OT - Outdoor pizza oven
Following as I'm in the market as well. Already have a Blackstone and a regular Weber grill. Trying to figure out which I should keep and which I should replace with the pizza oven as I don't use either very often.
Webber and Blackstone both make pizza attachments (depending on your specific model)
And this is why I come here (other than the tremendous Michigan sports coverage!). I didn't even think of that!
jblaze is obviously a paid grill pizza attachment influencer
I have the kettle pizza for my Weber and am quite satisfied. I cook pizzas in 5 minutes and they are delicious. I can also use wood and get temps well above that of most grills (my temp gauge goes to 650 and I bury the needle for about a half an hour with one bunch of hardwood).
I have the original Blackstone pizza oven (I believe they originally called it the outdoor oven or patio oven) I've used it a ton and highly endorse it. They took it off the market for quite a while causing a lot of consternation. It initially returned as an add on to the flat top, I think but now their pizza oven is back. Looks like the same concept but, of course a lot more expensive.
i know this doesnt answer it directly, but making pizza in my big green egg is a total win... i make flat bread style pizza and it comes out amazingly well.
But, its not gas.. Once I get it up to temp (550-650), pizzas are done in 6-8 minutes and i can knock out about 6-7 of them quickly while folks eat up.
The upside of course, is that you can use the egg for tons of other great stuff in addition.
Our Weber is holding strong as our regular grill and we have a cheap electric smoker that works well for our needs in the space. Pizza is my wife's hobby (and one I very much so enjoy), so looking to do a standalone pizza option.
i gotcha. I have a Napoleon Gas grill that i use for day to day stuff, but... just sharing my experience!
I would love a pizza oven too!
I did it a lot of ways before the Blackstone (I think I fried a gasket on my egg doing pizza).
I think the Blackstone is a great stand alone option. We used to do it once a week (a bit less with the kids gone). I have a good dough recipe if you need it.
FWIW I love grilling pizzas and we've had several parties where we'll have our friends pick their toppings and then i grill their pizza. This is how I do it:
- Purchase several small 8-10 inch Bobolli or other pre-made pizza crust. Yes, home made is better but yes, home made is a large pain in the ass and requires a lot of clean up. Store bought is neither of those.
- Put out a bunch of different toppings in a bowl
- Pre-heat grill to 450-500 (if possible)
- Place topping side of crust on direct heat for about 45 seconds to a minute (you want to brown it). Spray bottom of crust with olive oil spray before removing
- Bring crust to toppings and have guest fill it up as they see fit
- Put pizza back on grill away from heat for about 10 minutes or so with top down or until cheese melted and top of crust brown
It tastes fantastic and it's a lot of fun. Rinse, repeat for every guest.
I second this. i did this (growing up in the 90s). boboli is still around and i just did it with my family and they all enjoyed. very fun option... its not the tastiest on earth, but the experience is fun
Agreed. I've done this with premade pizza dough (from Trader Joe's) and it works equally well. It's a bit messier as it does require stretching the dough and the initial transfer to the grill which can be a bit tricky. It'd probably easier with a pizza peel, which I don't yet own.
You might want to check with your grocer--several of our local chains make real pizza dough daily, and keep it in coolers near the front of the store. We make our own a lot--it's super easy, really, but making it rise, then working it does take time--and theirs is in every way as good. And--not to be critical, because all pizza is good pizza--but if you can obtain more heat, do it!
I recommend building your own wood fire brick oven for pizza. Super easy and super cheap and by FAR the best pizza you've ever had. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHMQ_QQJtbY
This post changed my plan for my outdoor space at our new farmhouse. This is the answer (but I will make it permanent).
I've converted my Weber Bullet to a pizza oven with great success. Not gas obviously but it's a lot cheaper than a green egg and works great for smoking.
I got a Solo Pi as a gift last summer; it wouldn't work for your requirements (too small). It's fun but there's only 2 of us so the size is fine, and it stores in a deck box when I'm not using it. I went with the gas kit I've never tried it with wood. Gets plenty hot. I've only bought the ready to use fresh dough at Busch's, making my own is the next step.
