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@Poochie i bought an alfa brio about the same time i got my kk. in the past i was never happy with kamado pizzas so i invested in a dedicated pizza oven. regarding pizza dough, it takes time to make the dough. 2 days or more so plan ahead. as @alimac23mentioned, vita lacopelli on yt has great recipes. i used roberta’s pizza dough recipe. oven temp was 900+. floor temp was around 750-800. around 3 min to cook a 12 inch pie.

Hey Poochie, I’ve cooked many pizzas on the KK with some good results. I’m saying that, I’ve just recently purchased an ooni, the pizza game has stepped up a level. Here are some of the pizzas cooked on the KK, I always preheat mine for at least a couple of hours with the stones in at 500-550c: And here are the latest pizzas from the Ooni: The dough recipe I use is a 48 hour dough, that uses a poolish: In short, the KK makes great pizza whereas the ooni is next level. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Looks like an awesome meal @tony b Grapevine for smoke is new to me. I am going to have to try it. Does it matter what kind you use? We have a lot of muscadine grapes growing wild on the roads here. My Dad would make a port-like wine with them. Us kids would always go and help him pick them. Of course, we would always get eaten up by the chiggers. But the wine was good.

Took advantage of the rare "warm" day here in February (upper 50s) to do some grilling. Lamb chops for dinner. Scored these monsters (1 1/2" thick) at CostCo. Direct, lower grate, grape vine for smoking wood. Melting potatoes with shallot crack sauce and a nice side salad. Decent Merlot from Trefethen.

Made a cherry / maple entry table for a friend. He gave me a very twisted 6 quarter slab, salvaged enough for the top and shelf. Left a live edge on the shelf, facing front.

It was off to one of my favorite antique stores today with the intention of finding a cleaver, and so it happened. A 15 1/4 inch overall length, 9 inch blade approx. 4 inches at the head and 3 3/16 at the toe, it's 3/16" wide along the back having a 6.25" tang covered in wood supported by 3 brass rivets, and weighs in at 2lb 5 oz. The wooden handle for some reason was painted red, it does offer a good grip, but I haven't tried it under wet conditions. My intention is to take it to a blade smith and fix it with a modern handle, clean it up or should I remove the paint and see what the condition of the wood is like. It's carbon steel, has no apparent name I can distinguish. The straight edge razor blade was in fantastic shape and is marked Germania on the blade with a black horn handle, this blade at $20 purchased was hard to pass since it dates prior to 1900 and will fetch $75 all day. Think I'll use it to shave some chives. Would you bring this cleaver into the 21st century by dressing it up or leave it in it's old patina? Oh, it was $65, less than the going rate. I thought it was well balanced meaning all the weight was forward as it should be and felt comfortable in hand with a good sense of security. It has a FK just barely visible near the tang, could it Freddy Kreuger's blade, it does have a strange tingle to it. Nah, just kiddin.

Did the pallet jack roll across those plastic sheets fairly easily? From the front yard to the back yard is a decent hill (thus the walkout basement), and the pallet jack did roll easily. One son was "driving" and my other son and myself were holding the crate to make sure it didn't run away down the hill. Had three others leapfrogging the plastic, so it was a very smooth operation. I rented the sheets and pallet jack from Sunbelt Rentals, they rent heavy equipment as well as basic yard stuff, not sure if they are national or not, but I'm sure there will be something similar near you guys. The pallet jack and the three sheets cost me $30 for the weekend. The labor cost me two pork butts and several beers, definitely a bargain!

@Poochie - go to the pizza thread from @ckreef - he's done just about every variation out there on both the KK and his wood-fired pizza oven (gorgeous!) Dough recipes vary based upon the style of pizza that you want to make and can get a bit intimidating at times (at least for me who isn't the world's best baker!) The simplest one that I've ever seen had only 2 ingredients in it - AP Flour and Greek Yogurt! Made an interesting crust - not great, but obviously very simple. The other extreme is what the folks above were referencing with yeast starters/poolish, specialty flours (Imported Italian 00) and lots of fermentation time. My biggest obstacle is that I'm usually only cooking for myself, so putting in 2 days of dough prep and hours of pre-heat (LOTS of charcoal to heat soak everything to 550F!) on the KK for a single 12" pizza is just not practical. Especially when I have 3 or 4 local spots that turn out very good pizzas in their gas or wood-fired specialty ovens - a couple are imported from Italy. YMMV

