What to do when you screw up and your pizza sticks


 
Ed P said:
From what I understand, the screens are hard to keep clean in a commercial establishment that is subject to periodic food safety inspections and not all that durable so require frequent replacement, and if I saw someone using a screen in a commercial establishment I would probably think they didn't know any more about making pizza than I do. Be that as it may, use a screen or don't, it's your pizza, Joe, make it the way you want it. I use a screen, but I consider it a gimmick and my end game is to make pizza without one, but that's my pizza and that's the way I want to make it.
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If one is using sugar in their dough (promotes faster dough rise due to feeding the yeast), a pizza screen will help stop over browning of the dough. This is because the sugar in the dough will brown and make the dough firmer when cooking. All lending towards a burnt flavor when the pie is done.

If you’re using flour, water, yeast and salt, you can cook directly on a stone with less chance of burning. BUT, this scenario is also tied to your dough’s hydration. A 60% hydration won’t help the dough poof, water becoming steam and the steam being trapped inside the dough, when cooking a pizza. A higher hydration dough, say 70%, would do well on a stone or steel as the higher heat is needed to promote the dough cooking and the water steaming inside the dough, creating an airy and light pizza dough texture.

I wouldn’t cook a 70% hydration dough on any screen as it’s counter productive.

So as I listed earlier, the pizza dough recipe one is using, the hydration and the stone/steel temp are key components of screen or no screen.

As for judging any pizza shop, do as you wish. You’re paying for the pizza. The screens clean off easily with a wire brush, soap and water. And the aluminum ones are quite durable. And if they fail, they’re inexpensive enough to just replace.
 
So I read thru this thread and see lots of good info (and really good looking pizza/stomboli), but have any of you tried cooking directly on the grill grate? My main 16" stone broke into 3 pieces years ago and I started trying grate cooks. It really elevated womderfully when I added an upper grate 7" above the main Genesis level. I never bothered to go back to my 13" stone and prefer the crust and pizza results I've gotten. And there's no waiting for stone or plate to heat.
 
RichPB (richlife) said:
So I read thru this thread and see lots of good info (and really good looking pizza/stomboli), but have any of you tried cooking directly on the grill grate? My main 16" stone broke into 3 pieces years ago and I started trying grate cooks. It really elevated womderfully when I added an upper grate 7" above the main Genesis level. I never bothered to go back to my 13" stone and prefer the crust and pizza results I've gotten. And there's no waiting for stone or plate to heat.
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Now there's another option to experiment with! I tried a pie on the griddle side of our GrillGrates and it was doing well, but I got adventurous and wanted to see what would happen if I cooked it a little on the grate side. It was too hot and scorched a beautiful set of grate marks on the bottom, not quite the effect I was after. We ate it and enjoyed it, though!

Do you have grate marks on your pies? I'd like to see them!
 
I should have tried the Grillgrates before buying the steel. I just did a bunch of googling and I would have thought to use the flat side of the GG, but all the pics and vids show them fin side up cooking pizza. That does not make sense to me. Has anyone here tried GGs on the flat and fin?
 
Joe Anshien said:
I did have the roti burner on. That is why I should have rotated. I only have a metal peel.
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I have a 14 inch wood peel. I think it is a great size for pizza as 14 is as large as we normally attempt.


I also use parchment from costco. The 15 inch parchment is a starting point and we keep the pie just slightly smaller.

The parchment also works great to line a normal size sheet pan ( aka a half sheet ). When I cook bacon in the oven I do it on parchment and cleanup is a breeze.

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Ed P said:
Now there's another option to experiment with! I tried a pie on the griddle side of our GrillGrates and it was doing well, but I got adventurous and wanted to see what would happen if I cooked it a little on the grate side. It was too hot and scorched a beautiful set of grate marks on the bottom, not quite the effect I was after. We ate it and enjoyed it, though!

Do you have grate marks on your pies? I'd like to see them!
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Ed, no, I don't get grate marks on my pizzas. Keep in mind that I use a grate elevated 7" over the main Genesis grates (just above the level of the "bun warmer"). The heat is intense up there with the hood closed and will leave marks if anything is left long enough, but my pizzas typically cook through (from both bottom and top) in 8 -10 minutes with the hood thermometer showing 450-600* when the pie is put in and that's air temp, not grate temp. (Obviously heat is released at that point, but it quickly rises again.) When I originally tried cooking on the lower grates, I had to watch carefully to not burn the crust, but many others use just that main grate though often at lower temps.

After rolling out my non-sticky dough, I use a peel to put it on the upper grate at about 350-400* for 4 or 5 minutes (I usually watch carefully rather than time it). When the dough bed is par-baked just stiff, I flip it with tongs onto the peel and take it in to dress up. The bottom (now top) is firm enough to prevent getting soggy, the bottom is stable, but not well-cooked so it takes the heat well and the pizza cooks from both top and bottom (crust side).

Also, I typically use a dusting of corn meal on the peel to help prevent sticking, though I have used just flour (not semolina). My crust is usually thinner and dry enough to stretch but not stick, so sometimes I just fold it onto the peel and unfold on the grate. I've also done pan pizza in a CI skillet, but that's a different animal.

