Pizza Tips From an Amateur

After 10 or so pizza parties under our belt, I'm ready to document some of the lessons from the school of hard knocks. Things I wish I'd known getting started. I ain't your boss, but these have helped us step up our pizza game.
In No Specific Order
- Be familiar with your pizza oven before your first party. Know how long it takes to get up to temp. If you are working with a pellet oven, make sure you have your process down for keeping it lit. A coworker named his Ooni the Divorcinator 3000, because when everyones hungry, it can be easier to stoke tempers than the heat of a pellet smoker (although in its defense he says its the best pizza he's ever had). My Gozney Roccbox takes 35-45 minutes on high to get the stone nice and hot.
- Keep the stone up to temp. The often cooler dough and toppings will absorb heat out of the stone. A few pizzas in a row will lower this temp and your dough will cook differently. Get a feel for where you like the speed and way the dough is cooking and try to regain that stone temp in between pizzas (I turn the oven back on high between cooks and those few minutes help). I typically shoot for around 600-700 on the Gozney gauge. Too hot and the dough seems to bubble more, too cold and your dough may not get cooked all the way through before the toppings are scorched.
- Don't replace your propane tanks, get them filled. It is more cost effective, you seem to get more propane in your tank than when you replace them, and you don't let any propane go to waste on a partially full exchange. This is easier than you think if you live close to a Tractor Supply store.
The Dreaded Stuck Pizza
These tips will help you avoid a stuck pizza and offer a couple of ways to recover.
- Pre-separate your dough and let it set at room temp. This was a HUGE help to us. Keeping it in a big ball and pulling off your smaller balls will create cool and warm areas will attract moisture/condensation. These cool areas will also be resistant to stretching the dough. Better to separate dough out into the pizza sized balls so they can be a more uniform temp. We use a food scale to measure out around 9.5 - 10 ozs (this is for a 12" pizza).
- Pre-cook fresh ingredients that will release a lot of moisture.
- Use a mixture of cornmeal and flour to "lubricate" the peal and mat when spreading dough. The corn meal makes for an easier release and is not as sticky when moisture or condensation forms, the flour helps those little balls of corn meal stick around some.
- Make sure your peal is not cold. Cold will attract moisture. Moisture will cause a stick.
- Less is more. The sad and simple truth is that we are sometimes asking too much of our dough by piling too many toppings on them. You could try using thicker dough for more toppings, but sometimes we just need to reign it in a little.
- Pre-test your pizza. You don't have to let hope be your guide. Give the peal a little shake before you throw it in the oven. The dough should slide easily and not stick to the peal in any area. If it sticks to the peal and you try to throw it anyway, you will not have a good time: see the next tip.
- Repair a stuck pizza. If you have a pizza stuck to the peal, it will be easier to fix while still in this state than after it's fallen apart in a 700 degree oven. Take a pizza pan and cover the pizza on the peal. Now turn the pizza/peal/pan upside down so that the pizza is now upside down on the pan. Put flour on any spot of the dough that is sticky/moist. Also clean the peal of any sticky residue and coat with flour/meal mixture. Put the peal back on the underside of the pizza and turn it back over so your pizza is back upright on the peal and make sure it's not stuck.
- If you have a bad release, let the heat cook the dough some before trying to move the pizza. The firmer/cooked dough should help the situation. If you try to move it while it's still soggy you could do something like cram it in the back of the oven and completely shut down your pizza party. Ask me how I know.
- Messed up pizzas have occasionally made good calzones. If things go really south, try to pinch the dough in on itself and make a calzone out of it. It will be a conversation starter. Turn the heat way down or you will just scorch the outside while the inside warms up.
Equipment
These are things that made a huge difference in how smoothly our pizza parties have gone.
- Cheap pizza pans. We bought 10 at Dollar General for around $13 and these were a life saver. You need somewhere to put pizza's when they come out. It's also nice if you can have a few pizzas finished and warming in an oven while your party shows up.
- Food scale and a rolling pin with a 2 mm spacer. I mention these together because around 10 ozs of dough, rolled out with a 2mm spacer will get you to the perfect size of dough for the Roccbox. Yes, I've seen the videos that talk trash about rolling pins, and that I'm destroying the "lovely bubbles" but I've never had a piece of pizza and said "You know, sure would be good if this had bubbles." Some places use rolling perforators to prevent bubbles from coming up in the cook. The rolling pin doesn't hurt, takes out some of the intimidation, and helps speed up the process. We can learn to throw dough later, let's get these people fed. I've read the recommended thickness of the dough is around 3mm. The dough seems a little resistant to the stretching process and rebounds some anyways. The 2mm spacer worked well for us.
