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Here is the inside scoop, secrets, pearls of wisdom, and other stuff that will turn you into a super-chef who can offer gourmet meals to crowds without breaking a sweat. As a bonus, you will be able to provide off-the-cuff dissertations on a variety of highly detailed cooking issues to educate your friends and to bore otherwise innocent partygoers into a state of stupor.



Incredible Inexpensive Pizza Oven

After years of trying to make great pizza in an electric oven, I finally gave in and bought a propane outdoor pizza oven.

pizza

The results are simply incredible. I bought it on Amazon Here.

As well as this fantastic pizza cutter

blackstone pizza oven

Checkered Chef pizza cutter


This cooks a pizza in less than 2 minutes and is pretty much bulletproof.

A forum discussing this oven on the legendary www.pizza making.com site here has over 1,000,000 views!

The design is just brilliant There are two stone platters the top one is stationary and the bottom one rotates. A large propane burner flame is deflected so one half heats the bottom stone and the other half gets the top stone. The motor is a cheap generic rotisserie motor that is easily replaced. How hot can it get? Really Really hot. Hot enough that you can cremate a pizza if you get distracted. Is it better than an electric oven? This is like comparing a Prius to a Saturn V booster rocket. An oven just can't get the "leoparding," black spots. Even modifying your electric oven to get so hot that the broiler element melts, short circuits with a spectacular shower of sparks, and sets the pizza on fire doesn't get adequate leoparding (yes I have done this!) The results depend on starting with good dough and ingredients but those are meaningless without the right oven.

There are all kinds of ideas to modify this to make it even better, but I don't see any need to do so, and I modify everything. The unit is heavy and in classic Chinese tradition, some of the fit is a touch rough. The only issue that I've seen mentioned is that the steel bar that supports the lower plater is sometimes not at a perfect right angle so you might have to bend it a little.

It is so easy to use, and impressive to watch, that its a no-brainer when you have company over. This is several leagues above a fancy grill in terms of wow factor. When you fire it up, you don't have to look to see if the burner is lit; It makes aa bit of noise, and probably produces measurable thrust!

Check it out in action!!


cooked pizza

I use a wood pizza peel to load the pizza into the oven and to serve it. Key point is to use semolina flour under the pie to keep it from sticking to the peel. As you build the pizza, give the peel a shake to make sure the pie slides easily. A metal peel works best to get the pizza out of the oven

pizza peelwood pizza peel




infrared thermometer

It is easier to keep the stone clean with a this brush/scraper

Measure the temperature easily with this lasergrip infrared thermometer for under $20





For a much easier load and remove process, build the pie on a pizza screen like this



The motor that comes with it is a little iffy so here is what I have as a backup

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