OTS Pizza - getting better


 
Jim McKelvey

Jim McKelvey

TVWBB All-Star
So I have been trying my hand at pizza almost every weekend for a few months now. I don't make my own dough, so I'm kind of at the mercy of what's available locally. For the past few months - Harris Teeter (our local grocer) has been my source...and the dough is fine, just not "great". I beleive it is actually their bread dough. In addition, I've been working on increasing kettle temp and pizza stone temp with a few tweaks. After doing some additional research, mostly here and at pizzamaking.com, I made a few key changes:
1 - I went to my favorite pizza parlor and asked for their dough...luckily for me, they sell it with a smile.
2 - I changed my fire...I still use a "ring of fire", but added some apple wood splits and went bigger overall (more charcoal).
3 - I increased the pre-heat time for the stone - from ten minutes at target temp, to 30+ minutes at target temp.
4 - I modified the grill set up - adding 1" angle irons on each side of the kettle providing significant air flow allowing me to get and maintain 600-700 degree temp range (Point #2 helps as well)

Here are the results:

Poor Boy Kettle Mod:
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Finished product
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All in all my best pizza yet. THe crust made a huge difference.

Thanks for looking!
 
More testing and lots of pizza's needed! What time can I come to help with testing! Looks good to me!
 
Dwain - Yes - the stone is elevated on bricks to get the top of the pie closer to the higher heat temps and theoretically, some refracting heat. I think it would have cooked a little more evenly if I didn't peek 2x. Hard to resist though! 7:30 cook from start to finish. I'm guessing it would hv been 6-6:30 without the peeks.
 
Jim if that pie tastes even half as good as it looks, I'd say you did a great job. Everything about that pie looks perfect.
 
Very nice looking Jim. I could see me blackening the bottom before the tops done.
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words....if it was not for this community I'd still be grilling steaks on the gasser and little else. I never imagined all the possibilities.... Thank you x1000!!!
 
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