
Testing KettlePizza and Baking Steel's New Joint Pizza Oven (2013) - Tomte
https://slice.seriouseats.com/2013/09/the-pizza-lab-we-test-kettle-pizza-and-baking-steels-new-joint-pizza-oven.html
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bobflorian
I have the Kettle Pizza with Baking Steel, and honestly, it's garbage. It's
not worth the effort to set up once a week to get mediocre, not very
repeatable results. Pretty sure I've ruined my Weber Kettle by using it too.

I got a RoccBox last summer (after watching Kenji's review videos) and it's
freaking amazing. It's not much more effort to setup. So easy to just turn on
the gas and wait for it to heat up.

I've been making VPN-ish style pizzas for 10 years at home and have a lot of
experience with gadget and tips and tricks, and the Kettle Pizza just seemed
too gimicky after I got it, and tried it once. Was honestly disappointing I
spent so much money on it.

This is my go-to guide:
[http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm](http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm)
; Jeff is a great guy; talked with him for few minutes in ATL.

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bobflorian
The "baking steel" required too much maintenance, and rusted to pieces and
started dropping rust flakes into my food. The radiant heat effect was very
small, and I nearly always burned the bottom of my crusts before the top was
charred, even when doming the food.

The sheer amount of fuel you have to put in to get up to temp was absurd too.
Having a 900 degree raging fire in my weber kettle sure made me nervous, even
for hours after I was done making pizzas.

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basch
How did you dome the food, if the steel was above the pizza? What burned the
pizza, the fire or the steel?

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bobflorian
Really just brought the pizza off the stone so that the bottom wouldn't burn,
and brought it close to the top without touching to get enough radiant
"broiling" effect.

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seiferteric
For a lower cost option it might be okay, but there are a lot of small
standalone gas/wood pizza ovens you can buy now that will get much better
results. I myself recently got a roccbox and it is fantastic. There are
similar ones out there for something like half the cost though that are
probably as or nearly as good, blackstone, uuni, napoli etc.

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anthonybsd
I looked into a bunch of these too for my ceramic grills and ended up going
with a standalone oven too (Ooni Koda). Couldn't be happier. Perfect
Neapolitan pies every time in about 2 minutes, and super portable.

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asark
I assume it's pretty good for flatbread, too? If I could get meaningful
contribution to at least one other thing (naan, say) out of this it starts to
get really tempting.

...oooh, how about tandoori-style meat? Any other high-temp cooking work well
in these things? Thinking the opening might make it tough or cleanup make it
impractical.

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seiferteric
Yup, in fact I have used mine more for flat bread than pizza so far lol.

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asark
Good to know. This is exciting—last time I looked into these sorts of things
the selection was far more limited, and priced in the "enthusiast" range.
Never got why they'd be _so much_ more expensive than cheap grills or
smokers—market hadn't caught up to demand, I guess. These are cheap & space-
conscious enough to actually be non-crazy purchases for someone who just wants
to make some good flatbread or pizza 1-2x a week. Super bonus points if I can
also do some other crazy high-temp things (tandoori!) with it 1x/month or so.
Now on my definitely-get-one-this-year list, thanks.

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anthonybsd
Yep, Naans too. I suppose you can do steaks and veggies as well but I usually
do those on the grill.

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basch
Can anyone explain why the bottom layer is stone and not steel, is it more
marketing than anything?

[https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/10/pizza-hack-baking-
copper...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/10/pizza-hack-baking-copper.html)

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mohaine
I'm guessing it is due to the temperature the oven can reach. A normal oven
can only hit 500F but once you get much higher than that the steel works too
well, casing the crust to burn before the toppings (or top crust) are properly
cooked.

I recently retired my steel after moving due to how much hotter my new oven
gets. With the steel sheet you had burnt curst with little to no browning on
the top. Switching back to my stone evened things out.

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basch
>little to no browning on the top.

Did you have a sheet of steel above your pizza? If anything, if your steel is
too hot to have underneath the pizza, put it above it and use it to radiate
heat, vs the ovens regular convection heat transfer.

