Pizza - Which Cooker?

[jfmorris]

Ok, the kids are coming to dinner, and we cooked 2 split chickens yesterday, with 3 halves left over, so the menu tonight is buffalo chicken pizza, and I get a chance to break in my new 14" Lodge cast iron pizza pan! I am going to make 2 buffalo chicken and 1 veggie pizza. So I'll use the new Lodge 14" pizza pan, the 12" Lodge skillet, and I guess the 3rd will go on a non-CI pan that I have.

The delimma comes to what cooker to use! The oven in the house will only hold 2 pizzas. I can probably fit 3 at once on the offset or the Weber Genesis 4 burner. The delimma is, can I get the offset to 450F or higher, with just a bunch of charcoal in the firebox? The Genesis to reach 450 would have direct heat under the grill grates, but I am thinking I could put heavy duty foil or something down across the flavorizer bars beneath the grate, to act as a heat deflector, and cause the heat for the most part to come up around the perimeter of the grates.

Thoughts? Comments? Which way should I go, or should I just cook in 2 batches, in the oven? Or fire up the Performer, but it would only hold 1, or 2 if I stacked using the Hover Grill...

[texastweeter]

The Gasser. Put disposable hotel pans with holes poked in them upside down on grates. May have to double up to hold the weight of the black iron. Then again the iron takes a while to heat so it may work out right on the grates.

[jfmorris]

Good idea - those are a lot thicker than aluminum foil. I actually have a big stack of the both the full and half size disposable steam table pans. I can put some of those on the flavorizer bars, underneath the grate level. I'll probably also remove the grill grates and put the cast iron grates back in for this...

[jfmorris]

Well, I wisely decided to do a "fit check" before going to great effort to reconfigure the grill with foil pans and different grates. Good thing! I could only fit 2 of the 3 pizza pans I was using onto the Genesis, so took the lazy/easy route, and just did all of them in the oven, with 2 and then 1 while we were eating the first two.

I am loving the Lodge skillet and now the Lodge pizza pan for making pizza. throwing down the stretched dough onto the pre-heated cast iron lets the crust start cooking while we are putting the toppings on, and it doesn't loose too much heat before you get it back into the oven. Next time I see a sale price on Amazon, I will probably get a second Lodge pizza pan, as the 14" flat pan versus the 12" skillet makes for a thinner crust, given the same amount of dough.

[Attjack]

You should be able to bank coals in a u-shape on the performer and use wood chunks to increase the heat. If you have a pizza stone use it as a heat deflector.

[Thunder77]

Yowza!