Tired of seeing all the other pizza's made and not being invited over for dinner, I got myself ready by doing a couple frozen pies and had some decent luck.

Today on my day off I decided to try with some fresh store bought dough from Publix.

Here's the method I've been using shooting for a 400 degree lid temp, although both pies ended up closer to 350.





The next couple are from my maiden voyage. I assumed I was going to burn and char this thing as I've never even rolled a pizza dough before in my life, but I was pleasantly surprised. After eating a couple slices I thought, "Don't think I'll be ordering out anymore" and decided to take a couple pics.

Spicy Italian sausage (pre-cooked it a bit in skillet), Pepperoni, Romano and Mozz cheese)





2nd pie ready to go -



This was was about ~16 minutes -



Getting there -



For us rookies like me who literally don't anything about making homemade pizza, give it a go. I didn't want to buy a fancy stone or invest much money as I didn't know how far I was going to go with these.

Publix dough x 2 = $4.00
Dei Fratelli Canned Pizza Sauce (1 can) = $1.29
Hormel Pepperoni = $3.89
Sorrento Mozzarella Cheese = $2.89
Total for two 16" pies = ~12$ give or take

Wow...looks great.

FYI..no need for a "fancy" pizza stone. You can get them for $10. Although your results look very good without it.

You forgot one line in your calculations:

Awesome pizza on my Performer = Priceless

Mitch, those pies sure look better than my first ones! You got to eat yours!!! I could only eat the cheese, it was the only part that wasn't burnt!!!

Looking good Mitch!

How's your tummy feeling after all that experimenting

They say you can only get "real pizza" here in NY, and according to my 'Father-in-Law' only Brooklyn NY has the "real" thing...

I guess that saying is no longer valid
Great looking pizza!

I like that setup and the results look pretty dang good to me !

Bill

Dang dude...... Outstanding looking pies!

Do you deliver? lol

Thanks for all the kind comments, fellas.

Anybody know how long that pre-mixed dough will last in the fridge? I'm pizza'd out for ATLEAST a couple days

EDIT: Oh and Jeff, send me a case of Fat Tire and I'll overnight a few pies for ya.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Hays:
I like that setup and the results look pretty dang good to me !

Bill

I agree!

Good looking pies Mitch!! I might just get a pizza screen too and do more experimenting.

Nice!! Thanks for posting, great idea. I'll give that a go myself.

Nice work Mitch! Goes to show you that you really don't need a stone to get good results. Haven't made them on the Performer yet, but I used Bryan's advice when trying his dough recipe in the home oven. No stone, just on the oven rack on a pizza screen.

You can also start cooking sooner rather than using the fuel/time to heat up a stone and risk dropping temps. Or so it seems.

I like your simple innovation of using the WSM ring as a lift.

Outstanding looking pizzas. I'm going to have to try making pizzas again. Have tried twice now with not very good results.

On the first pie I precooked the dough without any sauce or toppings for about 3 minutes. However the 2nd pie I did not - and honestly it didn't seem to make a difference.

I won't be precooking the dough in the future as I didn't have a problem getting the toppings done vs. the bottom of the pie.

brilliant. wife say'd "see, ya don't need all the fancy stuff." so now she wants me to do the same !

I'm definitely intrigued. So cooking a pizza over charcoal, how does that effect the taste? Do you get a charcoal flavor? Is it more of a traditional wood fired oven taste? Do tell.

I have a couple of pizza stones from the "pampered Chef" folks. If for nothing else, it sure sounds fun.

Clay:

I'd say it's more of a wood fired taste than 'charcoal'. You could always sub the Kingsford for lump if you wanted. I usually grill over lump, but for this setup it's easier for me to use the Kingsford briquettes for uniformity in heat.

Great looking pies Mitch.

Excellent post!

After seeing your pics, I was inspired to finally give it a try. I used your setup of the WSM charcoal ring and the charcoal spread around the ring. This seems to give even heating so that the bottom crust does not burn before the toppings were done.

Results - The family loved it! I really like the Publix dough as it is really easy to use. My wife commented that the crust was very crispy, yet not burnt. I also used a perforated pizza pan which worked well.

One comment - I went for a lower temp as I used only 2/3 full Weber chimney of charcoal. It took a little longer but made for a great pizza.

Barry, glad it worked out well for you!

I really like that Publix dough, and it's cheap. I bet it would make some really great flatbread (going to try this soon) or maybe take Larry's lead and attempt a calzone.

Flatbread sounds good and I think I'm going for cheesy bread on the next session.

After using the pizza pan, I can't see going to a pizza stone...I believe they are more trouble than their worth.