Posted by Adam Kuban, September 11, 2008 at 2:15 PM
A man in York, Pennsylvania, made a six-foot-long pizza in his barbecue smoker. (He's got a Gator smoker—so called, I assume because of its length):
I purchased the dough from a local pizza shop.... I heavily oiled the grate and we had three guys pulling the dough. We assembled it in two 3' sections that we worked together into one large pie.... we sauced and topped the pie with just about everything you could imagine, including peppers, onions, mushrooms, black olives, sausage, and bacon.... I used garlic powder and oregano and a blend of cheeses including mozzarella, romano, provolone, and parmesan.... To serve, we carried the whole rack inside and cut it up and served it right off the rack.
[via Kirk]
Posted by Adam Kuban, May 23, 2008 at 9:40 AM
Grilled pizza. What's there to say about it but that it's pretty awesome and that, yes, you can grill a pizza. It's much more fun and interesting that that other stuff you're thinking about grilling. Burgers? Hot dogs? Steak? Hmmph. Don't you do those every year? And anyway, even if you still want to grill that boring run-of-the-mill stuff, you have three days this Memorial Day weekend, so shake it up, homie.
So here's my quickie guide to doing grilled pizza. It's not a step-by-step, hold-your-hand guide—because I don't think doing grilled pizza is that difficult. Are you going to get it right the first time? Maybe. But it takes some practice. So, to get you started, here's what you'll need, along with some helpful tips and links to some good recipes.
What You'll Need
So you're probably askin': What do I need to grill a pizza? That's not an altogether unreasonable inquiry. Get your answer after the jump.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, October 9, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Editor's note: A short time ago, homeslice Philip G. got in touch, telling me there was a post on pizzamaking.com that was making quite a stir: Reverse-Engineered Coal-Fired Brick Oven. Apparently, a Michigan man had invented a grill insert that he claimed simulated a coal- or wood-fired oven. I clicked over and became fascinated by the metal-and-stone device (pictured below). Could something so simple-looking achieve the holy grail of at-home pizza-making—hot enough and consistent enough temperatures to perfectly cook a pie? I don't know yet, because my 2stone Pizza Grill has only today begun its UPS journey to my home in Brooklyn. Anyway, Philip has been in on the 2stone discussion thread on pizzamaking.com since the beginning, so he offered to do a Q &A with the inventor, Willard Gustavsen. Here 'tis. Many thanks to Philip! —Adam
Name: Willard Gustavsen
Location: Southwest Michigan
Occupation: Designer, manufacturer, builder
URL: 2stonepizzagrill.com
Tell us a little bit about where this project came from—where did you initially get the idea to make a pizza-oven insert for grills?
Most of the design work I have done has been related to specialty tools for the building industry. I have either sold the patent rights or have manufactured products and private-labeled them for companies. I have always liked good pizza and thought it would be a fun project; to see if I could design a simple oven or tool that could duplicate the results of an authentic wood-fired hearth oven. Essentially the 2stone Pizza Grill is just another tool of sorts.
At first, all of my prototypes were wood-burning and were a combination of steel and fire bricks. I tried many different styles, mostly looking for a way to reduce the number of bricks it took and also trying to find ways to shorten the fire-up time. Since I genuinely like pizza and pizza-making, it was more interesting than some of the other projects I've worked on. I kind of had my doubts about making something saleable, because it could be really expensive to ship a lot of bricks around the country.
I guess that's where I started thinking about a grill insert. I already had a grill "the heat source" and I figured most people do, so why bother reinventing "the heat part"? I also got tired of having to burn all that slab wood just for two pizzas.
How long has it taken to get all the kinks out of the system, from start to finish?
I started 5 or 6 years ago. I didn't work on it all the time but kept thinking about it in the back of my mind. I would scrap the last prototype and build a new one, always looking for a way to do more with less—fewer firebricks and shorter fire-up times, for example. Once the final concept was down, it did boil down to ironing out the kinks, as you say.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, August 31, 2007 at 1:15 PM
This entry originally ran on Slice on August 09, 2004, and has inevitably resurfaced twice a year—just before Memorial Day weekend and, as now, just prior to Labor Day Weekend. With each passing "reheat," it looks more and more dog-earred. I'm not sure whether this post is exhausted or just endearingly dated. Take your pick.
I guess your takeaway from it should be, Hey! I can grill pizza! While that's not so novel a concept in 2007, it seemed to be in 2004, when I first read about it and threw some dough over hot coals for myself (right).
It's not like the idea was new even then (here's a 2002 article on the stuff from New York magazine), but since 2004, I've seen a steady rise in articles about grilled pizza in grub magazines and newspaper food sections each summer. I still think it's a novelty for most people, but I get more and more emails each year asking about the process. And so I hope this post encourages you to try it for yourself.
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