Thomas Edison once said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ” In our never-ending quest to make great pizza on the grill without breaking a stone in the process, we found yet another way to NOT make pizza tonight, but in the process did find two great new topping combinations.
Tonight’s experiment involved the use of Bubba Ho-Keg, the plate setter, a pizza stone, and some aluminum pizza screens we picked up at the local restaurant supply store. First up was a pizza on the herb dough from Trader Joe’s topped with the standard pizza sauce, slices of fresh mozzarella cheese, leftover pulled pork, fresh pineapple chunks, and something I remember fondly from high school, cashews.
This pizza looked great coming off the grill, and the toppings were excellent. Too bad the crust didn’t cook properly, otherwise this would have been one of the best pizzas we’ve done on the grill. We had a heck of a time getting it loose from the pizza screen, and the center wasn’t fully cooked, and certainly nowhere near the crispiness we would expect.
Undaunted, we put the second one on the grill using the same process. This was a meatless pizza using the same dough, pizza sauce, and mozzarella cheese slices, then adding fresh basil and tomato slices.
Not surprisingly, the results were pretty much the same even though the pizza was left on the grill much longer. The taste was excellent, but the crust was just short of a disaster.
Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Next time pizza is cooked we will return to putting the stone directly on the grill, preheating it, and using a greased metal pizza pan to cook the pizza until it firms up enough to move directly to the stone. It’s amazing what I will do to avoid learning to use a pizza peel.
But at least I didn’t break a stone tonight…
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Why not do a boboli crust? They worked well on my gas grill and if the rain stops I will do it on the Keg.
We don’t particularly care for that thick of a crust, and somehow that feels like selling out. We’ll keep trying different things until we get it right and can do it consistently.
I’m right there with you. We have cooked 3 pizzas since buying our wooden pizza peel that remains a virgin. Have you tried pre-baking your crusts on a preheated stone for about 2-3 minutes before adding the sauce, cheese and toppings? That gives us a crisper crust (even if that last one wasn’t the best).
If I precook the pizza crust then I have to admit that I should have listened to my wife months ago when she insisted that was the best way to do it. Since I was successful in getting crispy crust once without having to do this I am going to continue to be pig-headed and stubborn and avoid pre-cooking the crust.
In case I come to my senses and admit my wife was right, do you add the toppings while the crust is still on the grill or do you take it off, top it, then return it?
Yeap… I am with Chris. I love to grill pizza, but i always cook one side, then add the toppings.
But, i have no experience with either the stone on the grill, nor the bubba-ho (but i hear I get one when I get back to Kansas)… so will stay around for the next time Al wants to make pizza
Sigh… You guys are making it harder for me to be pig-headed and stubborn. And since the wife reads all of these, I’m guessing I may be pre-cooking the crust next time around rather than using a pan.
Bah! Learn to use a peel, you will make good pizza then. I prefer a stainless steel peel to my old wood one, but, you can do it ZP. I also recommend using Ross’s technique of using baking parchment if you have issues with the peel releasing. Precooked pizza shells, never!
I’ve been avoiding the parchment paper approach as I didn’t think it would hold up under temps over 500°F. If it can handle temps like that I can use it as training wheels for a peel…
Worked out a pizza joint, you have to oil and burn in the screens like a cast iron pan. Over and over or they will stick to everything.
Seasoned pizza screens, who knew? Thanks for the info; I’ll be sure to season them first if I ever decide to use them again.
Edison actually went to war with Tesla and was soundly beaten in the AC-DC conflict.
I have a large aluminum pizza screen and that works well for crispy crusts. I do cut corners (boboli crusts) but I am sly like that!
Just can’t do the pre-cooked crust thing, but again, mostly because they are all thicker than we care for. If I wanted focaccia rather than pizza I might do this, although I have a bread book sitting around here somewhere waiting to be put to use…
And from what I understand, Tesla might have been brighter than Edison but nowhere near as smart when it came to finances and how to control Intellectual Property rights.
Heck, I throw my crust right on the grill- I dont even use a stone. The trick is brush on olive oil on the “down” side of the crust, throw it on the grill, let it brown, then olive oil the up side, flip the crust over, top, and finish cooking. I know technically it’s bruschetta and not pizza- but either way you choose to label it, it’s pure awesome.
I would think this technique would work with a stone as well, but using cornmeal on the stone instead of olive oil on the crust. I can see why you would use the olive oil when putting it directly on the grill; otherwise you’d have some problems with sticking when you went to turn it.
One of these days I’ll give this technique a try too. Thanks for the suggestion.
And yeah, I make my own dough. You’d think it would fall through, but it doesn’t.