- A circle gauged food mat. We picked one up at Walmart for around $6. It takes out the guess work for how close to being a 12" circle your dough is. This was truly a game changer. BTW, When we're talking about 12" pizzas, could we call it a foot pizza? Or is that too gross?
- An extra peal. You can actually pick these up from Walmart for around $10. The one we bought was not as nice as the one that came with the Roccbox, and was a little small, but this allowed my wife to work on loading the Roccbox full sized peal with the next pizza, while I used the slightly undersized peal to turn and pull pizzas outside in the oven. Teamwork/dream work. Make sure you know the size of the opening for your oven and you test that your extra peal will fit. I don't think our Roccbox would take a true 12" size peal so we've had to find some on the smaller side.
- Pizza Cutter. Obviously.
Topping/Pizza Ideas
- Sliced sandwich ham - First tasted at Luigi's in Midland, TX.
- Jalapeño Popper (Bacon, cheese, and jalapeño peppers) - First tasted at Jersey Girl's pizza in Odessa, TX.
- Artichokes - get the ones from the jar and slice them up
- Hatch peppers - from a can. Pack a flavor punch but it's not too spicy.
- Red bell peppers
- Ricotta cheese crust - First tasted at Mister 01 pizza in Grapevine, TX. Slice dough a couple of inches from edge (where your slices would normally be cut). Put a small glob of Ricotta cheese in the middle of these cuts and pinch the cuts together over the Ricotta (making a star pattern pizza). Top the rest of your pizza as usual. We've yet to perfect this.
- Hot honey.
- Make proteins several days in advance. Left over pot roast makes a mean philly cheese-steak pizza. Smoked chicken breast is bomb with either pesto or hatch peppers.
Our Process (Timeline)
The day before...
Planning and dough: It seems like 5 x 12" pizzas is enough for 6 adults. It also doesn't hurt to either plan on 1 extra pizza just to be safe. Our first cook we also bought some pre-made dough from the store so we could have it on standby in case some pizzas turned into calzones (I say this whenever a pizza fails to come off the peal correctly). For our parties between 7-12 people of various ages, my wife made a quadruple batch of the Pioneer Woman pizza dough recipe and its served us well. If you're doing 12" pizzas, plan on around 10 oz of dough per pizza.
It's worth mentioning that prep time on different dough can vary greatly and most can be stored in the fridge for a day or 2 if need be. You can't save this step for the party, and you'll need to have dough prepping the day before.
This is also not a bad day to have a meal where leftovers could make a good pizza topping (pot roast or smoked chicken come to mind).
2 hours prior to first cook...
Make sure you take the dough out of the fridge a couple of hours before the cooking starts to make sure it's at room temp. This makes it easier to work with and the dough seems less prone to coming out under-cooked. The first pizza I made, my son described as "having cheese in the crust" - it was not cheese. Go ahead and separate the dough out into a pizza sized portion (so you have 5 small balls of dough instead of one big one).
Good time to make sure your propane tanks are in order if you've not done so. I've gotten many cooks out of a single propane tank, so you probably will only need to change if you're low on a tank, but have a spare just in case.
30-40 minutes prior to first cook...
Time to fire up the Roccbox and get the stone nice and hot. I like to turn the knob close to full on. We want that stone hot. If you are using a pellet pizza oven you may need to start this process earlier.
Start getting the fixings ready to go. A food processor with a cheese grating attachment can turn a 15 minute job into a minute process. Have you ever had sandwich ham on a pizza? Do it. It's delicious. Canned hatch green chilies are a banger.
20-30 minutes before party...
Start making your pizzas. This process goes easier if you have one person focused on making the pizzas and one focused on cooking. While the first pizza is being made, turn your kitchen oven on to warm/hold.
Our oven can hold around 4 x 12" pizzas uncomfortably, but our plan is to have it full of pizza when guests start arriving so they can eat as we continue to prep.
Party time...
By the time we've made our 5th pizza, we have a small crowd ready to eat. Start pulling pizzas out of the oven (on warm/hold) and start slicing them into 8ths or 6ths or whatever (never go odd numbers though, or you may be a monster).
These make small slices but people appreciate being able to try different kinds of pizza with little commitment. We've tried where everyone makes their own pizza. If you aren't in a rush it's fine, but people get greedy and the toppings stack up as people try to have it all. This makes it harder to cook (and get it off the peal). It also just typically takes a little longer. And a 12" pizza per person will require more dough...but you do you.