Best Pizza So Far -- thanks icemncomth

BobS · February 2009

I fixed my best pizza ever tonight -- thanks to several hints from icemncomth and others.

I started by weighing my ingredients. Wish I had done it before, because it is actually a lot easier and I was sure that I got the target amount of water, for the hydration I was looking for.

I made two batches of dough to test. The first dough was based on bread flour with a little semolina added and the second one had some polenta in place of the semolina. Both were excellent. but the general agreement was that the one with semolina added was better.

I also changed my set-up, putting spacers between my plate setter and the pizza stone. This put the pie a little higher in the dome and got a better balance between the cooking of the toppings and the crust. I got the BGE up to 700 tonight and the crust was darn near perfect.

Here are the spacers. I bought 1 1/4" copper couplings that are about 2" long and gave me plenty of stability for the pizza stone.

Here was the first pie. Earlier I grilled onions, red peppers, Italian sausage, and fresh pineapple. I made a three cheese mix with hand garated mozzarella, provolone, and white cheddar.

Here is the second pie.

Blue Ridge Smoke · February 2009

They both look great! I will take a slice of the first one. Looks like I need to head to Lowes to get the spacers!

MilitantSquatter · February 2009

Looks great Bob.. Can never have enough pizza on the BGE !!

Your solution for the spacers is a good idea for extra height I'm using the BGE feet.

Gandy Dancer · February 2009

I started about 6 months ago using the copper couplings on my small BGE which work so well I use them on my large too. I also use them under my dutch oven. Great looking pizza.

Bricktucky · February 2009

Nice lookin' pies.
I used 1" T couplers for spacers, wanted to avoid possibly knocking over the risers, but I bet that extra inch helps get the top nice and bubbly and brown just as the crust hits its crispy peak.