First pizza on my Kamado Joe

[GregS]

Years ago, I cooked several pizzas on the grill. They turned out pretty well, but since it was on the grill grates, it was kind of a pain to cook one side of the crust, pull it to add the toppings and then do the other side. I had several times where I burned the bottom of the crust waiting for the toppings to be ready.

I got my KJ this past weekend and decided to try pizza again using the pizza stone. I started out with dough from Weis. I rolled out the dough on my wife's Pampered Chef pizza stone to get the size and approximate shape, then transferred it to the peel on corn meal. I found that the dough is really tight and pulls in on itself. I had to stretch and hold the dough so it wouldn't shrink way down.

I started the charcoal with a propane torch in 3 spots at about 4 p.m. At 4:15 I had to pick my daughter up from dance, so shut the bottom vent half way and the top with just the "daisy wheel" open. Got back about 4:45 and opened things up a lot more. I put the BBQ probe for my Maverick through the top of the KJ. At 5:30, I settled in with the Maverick at 550 and the dome said 500.

First pizza was mozzarella and pepperoni and went on at 5:45. In 10 minutes I ended up with this.


I was just doing the 1 pizza since somehow we were really shot on Mozzarella. But my daughter wanted more. The next was the remainder of the Mozzarella and some cheddar. The Maverick was holding at 550, but the dome now said it was at 600. I brushed off the pizza stone and tossed on the pizza at 6:25. With the temperature being a bit higher this time, I checked at 8 minutes and it looked ready.



Everyone was extremely happy with the pizza. Next time, I'm thinking that I need to do something about the elasticity of the dough. I'm not quite sure how to take care of that, maybe pulling the dough out of the fridge earlier?

[RonB]

You have some great lookin' pizzas there. When the dough doesn't want to stretch, let it rest for 5 to 10 min and try stretching again. However, I do understand that doing this several times can really screw up your timing for dinner.

I really like Kenji's pizza dough recipe. It's a dream to work with and only takes a few minutes to make.

[GregS]

I usually make my own dough, but it is usually slightly "wetter" than what tonight's dough was. I was pretty limited on time and my recipe has to rise for an hour or so.

[RonB]

GregS - regardless of the limitations, it still turned out great.

[Jon Solberg]

Nice cook!

[DWCowles]

Looks good

[Thunder77]

Good looking pizza! Here is an awesome video by Chef Jacob at Stella Culinary on hand stretching pizza dough. It helped improve my skills by several levels. He also has some great dough recipes.

https://stellaculinary.com/cooking-videos/stella-bread/sb-017-how-to-hand-stretch-pizza-dough

[kmhfive]

Pizza looks delicious.

[Skip]

GregS those pizzas look wonderful! Pizza on the grill is a Family favorite. I agree with RonB on Kenjis Pizza Dough Recipe and the dough resting too. There are many other good dough recipes out there too. I have tried some other recipes and used Bread Flour and about 20-25% Semolina Flour for a nicer chew. Most of the time I freeze extra dough for future use. Great Job!

[GregS]

Skip I usually make my own dough. So I'll take a look at those dough recipes. The problem this time around was a combination of not having time and the KJ being new to me. Looking back, I could have started the charcoal and then gone in to make the dough. It would have been finishing up about the time the coals were ready.

[GregS]

Just looked at that Kenji dough recipe. I don't think my food processor will be able to handle that quantity of dough. The recipe I use is 3 cups of flour and the food processor is just about ready to die when doing that. I don't mind kneading by hand.

[RonB]

If you don't want to knead with the fp, stop when all the ingredients - including the second addition of flour - are mixed, but before it forms a ball.