For those deep dish pizza lovers


 
Wow Nate what a great looking pizza. I keep telling myself I'm going to try this but have chickened out! Nice job!
 
Sean H said:
Cliffs on the cooking process? I'd specifically like to know the approximate time and temperature, how you built your fire, etc. That looks so darn good, and I'd love to give it a go.
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This was one full lit large chimney of kbb with a sprinkling of a few more unlit. The kbb was poured in around the perimeter of the grill. Had the broken pizza stone as a heat deflector sitting on the charcoal grate with the charcoal baskets, sitting upside down, on the pizza stone. The pizza sits on top of the baskets. Temp was running around 400-450. Cookedfor 20 minutes with a 180 spin half way through the cook. Here's a post with a little more info.
http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?54200-Deep-dish-pizza-lunch

Deep dish is the easiest pizza to make. Make sure you use low moisture cheese and the sauce you make or use doesn't have a lot of moisture otherwise you'll have a watery soggy pie.

Let me know if you have any other questions.
 
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Nate Frost said:
This was one full lit large chimney of kbb with a sprinkling of a few more unlit. The kbb was poured in around the perimeter of the grill. Had the broken pizza stone as a heat deflector sitting on the charcoal grate with the charcoal baskets, sitting upside down, on the pizza stone. The pizza sits on top of the baskets. Temp was running around 400-450. Cookedfor 20 minutes with a 180 spin half way through the cook. Here's a post with a little more info.
http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?54200-Deep-dish-pizza-lunch

Deep dish is the easiest pizza to make. Make sure you use low moisture cheese and the sauce you make or use doesn't have a lot of moisture otherwise you'll have a watery soggy pie.

Let me know if you have any other questions.
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Nate, in the thread you linked to, you showed photos of pre-cooking the sausage before using in the deep-dish. Do you always do that? I normally like putting uncooked sausage on pizzas, so that it cooks in the oven, but have not tried this with deep-dish. Being buried under layers of crushed tomatoes and cheese, I wonder if the uncooked sausage would have a chance to fully cook...
 
Chris Conro said:
Nate, in the thread you linked to, you showed photos of pre-cooking the sausage before using in the deep-dish. Do you always do that? I normally like putting uncooked sausage on pizzas, so that it cooks in the oven, but have not tried this with deep-dish. Being buried under layers of crushed tomatoes and cheese, I wonder if the uncooked sausage would have a chance to fully cook...
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I prefer to pre-cook sausage before building a pizza because I don't want all that grease on the finished pie. Pre-cooking also means I don't have to take the done-ness of the sausage into account when determining when to pull the pizza.
 
DBWallis said:
I prefer to pre-cook sausage before building a pizza because I don't want all that grease on the finished pie. Pre-cooking also means I don't have to take the done-ness of the sausage into account when determining when to pull the pizza.
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Howdy David! Welcome, and I'm personally looking forward to seeing more of your posts this summer! From what you've shared so far, you're going to fit right in.

Your points do make sense, but I've never encountered either as a problem, in my own experience. We tend to buy our fresh Italian sausage from Caputo's grocery stores, and I've never had a problem with them being too greasy. I've also not had a problem getting the sausage to be fully cooked with the rest of the pie, though I suppose that would depend on the size of the crumbles. I've done both ways many times on oven-baked pizzas, and find that I prefer adding it uncooked. In my lone attempt at making thin, wood-fired sausage pies, this technique worked well there, too.

With the deep-dish, though, I am starting to side toward pre-cooking... Rendering the fat ahead of time makes more sense to me when the sausage is used below the cheese and tomatoes, and certainly makes sense in terms of doneness. You would only find out too late if the sausage wasn't fully cooked below the cheese and tomatoes.

I'm making pizzas on the grill on Thursday and was all set on wood-fired until Nate posted this awesome display of deliciousness. Now I'm wavering... :)

Edit: I prefer crumbled sausage to the solid sheet that's not uncommon in Chicago, but I am pretty certain those sheets of sausage are frozen when they go onto the pie. But whether they are pre-cooked or not, I don't know.
 
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Nate - that is one of the finest stuffed pizzas I have ever seen - Chicago worthy. Thanks for your explanatino on the cooking process and ingredients.
 
Nate - I am using this post as inspiration for my first deep dish attempt this weekend. If it turns out half decent I will post a pic.
 
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