Best walkthrough of pizza on the Egg?

GrateEggspectations

Was thinking I might try to tackle my nemesis tonight and make pizza on the Egg. It’s never worked out for me, despite me trying to follow best practices. In trying to study up before the showdown, I did some searches of past threads detailing the approach. There are so many as to be overwhelming.

Can someone please direct me to one that has been most helpful to them in the past?

Any great dough recipes would also be appreciated.

Thanks!

paqman

Do you have a stone?
Do you have a way to raise the stone high in the dome?

paqman

Also, what flour did you plan to use?

nealmgb

Use pre-made dough the first few times out.  Until you become more comfortable with preparation, releasing and retrieving on a peel, egg setup, I wouldn’t try making pizza dough.  Too much variance in cooking time with different doughs will only confuse.  After you nail the basics, prep, peel, and setup, try making your dough.  Compartmentalize each task to learn it.

northGAcock

Honestly, I think that what you are requesting requires a great deal of typing. I would be happy to engage with you in discussion by phone. PM me your phone number and i would be happy to discuss my experiences with you. There is a learning curve to mastering this....took me about a dozen cooks to get where i wanted to be. That said, i like a thin dense crust. I was working towards that and eventually found joy. Hope you will as well......cause the za can be awesome once you find your way.

Griffin

First decide what type of pizza you like. Thin, original, pan, Chicago, New York, Neopolitan.....lots of different styles out there.

Whatever style you choose, make sure to match the temperature of your Egg to the dough you are using. Some pizzas bake at 350, some at 550 and others 700+. I think that's the biggest mistake people make. They use a dough that should be cooked at 350, but saw online where people cook their pizzas at 500 so they set up there Egg at 500.

1voyager

I agree with @Griffin that you need to determine what type of pizza that you like. 

This website will teach you everything you need to know: pizza making.com

There are several dough and sauce recipes.

Short attention-span version:

New York-style pizza:

9 ounces Caputo 00 flour 

1/4 teaspoon SAF

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/10 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon oil

5 1/2 ounces lukewarm water

Combine flour, sugar, salt and instant yeast in food processor.

Pulse dry ingredients  2 - 3 times to mix

Turn on food processor then slowly add mixed water and oil. 

Run food processor until mixture forms a ball. (30 seconds to a minute.)

Transfer ball to lightly floured surface and knead the dough until a smooth ball is formed. 

Place ball into a lightly oiled bowl. Allow expansion of up to 2X original size.

Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for 3 - 4 days.

Remove dough from container and place on floured surface at room temperature. Form to a circular shape but don’t knead. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest until dough reaches 60 degrees. (About 2 hours.)

Flatten the dough with fingers from the center outwards. Spin and flip then lift to expand. Place on parchment paper and peel. 

Coat with 1 - 2 tablespoons of EVOO.

Add sauce, toppings and bake immediately. (Too much sauce = watery pizza.)

(Preheat raised pizza stone @ 550 degrees indirect for at least 1 hour. Load pizza onto stone and cook for 8 minutes, spinning once.)

_______________________________

Pizza/Stromboli Sauce

1 can (28 oz) certified San Marzano tomatoes

Microwave 1 tablespoon each of black pepper, oregano, basil and 1 teaspoon Kosher salt in 1 cup of water for 2 minutes at 30% power.

Strain mixture and add to tomatoes

Add 3 tablespoons Cento tomato paste

Add 1 tablespoon minced or granulated garlic

Puree with immersion blender

_________________________________

Setup

 

Lit

Go grab a store bought dough. If its cold put it in a bowl and cover it for atleast an hour to get to room temp. This makes it easier to stretch. Set your egg up indirect with a raised grate. Let the pizza stone come to temp in the egg for atleast 30 minutes. VForm out your dough on parchment paper on a pizza peel and top how you want. Cook at 450 probably 12-15 minute range. I always spin my egg pizzas 180 degrees about halfway through since one side is always hotter than the other. You can slide the parchment paper out after a couple minutes. If i was trying to make a pizza for tonight thats what I would do at this point in the day. If you want to get into pizza making at higher temps you should order some OO flour and usually plan to make the dough the night before and let it rise overnight. There are some good same day doughs but the one I use has to be started by like 7am for same day pizzas. 

fishlessman

practice practice practice,  if you see a pie you trying for ask that poster all the questions. too many levels of experience here and not everyone is aiming for the exact finished product. it probably took me 10 to 20 attempts to uniformly shape a dough ball into a uniform thickness and since iits been so long since my last pie i would look like a fool the next few attempts. it does seem after a few attempts it gets easier and comes together, practice, this is a cheap cook

DonWW

I've made pizza on the egg many times.  For homemade dough, I have found no recipe easier and more successful than the one found in the BGE Cookbook.  Found this online - it looks about the same. 

https://biggreenegg.com/recipes/pizza-dough/

No too much sauce.  Too much and the crust will not cook right.  I have used cornbread on a pizza stone lifted from the platesetter using three balls of aluminum foil.  Golf ball size. 

mkevenson

I am sure that your pizza is already baked. How did it turn out?
I am currently using this recipe for high heat cooks and 48 hr ferments at 66F .