@Joe Anshien , I don't have a Grillgrate but Ed P tells about it above. I would think that the fin side would allow air space and let the pizza cook more from both sides (for me, that's ideal).

In general, though I am not an expert, I think a hotter grill temp for pizza is preferred over simply baking temps. The problem with using the lower grate right over the flametamers, is that even indirect those high metal temps can cause burned grill marks.

I'd love to hear from anyone who does grate pizza baking. New ideas are always welcome.
 
@Ed P , you asked for a pic so here it is from a Grillgrates discussion. You see it immediately after coming off the upper grates laying on a pizza pan for cutting. I don't use the pizza pan in the grill except for holding the sliced pizza while enjoying the first slices(s). It may be obvious that this is a pepperoni/jalapeno -- my favorite.

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DanHoo said:
I have a 14 inch wood peel. I think it is a great size for pizza as 14 is as large as we normally attempt.


I also use parchment from costco. The 15 inch parchment is a starting point and we keep the pie just slightly smaller.

The parchment also works great to line a normal size sheet pan ( aka a half sheet ). When I cook bacon in the oven I do it on parchment and cleanup is a breeze.

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Yes, parchment paper is becoming my go-to for the time being. I have an easy (easier?) way of cutting circles with tabs so I cut up a few that are slightly smaller than the pie. I use the tabs to pull the pie onto the peel, then cut the tabs off...if any of the paper is exposed, it gets incinerated almost immediately in the pizza oven. I've been using an old Pizza Hut pan to shape the pie.
 

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Joe Anshien said:
I should have tried the Grillgrates before buying the steel. I just did a bunch of googling and I would have thought to use the flat side of the GG, but all the pics and vids show them fin side up cooking pizza. That does not make sense to me. Has anyone here tried GGs on the flat and fin?
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I only tried it once, and it worked well on the griddle side, but you will get toasted areas where the holes are, so keep moving the pie if that bothers you. I think I had a 16" stone supported over the pizza but I might be confusing it with when I made sourdough bread on the grill. My fins are on the left, over the crossover tube, so that extra heat might have been the cause of the scorch marks, or just me not knowing what I'm doing (that happens a lot!) I am certain that the GGs will do a great job with pizzas once they are dialed in. It is somewhat surprising to my way of thinking that people are using the fin side, but I'd love to hear more!

I have both wooden and metal peels. At some point I will likely end up with a perforated metal peel, but I've been trying to develop a good recipe suited to my oven. My best effort to date has been with a poolish but tonight is All-Trumps @65% hydration.
 
The only way one of my pizza's are going to be supported by the fins of a GG is if it is frozen. BTW we had picked up this sauce some time ago from an airport type liquidator. It is made for commercial use. It is the best canned or bottled sauce we have ever tried. I hope to find it again some day.
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Joe Anshien said:
The only way one of my pizza's are going to be supported by the fins of a GG is if it is frozen. BTW we had picked up this sauce some time ago from an airport type liquidator. It is made for commercial use. It is the best canned or bottled sauce we have ever tried. I hope to find it again some day.
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Mama Mia that's a lot of sauce! We bought a #10 can (3.03kg) of sauce and ended up vac sealing/freezing it in 9 portions so it wouldn't go bad on us by the time we used it all.

Joe Anshien said:
Look at what the mail man brought this evening... Darn this is heavy!
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If you handle that enough you won't have to worry about carbs! Just don't drop it on your toe. Looks very nice, Joe...now you gotta season it and try it out!
 
multiple sealings/cooks work well when first seasoning it. and you'll flip it over and do the other side another time once it's cooled. looking good!
 
Pies came out best ever, launched on parchment with stone temp in the mid-600s. I pulled the paper at 3 minutes, total bake time on the first pie 5 minutes (too long), pulled the second pie at 4.5 minutes, perfect! The paper wasn't too bad...I'm going to leave it under the pie for the duration next time.

Good oven-spring at 65%, going to up it to 66% next time. This is the first pie, a little too brown from me futzing with trying to get the paper out.
 

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This is the second paper. It wasn't quite centered under the pie and the edge got charred, but the center of it is intact. I use the pan to shape the pie with the paper under it and cut the tabs off after the pie is made and dragged onto the metal peel. The tabs are convenient for moving the pie around, but they don't last long in a pizza oven. I think the key is cutting the paper so that it is smaller than the pie, and it's easier to slip the peel between the paper and the pie, leaving the paper on the stone, than it is to try to fish the paper out from under the pie. Still playing with this, of course, but again, maybe the paper can stay under the pie for the duration.
 

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Ed P said:
This is the second paper. It wasn't quite centered under the pie and the edge got charred, but the center of it is intact. I use the pan to shape the pie with the paper under it and cut the tabs off after the pie is made and dragged onto the metal peel. The tabs are convenient for moving the pie around, but they don't last long in a pizza oven. I think the key is cutting the paper so that it is smaller than the pie, and it's easier to slip the peel between the paper and the pie, leaving the paper on the stone, than it is to try to fish the paper out from under the pie. Still playing with this, of course, but again, maybe the paper can stay under the pie for the duration.
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I cut the parchment to size after the pie is made. I just drag the scissors along the edge of the dough and it ends up slightly smaller
 
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