How large a pizza will that bake?

I've been thinking about getting a small pizza oven. Tried pizza on the grill as an in between step, but the crust burned, even on the pizza stone, and you apparently lose so much heat opening the grill, to put the pizza on, check it, turn it, etc. so that that it's hard to get the benefit of the higher heat -- just crust burning. We decided we were happy with the oven. Mine also goes to 550, but we'd been baking pizza at 450 because that was the directions with the pizza stone -- four ovens ago. We noticed a big difference just going up to 500. For $79, this would allow you to bake outdoors and try the higher heat -- but I agree, it doesn't look like it would work for most breads.

Green with envy here! Love that new toy - any pizza toy is fun, IMO!

So this was on your grill outside? Wish I had a grill that would get that hot!

Have fun!
Teresa

Lascatx, the inside measures 15 X 15, Both pizzas were about 12" because that was what my peel would handle.

My peel that I've had for years is too big for this oven, so after looking in four different local stores yesterday, for something smaller, without success, I came home and made my own peel out of a piece of maple burl. It just happened to be thin enough for this purpose. I cut it out on my scroll saw. Moe sanded the peel and put a tapered edge on it for me.

edited to remove double post.

This post was edited by ann_t on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 14:44

Does it have a door? It seems like it would heat the kitchen up if it does not, but during cool weather that would not be much of an issue.

I do love grilled pizza, and my BGE will get very hot. Without the stone, it is hot enough to melt aluminum, and I have noticed that the stone gets hotter than the thermometer on top registers - I use a laser thermometer gun to check it. I recommend getting one, if you do not have one. You can use it to find cold and hot spots in your house and yard as well as to measure the temperature of a cooking surface.

I love, love, love the pizza peel that you made! It almost looks like olive wood to me. I recently bought a new wooden peel with a very long handle for us to use outdoors with the BGE. I already had an aluminum one, but now I use the wooden one for transferring the pizza to the stone, and I use the aluminum one to retrieve the pizza.

Your pizza peel would look great in any kitchen and would make quite a lovely display!

Lars

Here is a link that might be useful: Thermometer gun

I love your new peel, but had to LOL at the fact that you just happened to have a thin piece of maple burl hanging around, a scroll saw to whip it into shape and DH waiting to finish it for you. But laughing in a good way -- envious that you could even have that kind of option. You know you live in another universe, don't you? ;-)

Lars, that is on a grill outdoors -- not in the kitchen. It is lined on 5 sides so that it holds the heat in better than opening and closing the grill -- more like a small pizza oven.

Ann T, that's a beautiful pizza peel.

You might remember that Elery has a pizza oven for his grill too, he loves it and it makes pizzas in 4 or 5 minutes, like yours. It cost about $100 if I remember correctly and it works wonderfully for pita bread. The grandkids love it, they make their own pizzas and 5 minutes later, it's time to eat. If we have 4 or 5, we just put the pizzas into the oven on a baking sheet to stay warm until everyone's is done.

Elery's oven will hold a couple of "individual pizzas" or one larger one.

Annie

Lascatx, I know. But this really was just a beautiful piece of scrap, too thin to make a board from, but too pretty to throw away. It was off a maple burl from Salt Spring Island. I used it as background in food photos. Now it is a pizza peel.

Annie, I remembered that you had posted about Elery's pizza oven when he first got it. I went looking for the post to see if it was the same one. Elery's looks like it would hold a larger pizza, but I couldn't tell if the oven was lined with stone or if it was just the base.

~Ann

Well, it's beautiful and I'm just envious. I've been checking out the BakerStone. While I am likely to get one, the price won't be as good and I definitely won't have such a pretty peel. I have 3 (all different materials) but I suspect they are all too large. Will have to look into that too. The scrap I have at the moment is chipboard. I do have a couple of 12": pizza screens so I might be able to use them at least to start with, but I do like the peel and baking directly on the stone.

ETA: I showed DH your post, not only to tell him about the BakerStone, but also to show him the peel you made (we both love pretty wood pieces and burl in particular). He chuckled as I did and said if you have any more of that maple hanging around you can make another peel and he'll be happy to buy it. Just to let you know -- my other universe comment was truly a compliment, not otherwise.

