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 Post subject: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 3:25 am 
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Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:55 am
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Location: Cordillera, Luzon, Philippines
Finally we have gotten a restart on my pizza project. Our vehicle was (sorta/kinda) repaired, at least enough that I could get out and do some wood prospecting. I ended up with a wood carver's scraps of Samdol wood - a Malay/Filipino fruit wood. Plus we have been doing a sort of bastardized version of Mozzarella using the microwave. Not all that bad and with a tiny bit of liquid smoke, it actually is pretty good on pizza.

So the setup: One each Weber 22.5 kettle grill, one each KettlePizza insert (older version), a 21 inch D-shape Red Sky pizza stone. Then local lump charcoal, and some of the bigger pieces of scrap Samdol wood. I cobbled up a very temporary ceiling for the KettlePizza insert using some wire and aluminum foil. I have great plans for a more permanent ceiling that will be a separate thread if and when I get it going.

We did the pizza dough the night before, let it do a cold rise in the refrigerator overnight. We rolled out (sorry, no hand thrown or stretching skills yet) the dough and topped it with local sauce, our mozzarella, and some pepperoni slices we had.

It went pretty well for the first time. Pizza was excellent and the homemade mozzarella exceeded the available store bought. The first pizza was nigh on perfect in a nicely puffy, spotted, tasty way, if you ignored the odd shape and tears I introduced trying to turn it.

For some reason, maybe over-rolling, the next two pizzas did not puff up nearly as much, but were nice and tasty. One serious flaw I made was I placed the food grate where in normally goes on the Weber. Even with the pizza stone on top, it sat a good inch and half to two inches below the lip of the pizza insert, making turning and retrieving very problematic. Next time I will rest the food grate on the lower section of the pizza insert so that everything is much higher and easier to access.

The second thing was not enough charcoal. I got the pizza stone up in the 650F range toward the rear. The air was over 700F easily (using both their built in dial thermometer and my IR thermometer gun). The front of the pizza stone was much cooler. In the 500F range, most of the time, I'm guessing. I used only one "chimney" of charcoal - next time I'll use two. One spread more evenly across the charcoal grate of the Weber and the second toward the back as the manufacturer recommends.

I need to cobble up a second pizza peel for retrieving the pizza. I have a wooden one that is fine for building and delivering a pizza. But the Weber/KettlePizza setup has a short bubble of really hot temperature, so better to get those pizzas out quickly and the next one in quickly.

Some problem with posting the photos - I get an error message saying impossible to determine dimensions - will add a few shots in a subsequent post when I get the problem sorted.

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Tatoosh aka Steve

Ancient Amerikano Adventuring Abroad: another fat guy up a mountain in the Philippines


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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 3:49 am 
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Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:55 am
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Location: Cordillera, Luzon, Philippines
Photos:

The Makeshift Ceiling:

Image

First Pizza Going In:

Image

Jen Turning Pizza:

Image

Later Pizza Coming Out:

Image

A Bit of Leoparding on Bottom:

Image

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Ancient Amerikano Adventuring Abroad: another fat guy up a mountain in the Philippines


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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 4:58 am 
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Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 5:35 am
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Location: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
GREAT WORK! You are an inspiration!


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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 5:50 am 
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Posts: 1531
Location: Ottawa, ON
I am seriously tempted to buy the new stone & grill they offer. I am such a sucker for this. My wife *loves* the pizza from it, and has been looking forward to the summer to have some! We've been travelling and haven't had time yet, but next weekend it will be kettle pizza.

I find it still works well without the top addition if you life the pizza into the dome for 30s at the end. I do intend add a top, though; the new stone + holder would give me an extra grate......


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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:14 am 
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That looks great!


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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 9:28 am 
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Location: Winchester, MA
Looks so good...

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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 9:19 pm 
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Steve,

Yay! I have two old webers rusting in the backyard, and I keep being tempted to do the same as you.

For the 2nd & 3rd pizzas, how long did you wait to put them in? Given that you didn't have quite enough charcoal, I'm wondering if the less puffiness was due to the stone needing to reheat between pizzas.

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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 7:08 pm 
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Location: Cordillera, Luzon, Philippines
Thanks folks!

Paul, I read somewhere else about doing the "lifting" technique. A very simple and effective solution! I'm still going to play with the ceiling concept, but I love the elegance of your solution.

Fuzzy, there was 4 or 5 minutes between pizzas, much too long. But it was our first time and getting pizzas in and out, making sure they slid on the peel before trying to drop them onto the pizza stone, and so on caused most of the delays. Having only done it once, I'm not sure of my time frame, but I'm guessing a well heated stone gives you between 10 and 15 minutes of prime baking time.

I will add an improved ceiling which will improve radiant heat from the ceiling (at least theoretically) in the next couple of months. The other big improvement will be a second pizza peel, if i can get one cobbled up here. I think two peels are the secret to speed. One with a pizza ready to go, the second to pluck your pizza from the oven.

Part of the fail on the second pizza was that we tried using a pizza pan to make the pizza hold shape and easier to retrieve. It did both of those things, but with a price. The third pizza prepped to go in on a pan but I pulled the pan and got a puffier pizza.

The other downside is reloading charcoal and wood for second fire. It was possible, but we only had one of the fold-able doors on the Weber's food grate to use, due to the large D-shaped pizza stone. Next time the stone will reside on the food grate, but the grate will be resting "in" the KettlePizza insert on 3 wing nuts that hold it together. There are two sets of three wing nuts on inside, one set at the top, one at the bottom. The ceiling, initially suggested on The Slice, is usually a second food grill grate covered in aluminum foil and it rests on the top three wing nuts. The regular food grate sits on the bottom set of wing nuts, which gets the stone up to the level of the "door" cutout in the KettlePizza insert.

I will double my charcoal load (1 Weber Charcoal Chimney = 1 Load) and then make sure I have a nice load of wood - which is what gives that temperature spike into the 700F plus range. I'm looking at 3 or 4 pieces of wood. I'll photo those next time. Of course, what I have are wood carver/furniture maker's remnants, not nice limbs or chunks of wood.

We are making mozzarella today for another pizza try on Sunday. We get about 1 pound of cheese per 4 liters (slightly over 1 gallon) of milk. I'm kicking myself for not getting 8 liters. My wife loves ricotta cheese on her pizza or in her lasagna ever since she ran into it at the new Sbarro's here. Making ricotta is high on my list of "honey do's" now. ;)

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Ancient Amerikano Adventuring Abroad: another fat guy up a mountain in the Philippines


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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 8:39 pm 
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Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:45 pm
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Location: Ottawa, ON
I can confirm, for me at least, that a double load is necessary. However, once you are going well, I found only adding wood for further pizzas was necessary. Of course, the size of wood, etc. is all wildly variant, so every set-up is unique.


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 Post subject: Re: Wood Fired Pizza - off the Weber, even!
PostPosted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 9:42 pm 
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Location: Portland, OR
Steve,

Ricotta is easier than Mozzarella. Do you have Ricki's book?

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