OK, I think I am good enough with this now to talk about doing pizza! If that awesome circle of Italian awesomeness is your bag, and you like outdoor cooking, you need to get yourself one of these pizza ovens! Once you figure out all the little quirks of the cooker, it gets a lot easier!

To start, assembly is nothing! This thing went together in a matter of minutes and was significantly smaller than I was expecting! There is a ton of power in this guy! There is a smoker box on the back and that is where you fill your Wood Pellets. It’s amazing that this thing can get up to 1000 degrees just on wood pellets alone! The real key to this oven is adding a little amount of pellets extremely frequently. Ever minute or so even when the thing is really cooking. You will burn out of pellets real fast if your not watching and then you have to start over at getting it back up to temp. You don’t want to smother the coals, you want to work with them so you need a attentive eye.

Once you get the coals started, I like to go inside and pull my dough out of the freezer. I like to buy pre made crusts at a local dough shop. Keeps it easy and the crusts are actually pretty awesome! Make sure to throw some corn meal down on any surface you put a crust. They have to be room temp before going in the oven and they can get pretty sticky doughy if you don’t lay down the corn meal. Like I said, the Crust needs to be at room temp or warmer before putting it in the oven. Otherwise, if it is cold, as soon as that crust hits the hot stone, it will burn giving the bottom of your pizza a very gross black looking crust.

OK, so your crust is room temp, your oven is at 900 degrees, time to make the pizza! Give your paddle or peel with the crust on it a quick shuffle just to make sure it slides around with no problem. I built a pizza on the crust, didn’t check this, and when I went to slide it into the oven, the crust stayed on the peel, but all the topping s and sauce flew onto the hot stone. It was a mess. But, if it slides. go ahead and assemble your pizza. Don’t go nuts, light on the toppings is the key.

Take your assembled crust out to the oven, open the door, and with a slight flick of the wrist, slide that pizza off the peel onto the stone and close the door. Once that door is closed, I simply count out “One One Thousand, Two One Thousand….” all the way to 16 seconds. When you hit that mark, open the door, pull the pizza out, rotate it 25% and put it back in. Repeat the counting 3 more times after that so all 4 sides of the pizza have been in for 16 seconds. If you had the oven at 900 degrees, made your pizzas moderately, and counted to 16 x 4 times, your pizza should look like this and smell incredible!

If you want to go a little extra, you can melt a stick of butter in a saucepan, add some Italian Seasoning and some minced garlic and melt. Just brush lightly onto the crust before adding your sauce and toppings!

Very good! But again, most important points

• Add Wood Pellets in small amounts extremely often
• The Crust Has to be room temp
• Don’t overload your Pizza with toppings or cheese!
• Enjoy