Pizza, Pizza - St. Louis Pizza on the Swing Rack

jfm0830

I made the inaugural run of my CGW Swing Rack to do two St. Louis Pizzas on Thursday. This was to prep me for doing 6 (which became 8) of them on Saturday. The test run allowed me to learn using the Swing Rack for two pizzas, learn this new recipe & learn the cooking times for lower temp pizzas. One of the main uses I saw for the Swing Rack was to do two pizzas at a time, so I had picked up a second BGE Pizza Stone. I was planning on cooking up 6 of these 12" pizzas and being able to do two at time would mean no one would be kept waiting. Everyone would be able to have some pizza while the next two were cooking. I needed to see what, if any, difference in cooking times there would be between the upper and lower racks. Also my previous pizzas were cooked at 600 degrees, this recipe used 450. I needed to get the ballpark times for this temp.

The recipe for St. Louis Pizza was from America's Test Kitchen Hometown Favorites magazine supplement currently on newsstands. The pizza has a thin crispy crust with no yeast used in the dough. The sauce was simple, but surprisingly tasty. The cheese used is called Provel and is local to the St. Louis area. The recipe has you recreate the flavor by blending American and Monterey Jack Cheese with some Liquid Smoke. I was intrigued by this recipe because it sounded different from the pizzas I'm used to.

Doing a dry run on my own time had many advantages. First, as mentioned, I'd hopefully leaner what I need to do to cook two pizzas on the Swing Rack, Next I'd learn how long the prep process would take and I could use this so I could have much of the pizza made ahead. I could also take my time to get things right because I wasn't rushing to stay on a schedule. Lastly I could take my pictures and not have 12 pairs of hungry eyes staring back at me. Also doing a dry run like this where there is zero time pressure makes the whole process tons of fun. Perhaps the biggest surpass is these pizzas were so good my wife and I ate far more than we planned. So I changed the 6 I planned to make to 8 for Saturday. OK, enough talking onto the pictures.

The Swing Rack is assembled and on the Egg. I've sprayed it with some Pam for Grilling.

Here is the setup I used for pizzas: Two BGE 13" pizza stones plus I put a temperature probe for the Maverick ET-733 extending onto the lower stones surface. I did need to pull the tip back a bit later to clear the pizza.

This thin crust dough was a relatively simple recipe, you mixed it by hand and there was no rise time required. You turned out the dough after mixing and rolled out the crust.

 

In the top picture of this group, the Provel cheese was simulated by blending shredded American & Monterey Jack cheese with some Liquid Smoke. The other ingredients are for the sauce: Tomato sauce, tomato paste, oregano, sugar & chopped fresh basil.

I made a cheese version of this pizza and a pepperoni.

The pizzas are on the Egg. One change I made on Saturday is I trimmed the corners off the parchment paper before putting the pizzas on the grill.

Here we are at the midpoint. The cheese pizza, which was on top, was moved to the bottom and rotated 180 degrees. The pepperoni pizza finished on top.

The pizzas are  just about done. I pulled the cheese pizza at this point and ran into the house and sliced it. When I came back the pepperoni was done. 

Since it was just my wife and I, I only put out half of each pizza. These pizzas were deceiving. They didn't look like anything special just sitting there, but they had amazing flavor. The crust was wonderful, crispy with a slightly sweet flavor. The sauce, which looked simple with few ingredients, had wonderful flavor. The simulated Provel cheese tasted like no other cheese I've tried.

Lessons Learned:

• The recipe called for 12 minutes in a 450 degree oven. It was below freezing when I made these. So I gave the pizzas 2 extra minutes for the temps to recover, then I cooked them for 6 minutes. At this point I swapped the positions of the pizzas and turned them 180 degrees. After 6 minutes the pizza on the bottom grate was ready. The pizza on the upper grate took 2 more minutes.
  
• This timing for cooking and at the end had several advantages. I was able to top the next two pizzas while the current two were cooking. The two extra minutes for the top level pizza to finish were just enough to run the lower level pizza into the house and cut the pizza. Doing the dry run allowed me to know in advance how long it would take to top these next pizzas.
  