For 2 pies 280 gm each;

340 g flour ( 00 sifted) 100%
221 g water ( 65% hydration, 70-80 F)
0.07 g ADY (0.02%)
9.4 g kosher salt (  2.75% Diamond Crystal )

Mixing using bakers % is infinitely more accurate and reproducible than volume measurements.

There are many methods for mixing dough both by hand ( my favorite) and machine.
Yeast % is based of length of time dough ferments and temp at which it ferments.
This dough is suited to cook at 750 F - 900 f. Different dough recipes are available for different bake temp and style of pie you like.
My suggestion is use one recipe several times until you can reproduce the same crust each cook. 

There are many resources available to help you, one GREAT one IMHO is pizzamaking.com.

Happy pizza making! Don't forget to report on your progress.

Mark

Stormbringer

This is how I cook pizza in our Egg:

https://thecooksdigest.co.uk/2016/08/24/cooking-pizza-with-a-big-green-egg/

This is the dough I use, it's a long fermentation but patience is rewarded:

https://thecooksdigest.co.uk/2018/06/29/new-and-improved-pizza-dough-recipe/

These are some of the results:

Lumpy_Coal

Master lower heat pizzas first say around 450.  That gives you time to watch the crust and get it where you like.  Also, so you don’t stress about the top doneness, set your oven on low broil to finish off the top if needed.  That way you just worry about a couple things and not everything has to finish perfect.  

GrateEggspectations

paqman said:

Do you have a stone?
Do you have a way to raise the stone high in the dome?

Yes, and yes. 

I have “roofed” my pizzas before but the results have still been lacklustre. 

GrateEggspectations

Thanks for the responses, all. I really appreciate all the effort you’ve put into informing me - especially as my ask had principally been only to links to your favourite pizza making threads. 

Yesterday was unexpectedly a bit of write off as far as cooks go, as both kids are currently at home and work was a bit of a shltshow. Today is a new day though, so my wife and I are looking at dough recipes before prepping for tonight. 

If my results are not terrible, perhaps I will post something - but I’m not holding my breath!

GrateEggspectations

northGAcock said:

Honestly, I think that what you are requesting requires a great deal of typing. I would be happy to engage with you in discussion by phone. PM me your phone number and i would be happy to discuss my experiences with you. There is a learning curve to mastering this....took me about a dozen cooks to get where i wanted to be. That said, i like a thin dense crust. I was working towards that and eventually found joy. Hope you will as well......cause the za can be awesome once you find your way.

Thanks a lot! That’s very kind. I’ll give it a go tonight with some of the advice provided to me and will reach out to you if it once again leaves much to be desired. Really appreciate the offer!

SamIAm2

@Great_EGGspectations - There a a couple of good deep dish pizza threads here if you like that style.

 @CarolinaQ posted one here:https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1167656/how-to-make-authentic-chicago-deep-dish-pizza-in-two-hours-or-less/p1

This is one I bookmarked from @bgebrent:
https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1218480/sunday-skillet-deep-dish-pie/p1

Enjoy

GrateEggspectations

Thanks again for all the info, all. I read all tips and resources shared and took a calculated approach. I think the biggest change from my standard approach was matching dough type with cook temp, which was a point of emphasis above. Both the dough and sauce were 100% homemade.  

I think that this was my best pizza to date. My only tweak would be to stretch the dough just a touch thinner. Otherwise, I was entirely pleased with it. 

BigGreenBean

Great advice, all, and that's a fine looking pizza.  But I'm much more the thin-crust type.  Any quick notes, folks?  Never done one on the Egg, but desperate to try.  I always make my own dough for oven bakes.  For whatever imperfections, that's all I'll do.  Store bought?  Nope. Temp for a thin crust?  time?  

paqman

The texture of your dough doesn’t look right to me.  It should be silky and smooth, can you share the details of the exact recipe and step by step process?

