozza, the same one we use in our Mozza restaurant."  If you want the story behind the dough you can check out my earlier post called the Ultimate Quest for Pizza Dough.  Simply put this is the best pizza dough recipe I ever tried and I have tried a lot of them.

With the pizza dough out of the way it was time to turn my attention to the cooking device.  From everything I have read, the secret to making the ultimate pizza is temperature, and lots of it, like over 700 degrees F worth.  The big question is "How to accomplish this without burning down the house?"  If your oven is like mine you might get 500 to 550 degrees F. out of it, not quite enough.  Plus anything over that I get paranoid and have the fire department's number handy just in case the cabinets decide to catch fire.  My next choice, the good ole Weber grill.  The problem, at least for me, is when I put the pizza stone in the grill it blocks all the heat from getting up to the dome so the top of the pizza cooks.  With charcoal I could get about 450 to 500 degrees F inside the grill, still not good enough.  My next choice, buy a pizza oven but I didn't feel like shelling out $5000 dollars for an oven to make pizza.  

I was willing to keep cooking pizzas on the grill the old fashion way until one day a few weeks ago lil sis sent me a message through Facebook saying "Check this out."  My first thought was "Is she sending me information on a sewing machine or something similar that I really have no use for?"  But lo and behold, much to my surprise, she sent me a link to an accessory that converts my Weber grill into a bonafide pizza oven.  How did I miss this all these years?  I'm always looking for my next grilling accessory, after all, you can never have enough grilling accessories.  This particular item is from a company called KettlePizza.  If you want information click on the link and it will take you to their web site which is loaded with all sorts of information and other accessories to go along with the pizza oven accessory.

As I am trying to check out this wonderful new find lil sis keeps chatting me up on Facebook and distracting me from my research.  If you are obsessed (there I finally admitted my addiction) as making pizza as I am this is much to important of a find to spend time chatting when there is so much research to be done.  Well, to make a long story short, before lil sis stopped chatting, she had purchased one (I guess the obsession runs in the family).  Since I was heading up her way in the next couple of weeks I thought I would wait and try hers out before I purchased one for myself (as it turns out I ended up buying one before I went to her house, sorry I couldn't wait, but I didn't get a chance to use before we left).  

The night we decide to make pizzas we got the grill ready and started cooking pizzas like a pizzeria.  The pizzas came out great but we learned fast the wood used for getting the temperature over 700 degrees F. burned fast and we needed to replace the wood after each pizza cooked.  The other small problem we found was the top of the pizza wasn't cooking as we hoped.  I had read some reviews for the kettle pizza and many reviews said the same thing.  Their solution was at the end of cooking to hold the pizza up into the dome of the grill, where the temperature is a lot warmer, and let the top finish cooking.  We thought there had to be a better way and discussed the idea of somehow installing a secondary lid inside the dome to help push the heat down onto the pizza.  When I got home after my little mini vacation I was cruising through Facebook getting caught up on the happenings outside my world and came across a post describing how to install a secondary lid in the pizza oven to help keep the heat closer to the pizza while cooking.  It's like they read my mind and such a simple solution.  All that's needed is 2 grill grates, 2 pizza stones and aluminum foil.  

Lucky for me I just bought a new grill grate so I had a second literally hanging in the garage.  Also, I recently purchased a new pizza stone that fits inside a Weber grill (made by Red Sky Grilling Products) so I happened to have a second pizza stone too.  The stone is D shaped to make it easier to load wood in the back.  

The first grill grate goes in, upside down so the hinged part of the grate is hanging down.  If you don't like the grate hanging down it can be wired up too.  Make sure one of the openings is in the back so the wood can be loaded later without taking the lid off.

Next, time to put in the first pizza stone.  This is the stone the pizza will be cooking on.  Notice, the "open" portion of the stone is at the back, again to load the wood. 

The second grill grate gets lined with aluminum foil and placed on the upper wing nuts of the pizza oven.

 The last thing to do, put the second pizza stone on top of the grate covered in foil.  The stone will help to insulate the dome and keep the heat down in the pizza oven.  My stone isn't an exact fit but I did find one that will fit almost perfectly on top for a second lid.  Maybe some day I will break down and buy this stone but as it turns out this one worked darn good too.

Now it's time to "FIRE UP THE GRILL!!!!"  

I load up the chimney starter to the top and start the charcoal.  When the charcoal is half started I dump the charcoal in the grill towards the back.  The coals are arranged in a half moon shape around the back with a few scattered to the front to help heat the stone up.  The reason for dumping the charcoal when half started is the stone needs plenty of time to heat up, at least a half hour, and while the pizza stone is warming up the coals will be completely white by the time I am ready to cook the pizza with plenty of life left in them.  Also, as a note, keep the upper vent completely closed, no use losing heat anymore heat then necessary.   I should also note that while the pizza oven was well above 700 degrees F. the upper dome only got to 250 degrees F.  That tells me the second pizza stone along with the aluminum foil was doing their job keeping the heat where I wanted.

