Pizza Challenges


 
JimK

JimK

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Well, I fired up my KP for the first time in a while tonight and clearly, I need to brush up my method. I used a full chimney of RO lump, and had a half circle of RO in the kettle, along with 5 large chunks of various smoke woods (mesquite, pecan, cherry). The lid therm on the Performer was registering over 550 and the KP therm was showing right around 600. With all that lit and unlit charcoal in the grill, some of it was under the stone. After 25 minutes or so, that thing was screaming hot and burned the crust almost instantly. I'll chock this one up to experience and remember the lesson next time. As the saying goes, there's no such thing as bad pizza. I almost disproved that theory tonight. :D At least from above, the pizza looked good.

First pie ready to go:

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And we're cooking! This is after I turned it - knew the crust was burning on at least one corner, so tried to keep part of it off the stone.

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Burnt to a crisp on the bottom:

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But not looking too shabby from above:

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After Photobucket's surprise 'F U' this morning, I tried uploading pics to Flickr. I had an account many moons ago, but never did much with it. Seems to be pretty easy to use for posting pics on sites like this.
 
Bummer, Jim, sorry that didn't go as planned! I did get a pretty toasted bottom on my first pie the other night with the KP therm pegged at 700. The other three were good to go, though.

You're right, it looks great from the top! :) Yeah, I switched to Flickr a while back (from Picasa when it switched to Google Photos), and it's simple to use.

R
 
JimK said:
burnt to a crisp on the bottom
Click to expand...
That's from having the hot charcoal directly under the stone. You have to create a hot zone (lots of charcoal) that you turn the pizza to, with a warm zone (very few charcoal) directly under the Pizza. I couldn't master it in the kettle, so I started using my WSM. The WSM buys you distance from the fire to the stone, and that distance is how I'm able to not burn the bottom.
 
ChuckO said:
That's from having the hot charcoal directly under the stone. You have to create a hot zone (lots of charcoal) that you turn the pizza to, with a warm zone (very few charcoal) directly under the Pizza. I couldn't master it in the kettle, so I started using my WSM. The WSM buys you distance from the fire to the stone, and that distance is how I'm able to not burn the bottom.
Click to expand...

I had a balance at one time, but its been a while since I've used my KP. Re-learned some lessons I'd forgotten. And you're exactly right - charcoal too close and/or under the stone was the culprit. Good news is my wife informed me right after I lit the fire that she was taking our oldest to Tae Kwon Do. They got back about 45 minutes after the first pie was put on. So her's and the oldest's came out better. The grill had cooled a little too much at that point, but was pretty good. Took about 6 minutes to cook each of those, as opposed to 3 for the earlier two.
 
That dark underside just gives it character Jim! Pizza looks delicious. Pepperoni and sausage is one of my favorites.
 
Jim the pizza does look awesome, a little dark on the bottom but we all have been there one time or another. Still looks good.
 
JimK, you're not alone with Photobucket problems. Last couple pics I posted disappeared into never never land. I too had to go to Flicker to correct the problem.

Too bad we cannot post pic directly in this site, like so many others allow you to do.

Pizza cooks = trial and error. That is the nature of the cook. It will only get better with time and practice.
 
Jim, the pie looks great. I 've had a few come out looking like and as crunchy as a unheated KBB briquette. Ya win some, you lose some and the rest get rained out:cool:
 
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