GrateEggspectations

paqman said:

The texture of your dough doesn’t look right to me.  It should be silky and smooth, can you share the details of the exact recipe and step by step process?

This recipe: https://thecooksdigest.co.uk/2018/06/29/new-and-improved-pizza-dough-recipe/

Stormbringer

GrateEggspectations said:

paqman said:

The texture of your dough doesn’t look right to me.  It should be silky and smooth, can you share the details of the exact recipe and step by step process?

This recipe: https://thecooksdigest.co.uk/2018/06/29/new-and-improved-pizza-dough-recipe/

That's my recipe and I've not had dough look like that. The pictures I put up above are a result of that one. Would be interested to know what flour you used and your shaping technique (tossed, rolled, pushed).

However ... the main thing is did it taste good? Was it an improvement? From what you wrote, sounds like this is the case. Making pizza dough and pizza in the Egg is a journey, I'm still learning. #kaizen

GrateEggspectations

Stormbringer said:

GrateEggspectations said:

paqman said:

The texture of your dough doesn’t look right to me.  It should be silky and smooth, can you share the details of the exact recipe and step by step process?

This recipe: https://thecooksdigest.co.uk/2018/06/29/new-and-improved-pizza-dough-recipe/

That's my recipe and I've not had dough look like that. The pictures I put up above are a result of that one. Would be interested to know what flour you used and your shaping technique (tossed, rolled, pushed).

However ... the main thing is did it taste good? Was it an improvement? From what you wrote, sounds like this is the case. Making pizza dough and pizza in the Egg is a journey, I'm still learning. #kaizen

Molini Pizzuti 00, but it was several years old. 

My wife handled the dough end of the recipe. In step three, she was initially pulling and folding, but found the dough was tearing, so she says she ended up kind of kneading it while also needing to add flour because the dough was too sticky. I took care of the shaping and likely didn’t push the air out to the crust enough. 

Yes, definitely an improvement. This was our most successful pizza. I feel like we’re getting much closer. 

Am going to order new flour and read up some more before next weekend. 

paqman

Do you have kitchen aid (stand mixer)?

GrateEggspectations

@paqman: Yes. My wife apparently used it to combine ingredients initially. 

paqman

What kind of salt did she use and did she try to reduce the amount called for by the recipe?

Do you have a kitchen scale?

I’ll write down my process as well as a few tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the years.

Have you ever shopped at La Bottega?  I suggest you get a couple of bags of Caputo 00 chef’s flour (red bag).  While you are there, I also suggest that you get some Diamond Crystal salt, Italian Burrata, and Luxardo Maraschino Cherries.

The Caputo flour is cheaper at Adonis, you can get it as low as 2.50$ per 1kg bag.

GrateEggspectations

@paqman

Grey sea salt. She did not reduce. 

We have a digital kitchen scale. My wife used it to measure the flour. 

I’d appreciate your tips!

I sometimes go to Nicastros. That’s where I bought my current 00. Oddly enough, my neighbour is good friends with the owner and we went together about a month back to pick up a pizza order. 

paqman

GrateEggspectations said:

@paqman

Grey sea salt. She did not reduce. 

We have a digital kitchen scale. My wife used it to measure the flour. 

I’d appreciate your tips!

I sometimes go to Nicastros. That’s where I bought my current 00. Oddly enough, my neighbour is good friends with the owner and we went together about a month back to pick up a pizza order. 

Rocco (one of the two brothers who are the owners) is friend with everyone 😂.  He gives his cell phone number to just about everyone he talks to and he is pretty good replying to text messages.  I love this place.

GrateEggspectations

paqman said:

GrateEggspectations said:

@paqman

Grey sea salt. She did not reduce. 

We have a digital kitchen scale. My wife used it to measure the flour. 

I’d appreciate your tips!

I sometimes go to Nicastros. That’s where I bought my current 00. Oddly enough, my neighbour is good friends with the owner and we went together about a month back to pick up a pizza order. 

Rocco (one of the two brothers who are the owners) is friend with everyone 😂.  He gives his cell phone number to just about everyone he talks to and he is pretty good replying to text messages.  I love this place.

Yep. That’s him. While I had been there a few times, my neighbour introduced me to Rocco as “one of their best customers.” Lol. 

jetman96

You inspired me to finally write down my process (here).

I've also added a separate post for Pizza tips and tricks for my style (here).

Good luck!

GrateEggspectations

@jetman96: Thanks. I’ll be sure to review before my next attempt. 

Just stocked up on some more 00 courtesy of Amazon. Three bags.