My original question was more if having steel on both sides works or not. What
if the fire source is above the top layer, so the top side (the one that
doesnt contact the pizza) is slightly warmer than the bottom layer (that does
touch the pizza.)

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JohnJamesRambo
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I don't enjoy the burned Neapolitan
pizza style.

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phonypc
I sometimes enjoy charred flavor on things, but Neapolitan style is always way
too soggy for me. Even more so in Naples itself. If it weren't for the
historical aspect I'd say it's not even pizza.

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zeitg3ist
Well, your definition of “pizza” seems to be related to what you’re most
familiar with. I would say that it’s the American version(s) that can’t be
called real pizza :)

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phonypc
That's fair. Neapolitan is definitely the original, it's just so different
from most of the pizza descended from it.

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starpilot
Makes me think of how an efficient way of removing smoke quickly from a
cooking element, without having a fancy hood, would make cooking a variety of
foods easier. I can't make steaks too often because it fumigates my entire
apartment.

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legohead
My FIL in Russia built a metal box contraption he used to smoke fish in his
flat/apartment. Put fish inside w/wood chips or whatever you use to smoke,
then place it on the gas stove and light it up. It had a vent hole on the top
and he would connect it with flex pipes to his flat's oven hood. Worked very
well, kept nearly all the smell and smoke away.

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starpilot
Do you have a picture by chance? My stove has a microwave over top of it with
a fan underneath. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if vents outside or
if it just recirculates. It doesn't seem to reduce the odors much at all.

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batbomb
(2013)

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sctb
Thanks! Updated.

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cascom
honestly the baking steel in the regular oven works pretty well as long as you
make an effort with the dough (make a few days ahead/doing a cold ferment +
using OO flour)

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asark
Stone and peel with a normal 550-degree-max oven, bread-machine-prepped dough
using ordinary bread flour, cheese one notch above Kraft, and fresh veggies,
will leave all the chains in the dust. You can get even better busting out the
standing mixer and specially-sourced flour, cold-fermenting, et c., but anyone
looking to get started should know you can _absolutely_ produce pies no-one'll
complain about by going the cheap & lazy route.

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tunesmith
I've seen mention a few times that the true traditional Neapolitan pizzas made
in Italy are gluten-free. Does anyone know how they make their dough?

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asark
Extremely unlikely. Gluten's what makes pizza dough stretchy, and holds it
together. Usually you want very _high_ gluten flours for pizza. Wikipedia
confirms that the Neapolitan style calls for (ideally) 0 or 00 flour, which is
to say, high gluten.

For it to be gluten free it'd have to be... IDK, corn or rice-flour or
something, with some chemical mumbo-jumbo performed to make it hold together
well enough to make a pizza.

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scottlamb
> For it to be gluten free it'd have to be... IDK, corn or rice-flour or
> something, with some chemical mumbo-jumbo performed to make it hold together
> well enough to make a pizza.

That's about right. You can make gluten-free pizza crust, but I'd only
recommend it if you're actually feeding someone diagnosed with Celiac disease.
GF baked goods use xanthan gum, guar gum, and eggs to stick the dough together
as gluten would do.

I like the Bob's Red Mill crust mix [1]. The ingredients on the side read:
brown rice flour, potato starch, whole grain millet flour, tapioca flour,
potato flour, cane sugar, xanthan gum, sea salt, guar gum. You add 2 eggs (as
well as water, an included yeast packet, and olive oil).

I don't do the Neapolitan style featured in the article, and I don't think
this mix is suitable for that. (Doesn't the dough for that need to be almost
runny? This stuff is thick when prepared according to the directions.) I
sometimes cook it on the grill with a pizza stone, but I make a midwestern
style with a chewier crust, a solid layer of shredded mozzarella, and enough
toppings to shock the conscience of any Neapolitan pizza aficionado.

[1] [https://www.bobsredmill.com/gluten-free-pizza-crust-
mix.html](https://www.bobsredmill.com/gluten-free-pizza-crust-mix.html)