Take a Southwest flight to Chicago.
Go to a Lou Malnati's.
Order any toppings not pineapple or anchovies.
Walk away with the realization Detriot Style pizza sucks!
NY pizza > Detroit pizza >>>>>>>>>>Chicago pizza (not really pizza)
Ten years ago, I would have said that any NY slice was better than any slice anywhere in the country. But pizza has improved. Tallahassee, population 205,000, has three and a half* pizzerias where this Brooklyn and New Jersey boy is willing to take visitors. A plain slice and a sausage and onion slice are good test cases, but I'll eat anything. A chicken and potato and pesto is one of my favorites to make at home. Fig and bacon on a white pie is another. Combos we came up with.
I'm not intolerant--I'll eat mediocre pizza, too. But the thing has to have a nice crust (c'mon!) And some of the sauces from the chains are execrable. It takes all of three seconds in a blender!
*I say a half because there's a nice Italian restaurant that sells a pie it calls a Four Seasons, with breaded eggplant, fresh tomatoes, and basil that's drowning in mozarella that not trad at all but filling and tasty.
I live in Havana, just north of Tallahassee. What are these 3 pizza places you speak of?
Gaines Street Pies; Decent Pizza; Isabella's Napoletana; and Little Italy for the Four Seasons described above. Brickyard on the north side has a perfectly fine pie, too.
The pizza hasn’t gotten better you’re just losing your palate, Florida man.
Don't tell anybody, but Tallahassee's a nicer town, in many ways, than A2. And I grew up there, when it really was nice. Three universities, the state capital, just a lot more going on. And the cost of living is half what it is in Ann Arbor. I lived in NY and SF before I came here, and used to save with my wife for months for a trip to Sonoma, LA, Seattle. Here, I've traveled out of the country every summer since I arrived. Most biodiverse place in the lower 48, according to EO Wilson, who grew up here. We have two socialists on the city commission, and our politics are arguably better, too. Plus, the city isn't entirely white! Which is good if, like me, your family isn't, either. I'm okay if people don't know or don't want to come here, though. A hundred thousand people move here every day, and they're destroying it, fast. Yes, the politics are ugly, but Michiganders forget quickly that their state (mine, originally) was for two decades a laboratory for right-wing Republican experiment, including under the stupidest, fattest, ugliest governor and then head of MSU who ever lived. Upstate is great, but the rest of Michigan is. . . about like the rest of the United States, covered in dreck and in deep trouble. I'll stop for a pasty heading north, though. And be happy to hang out on the Leelenau Peninsula, anytime.
NY pizza is shite. Its a tasty snack that is good when you are drunk. The pizza sits on that tin pan for god knows how long. Then when you order the slice, it gets thrown into the oven to resurrect the flavor like the bride of Frankenstein, then served to you. It's noticeably not fresh and worthy of drunk cuisine.
I think you may be generalizing all NY pizza based on the cheap stuff.
A pie from a place like John's of Bleecker isn't really comparable with reheated slices, though I would argue that both have their place in the pizza pantheon.
Been to John's. It was the same reheated shit that every other place serves.
I have countless classmates/friends in NYC that try to take me to the next best pizza slice place. All are the same: reheated food for drunk people.
With that, I did go to a sit down pizza place in Hell's Kitchen (I can't remember the name of the place) that had an amazing pizza with burrata cheese on the top. One of the best pizza's I've had. Something I have not seen in Chicago.
I'll add that the most underrated NYC food is the chopped cheese. I've had about 10 of them and every one of them were amazing. Can't get a chopped cheese in Chicago.
Johns of Bleeker doesn't serve slices, only whole pies fresh out of the oven. No reheating there.
Then I stand corrected. I'm certain I went to a pizza slice place called John's that everyone was raving about.
Maybe Joe's?
"NY pizza is shite." That's why Frank Sinatra had his pizzas flown in from Brooklyn when he came to Chi, dude.