This post was edited by lascatx on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 19:47

Ann, Elery has this one. I don't know what it's lined with, it just says it has "specially designed diffusion plates", whatever the heck that is made of.

The manufacturer says it can reach 700F and it has a temperature gauge, so I know it does. It's 16 inches but domes, so the pizza would have to be smaller than that or it would hit the top on each side. It's the one at the link...

His pizza peel isn't nearly as pretty as yours, though!

Annie

Here is a link that might be useful: Camp Chef Pizza Oven

Oh, be still my heart! I have a plethora of peels (well, only four but the alliteration...) and none are beauteous.

I'm trying to understand your method. This is different from your wet dough? What are you doing to make it moveable raw?

Nice toy. Pizzas look great. I bet it will do great steaks also.

Does it use a lot of gas?

dcarch

Heck with the oven, I want the peel!

Plllog, this dough was at a 78% hydration. I made a 1500 g batch on Saturday evening, baked five medium size rounds on Sunday night and saved enough dough for the two pizzas. So the pizza dough had a 48 hour fermentation.

I stretched it out by hand on a floured board then slipped it on to a well floured peel. Gave it a shake or two to make sure it was moving and quickly dressed the pizza. No problem sliding it into the oven. The website actually suggests a little corn meal on the peel, but I don't like the texture that corn meal adds so I always use flour.

I almost always use my bread dough for pizza crusts. I did try Ken Forkish's pizza dough recipe but didn't find it any better than my regular crust.

Dcarch, they show on their website cooking steaks and fish, in a cast iron pan. Like all stones, you can't put other foods, other than breads or pizza directly on the surface.

I don't think it uses any more gas than some other things I cook on the grill. It takes almost 20 minutes to preheat but the pizza only takes 4 minutes to cook.

I have full tank in reserve, and I told Moe this morning that when it is time to switch tanks I'm going to note the date so I can see how long the tank lasts.

Ann

Thanks, Ann. I thought that was your way, but I'm still stuck in stickyland at that level of hydration and thought maybe you were doing something different. Sigh.

These are for outdoor use on a gas grill? Pretty neat if you make a lot of pizza and probably Stromboli? Yummy! Heck I just bought a stone for the oven....sigh....

The oven is fine, don't need another gadget just to make pizza.

Love your peel Ann if you make some more put me on the list I’ll buy on in a heartbeat.

My DH, the BBQ king, bought a pizza oven in May to go along with his collection of patio grills. I went along with it because I figured I could bake bread outside during the hot summer. We did a few pizzas that turned out really great.

My father passed away in early June and we haven’t touched it since. This summer has just been hectic so if I get anything on the table I think I’m doing good. We have ordered lots of delivery and our local pizza is great just very pricy.

Claudia

Here is a link that might be useful: Pizza oven

Claudia, I'm so sorry for your loss. I know something of what you have been going through. I lost my dad at the end or April and my mom at the end of November. It's a strange thing when you lose you parents, as well as the time that precedes it. I am just getting back to cooking or baking, but not as much baking as I'd like. I have so many things I've put off for the last year that it's hard to pick up and get caught up. Working on it though. Hope you can get some normal back in your life -- maybe making pizza will be a part of that.

Ann_t, you have a partner in crime. I found a BakerStone and thought that for that price I could at least play with the higher temps for pizza. I found it at a Bed Bath & Beyond about 45 min from here (of course not at the closer store) on clearance and used the 20% off coupon. Not quite as good as your deal, but close enough. We'll see how this goes and whether we want anything more.

I also found out that I have a peel that fits the BakerStone, so I don't have to try to craft one out of chipboard (but the offer on a burl peel stands.) ;-) DH put the BakerStone together and we'll try it out this weekend (if we can wait that long). I'm not supposed to know my youngest son is coming home, but I'll have pizza dough waiting. Heehee.

OOohh, love that oven and love that board. Enjoy those toys.

Well, I had to make pizza today. I'm not as good about taking photos as Ann is. Today was worse than usual. I did think about it but I kept stopping to blow my nose and wash my hands, so trying to do more just wasn't happening. The first one did really well, but the oven cooled off by the time we put the second one in. We are going to have to figure that out. My crust was acting a little strange. Maybe it has a cold, like I do. :( It was good though and very promising. Glad we had a dry run before DS is home.