Dennis is right. I'm not saying the KK can't make a good pizza, I'm saying my first try was a flop. But like everything else, it's a learning process. Alimac23: You said " with the stones in at 500-550c:". I put the pizza stone in from the beginning. I thought it would heat up with the KK. And it did but lagging just a little behind. David: You said "oven temp was 900+. floor temp was around 750-800." Was this in the Alfa? Floor temp meaning the stone? And back to you, Dennis, do you have a go to recipe that you've had complete success with? Or at least 75% success? I'm an absolute noob at this. Thanks everyone for the input. I had no idea the dough was so involved. I'll obviously have to watch some YouTubes

Nice looking meal, Tony. I've seen those chops several times at Costco. Looks like I need to pick some up.

That is really cool. Where did you rent them from?

Did the pallet jack roll across those plastic sheets fairly easily?

Instead of the plywood, I rented these plastic sheets that contractors use to drive equipment across yards, diamond textured on one side and smoother on the other. Did the job and I didn't have to worry about cracking or splitting. When I got mine last year, plywood was going for more than a couple of prime briskets, so I rented these three sheets for about $10. The other photo shows the size of the pallet jack in relation to the crate. Good luck!

An Afro-Mexi mash-up = Suya Pepper steak skewers meets Mexican Torta. Torta with sauteed poblano peppers, onions, and garlic in a crema with lime and cilantro, fresh tomatoes and pickled jalapenos. Airfryer tots on the side, with a nice cooling salad.

Yes, I see how the temperature drop when adding cold vs warm meat is not relevant when there are hundreds of pounds of mass, and how a colder cut absorbs more smoke flavor. Good point. More interesting to me is "sealing the meat with Tallow". Its almost like a hybrid "frying" technique, where the evaporative cooling aspect is throttled and instead the water expanding in volume to steam forces its way through a layer of hot fat. As this steam bubble expands and then pops, the outer oil layer of the bubble can get really hot because its so thin. It browns, and then pops. Like mozzarella on a pizza. Its the bubbles and a thin layer of oil at a high temperature that create the browning where without bubbles that high temperature reaction wouldn't occur.

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Anyone else a sucker for high-end pocket knives? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Iki Ruixin Pro Sharpener + 4 Whetstones Set ($119) I keep getting hammered with Facebook ads for this sharpener. Versions on Amazon are $40 or so!? Same basic geometry as the TS Prof. I'm happy with my much more expensive Shapton Glass setup, but would this setup be a good start for others? Or does it look like junk? EDIT: Wasabi Knives is the source of the Facebook ads I'm seeing. I asked twice in the comments section for a source for their tag line claim "Voted #1 Sharpener 2020". While they answer other questions, they deleted my question twice, confirming my intuition that this is a baseless claim, something they made up. Their products look nice on their web site, but in my experience whenever one ignores early warning signs about a company, one regrets it. A second warning sign is that there are indistinguishable offerings on Amazon at a fraction of the price. There are plenty of other solid recommendations in this thread. I can answer my own question: Do not buy from Wasabi Knives.

I can sum up my first attempt at pizza with one word..fail! Knucklehead move number 1 was to buy a pizza dough mix. It was from Red Mill, so I thought it would work. Number 2 was not cooking them long enough. They looked done. My pepperoni was starting to burn and the bottom was a nice toasty brown. I think when the topping gets done before the crust means that the heat is too low. I cooked them at 550. I should have precooked the crust for 7 minutes...like the package said to do. The bottom of the crust was done but the middle was too soft...not raw.. but not cooked enough. So I'm here hoping one of you pizza experts can enlighten me on crust recipe..or pre-made if it's good...and temperature. I figured 550 would do the trick. The pizza stone was at 500 when I put the pizza on. And last but not least, anyone have a pizza cooker? Ooni, Roccbox, other?