Pizza on the grill trial #2 today, trying to learn from my mistakes and fine tune my technique for this particular grill and stone. Scientific method prescribed that I make the exact some kind of pizzas, although the dough was slightly different in that I used more bread flour and no sourdough starter. I set the grill temp at 475° F. from the very start, to see if that would keep the stone from overheating. I made the sausage pizza first and after five minutes of baking with the lid closed, I got decent results, although I thought that the cheese should have been a little more melted. The bottom, alas, was still overdone on some spots, as you can see.
 |  |
I then turned the grill off completely and left the lid open so everything could cool down a bit, then reset the burners at the lowest possible setting. The thermometer on the lid registered at just under 450° F., so I assembled another Four Cheese Tomato Top pizza, put it on the stone and closed the lid. After exactly five minutes, I discovered similar results: top just slightly underdone, and the bottom too dark in places.
 |  |
So are there further adjustments to be made? The grill temp doesn’t go any lower than 450° F., unless I only turn on two burners, which will be my next experiment. I think I’ll also try adjusting the hydration of the dough---mine tends to be drier than some recipes---and I suspect that a using traditional stone rather than the space age micro-crazed black one will yield different and perhaps better results. But alas, tomorrow is my last day here at the lake and I have to spend most of my time cleaning up and packing. It takes a good hour just to pack all the kitchen gear I brought! But there will no doubt be a sunny day in August or September when I have a few free hours and can come back just for the afternoon and test some more. Maybe I’ll bring some friends along so I don’t have to do all the clean-up!
RSS Feed