Claudia, sorry to hear about your father.

Lascatx, do you have any idea what temperature your pizza oven got up too?

I actually turned down the heat, for the second pizza, because it was so hot. What I liked about this oven is that there is no need to reheat between pizzas.

Hope the cold is short lived and you feel better soon.

~Ann

Thanks, Ann.

After the dough rose for near three hours, we called it and made the pizza even though I didn't feel like it had risen enough. Not sure what was going on, but I was tired and hungry enough at that point that I wasn't thinking about getting the camera or the thermometer. If the gauge on top is accurate, it was probably 750-800 for the first one and 550-600 for the second. DH did turn the heat down as we put the first one in and it may have been too much, so that may just be an operator adjustment, Even with that, the pizza was really good and had a nicely baked crust, perfect bottom and nicely melted cheese.

If I could change one thing about the oven, I would really prefer a thermometer with numeric readings over the three range markings. Other than that, I think it's the best bang for the buck for pizzas. Those gorgeous loaves of yours would definitely need more height though.

I agree Lascatx, I would have liked a real thermometer. I might have to buy one of those "guns" that Lars linked to in his post.

I think I will make dough tomorrow night after work and plan on having pizza on Sunday.

~Ann

We have one of those guns types -- just didn't get it out. Between the football game (watching the Texans), my cold nd the super slow rise, we weren't at our best. The people who make the Thermopen make them and we have one of those I bought when it was on sale. The one Lars posted is less expensive.

Out tentative plan is to make pizza again tomorrow since our son will just be home tonight (but not sure when and whether he will eat at home) and tomorrow night, then leaving Sunday.

Thank you Ann and Lascatx it’s been a tough few of months. Dad was 93 doing really well still living alone and in a matter of a few days just kind of went down really fast. He always told me one day he just wouldn’t wake up and that’s what happened. He had everything in order but it’s still going to take months to settle his estate and it’s been overwhelming at times.

Claudia

Ann, I can't take my eyes off that pizza peel.

Sol

I forgot to get the laser thermometer out until the second pizza went in (I was making that one while DH slid the first one in). It was close to where it was before -- about 605 degrees. Still makes a really good pizza. I also played the dough a little differently. I mixed my sourdough recipe with freshly fed starter, but skipped the sponge and did the rise, retard, shape, and chill again method Ann described in another thread. I liked the result adn the fact that it gives better control over the timing. Think I will work with that for now.

Ann, I have dough left over -- will it still be good tomorrow? If so, I guess that will be dinner again.

Lascatx, I've made pizza using dough that had been in the fridge for four and five days. Your dough will be fine.

I made a batch of dough yesterday morning (1500 g flour and 80% hydration) before going to work. I'll get Moe to take it out of the fridge today before I get home from work . I'll bake bread and we will have pizza for dinner.

I'm going to look for a laser thermometer if I go into Victoria this week.

Ann

I'm sure you can find one, but if you have trouble or just want to look and have something to compare, Thermoworks does ship to Canada. They also often have a few things on sale or some giveaway. They just launched a new alarm, so that may be it for now, but I would expect that the coming month and up to our Thanksgiving will have a number of sales or specials if you are willing to take a chance on waiting.

I told DH I was going to probably use this method for the dough from now on -- unless we don't plan ahead, I suppose. My greatest frustration with pizza dough in the past was not being able to predict the rise. Nothing like being really hungry and waiting for that danged dough to rise. Rrrrr Was bad enough the other day for just the two of us while we were busy watching a football game. When the boys are home? You can imagine. Double Rrrrr -- by the time the pizza was ready, they'd filled up on snacks. Having dinner time ay your control is always better, whatever the reason. I'm very happy to know I could adapt your method to my sourdough recipe.

I hope to play with some bread loaves soon. In the larger oven though.

Definitely the larger oven. I can't imagine trying to get anything other than a flat bread in and out of the pizza oven.

I use my sourdough version the same way I use my regular.

I hadn't used my sourdough starters in a couple of weeks so I fed them Saturday and will feed them again tomorrow and make a biga to go into a batch of dough to be baked later this week.

Glad you are enjoying the pizza oven as much as I am.

~Ann

This post was edited by ann_t on Sun, Oct 12, 14 at 11:27