Because Frank Sinatra is the foremost expert in pizza, dude
Saying NY pizza is shite is just. . . asstastically dumb. I really shouldn't have responded, you were just being provocative. You even SAY that on the street over toward Caton Ave. in Bklyn, you're gonna get it handed to ya, bub. :) It's also very stupid to say that if something's warmed up it's necessarily bad. That kinda disqualifies you from the conversation by itself.
I’ll clarify. NY slice pizza is shite. As you can see from my post above, I commend a sit down pizza place in Hells Kitchen, so take a Xanax and chill.
Get out of the kitchen. ;-)
Or as Darius Morris, aka DMo, might have said: Get off of my kitchen.
I love NY pizza. When I was in middle school back in the late 70's, I lived in a town right outside Manhattan and there was a place called Four Corners Pizza. The guys who owned it and worked there were from Italy and had chest hair so dense, you couldn't see any skin underneath. They made the best NY pizza and yes, slices. Every day after school I'd get a slice and an orange soda and yes, the slices were reheated, and they were amazing.
Of course! Half of the latchkey schoolkids in NY and NJ are preserved from starvation because they stop off somewhere on the walk home and buy the slice and a drink special somewhere!
One can't categorize all Chicago pizza as deep dish. Tavern style is just the American evolution of Roman pizza, much as NY-style is the American evolution of Neapolitan pizza.
Deep dish is different, but even within that there's significant variation. Pequod's is essentially Detroit-style, which is descended from Sicilian style, while Gino's East and Lou's are the more unique meat and cheese bombs.
Thanks for that. I think tavern style is Chicago's pizza way more than the touristy deep dish. I'm not alone with that position.
I can't count the number of times I've explained this to someone after hearing "I like Chicago, but I don't like your pizza."
Yeah, the notion that Chicago only has deep dish is hilarious.
Like essentially literally every other kind of food that exists on the planet, it's all here. There's tavern style, deep dish, Neapolitan, Sicilian, a multitude of Detroit-style places, even pretty legit late night NY-style slices at Gigio's.
Go to Nick and Vito's pizza for tavern style
And you can follow this around the world. The Sicilian pie, sometimes errantly called foccacia, is said to descend from a Catalan coca, which can come with anything from carmelized vegetables to red peppers with confectioner's sugar.
And almost all of them, when sold in markets, etc., get warmed up for the buyer and taste BETTER for it. People who scoff at the idea of reheating any savory baked good. . .
Chicago pizza, first, is not pizza. It's more like lasagna. Also, it sucks.
I've tried. And I've kept trying. Trip after trip to Chicago, starting in the late 70s, when I was at the U of M. (Spring breaks, when the temperature there would be 20 degrees!) But I've never taken to it.
Maybe people who are stuck there just like it for the insulation? Those things are instant heart attacks!
Ooni Karu 16 owner here and after 2 seasons I have zero complaints. I bought the gas burner and have used that exclusively. It cooks pizzas at up to about 900 degrees and it's true they are fired in about 60-80 seconds. I mainly make variations of Neapolitan-style doughs but have tried a few others but all are meant for high heat. You can sear steaks in a cast iron skillet which I've had good results with too.
It's a big unit overall so you'll need space for it. I like making bigger pies so I'm not schlepping pizzas all night while guests are chowing down; a 16" vs 10-12" pizza is a big difference. Also, the door on the Karu is nice if you're cooking when the ambient temperature is a little lower.
This thread reminded me it's finally time to get ours going this season. Let us know how it works out!
Have the same and this is about the exact review I would write.
Kids just bought me a Karu 12G for my b'day. Good to hear the positive comments as we are looking to enjoy the pizzas.
We have the Ooni Koda 12, which is the smaller model but same operation as it hooks to a propane tank. Works amazing and I highly recommend the Ooni if you are looking to cook Neapolitan style pizza. We rarely order pizza out after having ours for the last couple of years!
Ooni Koda (gas) 12 owner also. Love it. Gets up to temp quickly and turns out a pizza in 2-3 minutes if you’re cooking hot. Only regret is not getting the 16.
You can make nearly any style pizza in it once you learn how to manage the temp.
Also, easy to transport for a tailgate or camping.
Regardless of what you get, be sure to get a peel and digital thermometer gun.