After a half hour or so the grill temperature is about 600 degrees F.  I'm looking for 700 degrees F. plus and the way to get there is to add a chunk of hardwood.  I use some long tongs and push the wood to the back and it drops through the cutout in the back down onto the hot coals.  

 In a matter of minutes I hit the target temperature, 700 degrees F. 

 Time to load the pizza, now the temperature is well above 700 degrees F.   

 Every couple of minutes I turn the pizza a quarter turn and in less then 10 minutes the pizza is done.

 I'm not sure what else can be said, the pizza comes out perfectly cooked.  By installing the second lid it does a much better job keeping the heat down on the pizza ensuring everything is cooked without needing to lift the pizza up into the dome to finish cooking the top.  

The pizzas we have cooked in this rig have been taken to the next level.  I don't know of any pizza place around us that can match what can be cooked in this oven I know our pizza takeout orders have drastically reduced in the last couple of months.  My quest for the perfect pizza is almost there with the last item to deal with will be pizza sauce, but we will leave that for another day and another story.

Prime Rib and Did that Chunk of Meat Just Talk to Me?

I've been gone for a couple of weeks due to a trip back to Michigan and after we got back I didn't feel like cooking until the weekend rolled around.  Once the weekend rolled around the big question was "What to cook?"  This morning, during breakfast and my weekly two eggs over easy and toast, I pulled out one of my Weber cookbooks and started scouring through recipes trying to develop ideas.  The pork wasn't tripping my trigger and the wife doesn't like lamb so I turned to the beef section.  Beef, yeah sounds good to me and it's been awhile since we had any beef.  After looking through the recipes I settled on a beef tenderloin recipe, it sure looks good, time to head for the store.  

The first store I went too I wasn't happy with the beef selection at all so it's off to the next store.  Once I get to the next store I head to the back where the meat case is located.  I always go past the display case where the in store butcher is behind the counter to check out the steaks.  This particular store always has a good looking meat display and sometimes they have good sales, this week was no exception.  The prime rib roast was on sale this week and it was talking to me.  (The great thing about the prime rib roast, even though it can be pricey to purchase, is I can get 3 different meals out of one roast, prime rib (obviously), Mongolian Beef later in the week and maybe my favorite Philly Cheese Steaks.)  Of course I answered the rib roast and told it "I'll be back if the beef tenderloin thing doesn't work out."   Somehow I knew I would be lured back to that rib roast.

I headed over to the other meat display case, where there isn't a butcher to help, and found the tenderloin.  The tenderloin was talking too but I didn't like what I was hearing.  All they had were large tenderloins and they were anywhere from $80 to $100.  Ah, I don't think so, can't spend that for an afternoon of grilling.  By now, as you may have already guessed, the rib roast is yelling loud an clear, "COME BACK, COME BACK!"  I did go back and bought a 4-1/2 pound rib roast and proceeded to change my afternoon plans.  

When it comes to beef, especially rib roast, I like to keep it simple.  If the meat is good quality the flavor will come out with little coaxing.  This is a big chunk of meat and as soon as I get home I want to season it.    The first thing I do is cover the entire hunk of meat with olive oil to help the seasonings adhere.  Liberally, I sprinkle coarse seas salt, fresh ground pepper and granulated garlic and wrap it will plastic wrap and put it in the frig for a few hours.  

 An hour before loading this big boy on the grill I take it out of the frig so it can come up to room temperature.  During this hour I take the time to get the grill ready.  Normally, I use the smoker to cook a rib roast but since I bought a rotisserie this spring I decided to roast this bad boy.  I got the charcoal going and threw in a couple of chunks of hickory wood for some smokey flavor.

 I let this roast spin for 1-1/2 hours at 400 degrees F until I had an internal temperature of 125 degrees F, a good medium rare for me.  One thing to remember, with any large piece of meat, is it will continue to cook after it is removed from the heat.  I didn't measure the internal temperature after I let the roast rest for 15-20 minutes but I would guess it was someplace in the low 130 degree F. range.  

 

Mmm, good stuff right there.  Crispy exterior loaded with flavor from the seasoning.  Smoky hickory wood flavor but not too strong, just the way I like it.  This roast was loaded with flavor and I can't wait until later in the week when I get to make philly cheese steaks with the leftovers.  

The next time you walk by the meat display case listen closely, you never know what might be talking to you.