Make Dough. First Rise.

My dough recipe - I no longer have it written down. I make it by memory and feel with an old (1970's?) Hobart Kitchen Aide mixer with a dough hook; the mixer was a good will score by a good friend. Roughly - 5 or 6 cups plain ol' flour. 2-packets of activated yeast. 1.5 T sugar. 1t salt. 12 - 15 oz warm water. 1T olive oil. Combine yeast and 1/2 water along with sugar in small mixing bowl. Stir vigorously with for to disolve all yeast and sugar. Let stand 10 minutes - should be frothy. Combine yeast-sugar-water in mixer. Mix on low with dough hook. Combine remaining water with salt and mix with fork. Add olive oil to the water too. Add remaining water to the active mixer, but in small quantities. Eventually there will be no loose flour. If it gets too sticky - too wet - add flour to the mix by the table spoon. Wetter dough will make bigger bubbles in the crust as the pizza cooks - as the water evaporates it forms bubbles and expands in the crust. Put dough in a large, lightly oiled (again, olive oil) mixing bowl. The oil will prevent the dough from sticking to the bowl. Cover with a clean dish towel and place in a reasonably warm spot. First rise should happen inside of two hours. PUNCH IT DOWN and let it rest. It will rise again. After two or three more hours, your dough is ready to work!

Dough Ball - Bananna for Scale

This dough ball will yield enough dough for three or four 14-inch pizzas. The second rise should be about the same size as the first. Punch it down and remove it from the bowl Place it on a lightly floured surface (clean counter top; large cutting board; etc.

Pizza BC - Before Cheese!

Work a small portion of the dough with a combination of rolling pin and hand tossing (don't drop it!). Spread dough on peal (pizza board), but spread a liberal amount of cornmeal on the peal to prevent sticking. Sticking is bad. The dough pictured above had about 20 minutes to rise after rolling and forming. Sauce - One 14-oz can of Six-in-One crush tomatoes is where it's at. Season to your preferred flavor with garlic, oregano, basil, salt, pepper, etc. Add a generous layer of sauce, followed by other toppings - pictured here are italian sausage, fresh, chopped sweet peppers, Vidalia onion, and red onion. Then cover with mozzarella cheese.

750 Degrees!

So the Big Green Egg can peg my thermometer. For this kind of dough, which is intended to rise a bit during cooking this is too hot. Don't push it more than 550 or 600F. Lower temps mean longer cook times. At 575F my pizza cooked in about five or six minutes.

Pizza on Stone

It looks small, but the steel part of the grill is 24-inches across. This is a 14-inch pizza on a 16-inch stone.

Fresh from the Oven.

Finished product; cooked in about six or seven minutes at 575F. The crust rises and finishes about 0.5-inch thick, which was my target. If you want a thinner crust, use less yeast (half), and work the crust thinner. I prefer it like this.

Under Side of Crust

It was my first attempt to cook pizza outside on the Big Green Egg. Overall it's quite good for the job. I'm still learning how to cook at higher temps (greater than 600F); it should be a fun skill to learn.