• I was able to bring the next two pizzas out with me when I went out to pull the top level pizza. I got them on the Egg before bringing in the other pizza. Once I got the pizza cooking process started, it was a continuous process and just about 100 percent efficient. 
  
• Trimming the corners off the parchment paper made it easier to work with on the grill, particularly for the pizza on the smaller top tier.
• Making the pizzas ahead of time I learned the dough needed to be rolled out in steps. You rolled it, it pulled back, you let is rest, you rolled it....Bottom line I planned to make my dough ahead of time and place it on a sheet pan in the fridge (serrated by parchment paper on the bottom and a piece of wax paper on top). I needed to start earlier because of the properties of the dough.
  
• Another lesson learned was the sauce recipe cut things close. There was enough for the two pizzas, but just enough. When I made one big batch for 8 pizzas on Saturday I weighed out the sauce into 4 equal sized batches in glass bowls on my kitchen scale. This way I didn't get to the last pizzas and have no sauce left.
  
• My wife and I both ate far more of these pizzas than expected. As a result I upped the total I planned to make on Saturday from 6 to 8. good thing to. There was less than half a pizza left when I made 8.
  

So a dry run can be fun and payoff big on the day you do the final run.

Jim

 

grege345

Well done as usual. Always look forward to your posts!

TexanOfTheNorth

Looks great Jim and lots of good detail for others to follow. The limited amount of leftover pizza is probably the best indication of what your guests thought!

Your approach always reminds me of the adage... "plan your work and work your plan"

jfm0830

Thanks guys. @TexanOfTheNorth there were just too many variables. Cooking pizzas on a totally new set up, at a temp that was 250 degrees lower using a new recipe and different type crust. Oh and then trying to do a bunch of them...nope. Dry Runs are fun and you get some good food (hopefully).

Jim

Cymbaline65

That pizza recipe is our family favorite. Great work!

 

FlyingTivo

Pizza takes so little time to bake that i just would not bother doing 2 at the same time.

The pies look great!

Felipe

CGW1

@jfm0830 glad to see the 2 tier being used in this manner. Great details, great pics and awesome looking pizzas.

CheeseheadinAZ

Nice job Jim! I made my first attempt at pizzas last week. I'm very impressed with your dough. Nice and thin and round. I struggled with that the most. Can you provide any tips on that? Beautiful job sharing your experience!

jfm0830

FlyingTivo said:

Pizza takes so little time to bake that i just would not bother doing 2 at the same time.

The pies look great!

Felipe

If it was a pizza I was cooking at 600 degrees and that took 4 minutes I might agree with you. This recipe had you cook it at 450 for 12 minutes or so. Twelve people, twelve inch pizzas, twelve minutes to cook one pizza, that math doesn't work no matter how you slice it. Even two pizzas at a time was almost not enough at first.

@CGW1 Thanks and I take that as a real compliment considering you have probably seen enough Swing Rack pictures to last you several life times.

@CheeseheadinAZ The dough recipe is not my recipe and is part of a cookbook magazine for sale, so I don't feel right sharing. But a few tips for sure....

First that Cooks Illustrated Hometown Favorites is currently for sale at book stores and food stores. You could browse through the recipe to see what they do, or better yet buy it for all the great recipes inside. One of the things that makes the dough so thin is no yeast is used. Just a little baking powder. Also you turn it out of the mixing bowl and use it as soon as it is mixed, so no time for it to rise. 

As for the circular shape, my pizzas alway look like an amoeba when I role them out. I couldn't roll a round shaped piece of dough out to save my life. This pizza gets rolled out on floured parchment paper. I found the parchment paper was transparent enough I could still see the circles on my silicon dough mat under the parchment paper. I used a dough cutter and followed the lines for the 12" diameter circle.

Thanks again to everyone for looking and commenting.

Jim

Griffin

To be honest, Jim, I really didn't want to open this thread...because I knew the pics were going to look amazing and I would be craving pizza which is not on the diet right now. And I was right. Oh well, bookmark it for a cheat day later. Looks amazing as usual Jim. =D>