Pizza Party #2 - SUCCESS!

Tuesday, July 17, Scott and I hosted our Second Pizza Party. My knitting friends, The Spiderwomen, who I've been knitting with for ten years now were great guests. They were patient with Scott and I, and gave some great feedback. The party was a total success!

Rachelle, Liz, Angie, Alana and Kristin - Thanks Spiderwomen!

The oven worked so much better this time; Scott was able to keep the heat up and the pizzas cooked at a much higher heat. We are assuming it was due to having the box built over the oven, which helped to retain the heat. We can't wait to see how much more the heat will hold once we get the perlite poured inside the cavity, and the roof built on top. Scott improved upon his fire building skills as well.

This photo looks so professional!

I had made a different dough for this party, and it rocked! A friend of mine had mentioned she was into baking bread recently, and was using the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I know the author, Zoe Francois, whose kids went to school with mine in Minneapolis but had forgotten about the book. So I ordered it from the library and made their pizza dough. It was amazing! It rolled out beautifully. I immediately ordered their new Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day from Amazon. I can't wait for it to arrive.

We had purchased additional tools through www.BrickOvenBaker.com since our last firing, and that helped. The 8" Banjo peel rocked! The only complaint Scott had was the metal handles on some of the tools got too hot; we'll have to get that figured out.

In summary ... We had such a fun night, the oven was hotter and the dough was easier to use. Big improvement. Now I need to work on finding some recipes. I'm learning this is a continual learning process.

The Box is On

Over the past two weeks Scott has been busy preparing the 'box' that will go over the oven. Originally we thought we would use metal 2x4's and Durock to build the box. But after researching the weight load of the 2x4's, we didn't feel they would hold up our rock facade and the decorative 'cap' we plan to put on top. Once again we contacted our experts, and researched the internet for solutions. The cheapest fire-proof solution we could find was building another concrete barrier.

Scott spent several evenings after work cutting all the block, and preparing the holes to feed through the gas line. We started the morning covering the oven with a ceramic blanket. It was really easy and went quick. 

We surrounded the oven with a ceramic blanket.
We used high heat tape to hold it down.

After the blanket was on we started building the box out of 16" x 8" x 4" concrete blocks. Bottom line: The job sucked. The 90+ degree temperatures didn't help, but the smaller blocks were much harder to form since you  had such a smaller area of concrete to apply the mortar. But after six hours, we finished. 

I have to admit Scott was the cheerleader through this day. If it wasn't for him, I would have gave up after 2 hours. The heat killed me and the block weren't lining up well. But we finished and that is all that matters. Scott put a temporary Durock top on the box to keep the blanket dry. 

We used three bags of masonry mix. We built the box four blocks high. 

It took extra time to make sure we had the gas line placed properly. After a lot of research, we found a flexible heavy-duty gas line that we used to connect the burner to the valve, that will then go to the tank. We could only find the gas line at Menards. 

Overall I love the look of the oven with the box. The shape is exactly was I was hoping for. As we were building the walls I realized, "This sucker is tall!" A BIG thanks to my husband for getting me through the day. Teamwork is a good thing.

We are planning to fire the oven up Tuesday night for another Pizza Party! I need to get reading about pizza dough ...

The First Firing!

The morning of the 4th of July we woke up dreaming about pizza. It was the day we had been waiting for ... our first firing! I'll begin by saying it was a complete success; we didn't produce our best pizza (at least we hope), but it got ate and we learned a great deal.

Scott had spent the previous day splitting wood. My parents live near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) in Northern Minnesota, and in July of 1999 a huge storm roared across the remote woods leaving behind a large path of fallen trees. My father's passion is trees. Growing them, cutting them, building with them, simply breathing them. He loves trees. So he got a permit to trees that had blown down, and we are fortunate recipients of that wood.

Scott lit the first match in the oven around 2:00. I wish I could say it was ceremonial, but I didn't even know he was doing it! I was inside preparing for our guests.

Around 3:30 I removed the dough from the refrigerator, divided it into balls, and formed each into a tight ball just as the directions said. At about 5:30 we began making the pizza. It was horribly hot outside, so we decided to construct the pizzas in our basement kitchen.

That's when we started having problems! The dough wouldn't 'stretch'. It would just keep bouncing back to its original shape, making the crust thicker than we had hoped. I've never made homemade pizza dough in my life, except from the bag you get at the grocery store where you just add water. I need to do some serious research in this area. Despite the problems with the dough, the pizzas turned out pretty good. 

Everyone kept telling us we would burn our first pizza. But as I imagined, Scott didn't. He did an amazing job at managing the fire. His patience is something I'll never have. At first he had a hard time keeping the heat up, but figured that out as we neared the end of the day by increasing the fire in the back of the oven. Once we get a 'box' built over the oven, we are hoping the temperature won't fall as quickly as it did. 

The best part was seeing the kids so anxious to take a bite of the pizza!

In addition to the dough not 'rolling out' we had major problems with the dough sticking to ... everything! We added so much corn meal we went through my entire CSA supply given to me the week prior, and that wasn't enough. It became a group effort just to get the dough onto the peel.

But overall Scott and I had a great time. We loved making the pizzas, baking them in the oven, and more importantly sharing them with friends. We can't wait to fire the thing up again!

A Trip to Hockenbergs, Groceries and A Dough Making Party

The evening of Friday, June 29 Scott and I decided to fire up the Pizza Oven for a Fourth of July celebration we were hosting the following Wednesday. We never planned to have the oven ready this early, and therefore found ourselves unprepared. Unprepared for what you ask? We hadn't yet purchased all the 'fun baking supplies'.  The Pizza Peels. The Professional Pizza Cutter. How about that apron? We didn't have a thing!

So on Sunday night I went to www.fgpizza.com to purchase supplies. Yes, I realize it was only two days until our party but I had hopes I could get it shipped overnight. I put $326 worth of items in my shopping cart, and calculated the overnight shipping costs - $322. Yes, you read that right, it cost nearly as much to deliver our items. I could have purchased a round-trip airline ticket for that price! So we decided to wait until after our first firing, and pick up a few items at Hockenbergs Tuesday morning.

Outside Hockenbergs after spending $xx on supplies!

Scott and I woke up early Tuesday, July 3 and made the trek to Hockenbergs in Eagan. We had a great time and could have spent the entire day browsing the shop. We spent $308.71 on supplies. The Pizza Peel selection wasn't great, but we had to buy at least one! After Hockenbergs we hit the grocery store for supplies.

I bought an infrared thermometer (Kintrex IRT0421) through Amazon, as we decided not to bury thermo-sensors through our slab and oven. After researching this in depth, we learned that they can go bad, not get placed properly, and the infrared thermometers are reliable.


We have a pool in our backyard, and the temperature was crazy hot the night before the 4th. So several of the neighborhood kids found their way to our pool, along with their parents. I had to get the dough made, and many parents were enjoying the evening, so Scott and I ended the evening making dough in our kitchen with all our friends surrounding us. There were a few Gin & Tonics shared that evening as well. It was perfect.

I made five batches of the 'Classic Pizza Dough, Neo-Neapolitan Style' from Forno Bravo's website while Scott made two batches of the 'Crushed Tomato Pizza Sauce' from the same site. We hit the pillow dreaming about pizzas ...

OK, the dough on my face is not accidental!