Homemade pizza on the grill

After our successful attempt at grilling a take-n-bake pizza in my trusty charcoal Weber, my wife decided it was time for a more ambitious project - homemade pizza.

In a previous life, my wife worked at a pizzeria. She's familiar with making pizza dough, so it wasn't a problem for her. Follow just about any recipe you find online, and it should be fine. Or, buy pizza dough in the store and follow the directions.

First, our goal was to recreate the chicken-artichoke heart pizza we purchased from the take-n-bake place. I grilled boneless, skinless chicken breasts as a way to use the coals prior to placing the pizza dough on the grill. I rubbed down the grate with vegetable oil before this as well.

The chicken breasts usually take about 30 minutes (or a little longer, depending on the size).

Rather than setting up the grill for indirect grilling, I opted to have a single layer of coals spread across the charcoal grate. They should be ashy gray and not too hot. If you can put your palm over the grate for a count of three or four Mississippi, that should be medium (one to two is high). You want medium low, so shoot for a five count. I had to adjust the air vents on my grill to achieve the temperature I wanted (as in the photo below).

Be prepared
I can't stress the importance of this enough. This goes very quickly. Make sure you have all your ingredients ready and next to the grill. Our pizza had chopped grilled chicken breasts, chopped artichoke hearts, fresh basil, chopped bacon and cheese. My wife used a garlic-and-olive-oil sauce to drizzle over the pizza.

With the toppings ready to go, it was time to get the pizza dough on the grill. Place the dough directly on the grill (no pan needed) and cover. Leave the dough on for about three minutes (for thin crust pizza). With a spatula, flip the dough and quickly add your toppings while the bottom cooks (about another three minutes).

Drizzle your sauce over the crust and do it quickly.

Add your toppings (we used chopped chicken, artichoke hearts and bacon).

When the cheese melts, your pizza is done. Be sure not to burn your crust. Total cooking time for the pizza itself is about 6 minutes, maybe 7.

The pizza had a nice smokey flavor and was absolutely fantastic.

Tips on smoking a tri-tip

After some of my previous disastrous attempts at using my Brinkmann Smoke 'N Grill, it was time to rethink my approach. For starters, I'm a griller. Smoking meats is all new to me and the key appears to be patience. Don't lift the lid to check, rely on internal meat temperatures (rather than the griller's method of the "touch test") and give yourself more time than you think you'll need.

Roasts that should have taken five hours, have ended up pushing my patience at the 12-hour mark. I did what any good investigative journalist would do -- research. Why was my timing so far off? When using my Weber charcoal kettle grill set up as a smoker, I have no issues. The timing (45 minutes to an hour per pound) is usually accurate. The answer was obvious -- temperature control.

Looking at the environment, I noticed my smoker sat in direct sun most of the day, which could throw off the temperature gauge. Since I haven't replaced it yet, the gauge simply reads, "Cool," "Ideal" and "Hot." Other bloggers mentioned getting out of the wind. A breeze does blow across that patio, so I moved it to a sheltered area out of the sun and wind. Other bloggers recommended filling the water pan with sand, so I did just that. You can pick up non-toxic, all natural, low-dust sand at any hardware store for about $5.

New location, no water. Check. Now, the other problem I seem to be having is with the charcoal pan. I've been tossing in unlit coals and soaked wood chunks about every hour. What I've noticed when cleaning the pan afterward is a large number of unlit coals hidden in the ash.

I found a method for coals that seems to work over a longer period of time. Set up a ring of unlit charcoal around the outer walls of the pan. Dump lit coals in the center. Place large pieces of unlit lump charcoal on top of that. This method provides longer burning coals and more of them so later, when adding, there seems to be less ash.

I placed a ring of unlit charcoal around the rim of the charcoal pan. Remove all the grates and water pan so you can dump coals directly down the smoker into the pan. I light mine on my Weber grill.

With all this in place, at 7:30 a.m., I started to smoke a tri-tip. Why so early? As I mentioned, I haven't had much luck with the Brinkmann and wanted to give myself a 12-hour window (which is about how long it's taken me in the past).

I rubbed the meat with Stubbs BBQ seasoning and prepared my coals and water pan as I mentioned earlier. In the thickest part of the meat, I placed the thermometer. According to the Brinkmann cook book, 140 degrees is rare, 160 degrees is medium and 170 degrees is well done.

Place the meat on the grate directly over the sand (water pan), with the thermometer facing the charcoal access door. This way, you can check the temperature easily without lifting the lid.

I toss in soaked wood chunks to add smoke flavor.

After three hours, the tri-tip was done. Yes. It was done at 10:30 a.m. I didn't know what to do, so I added veggies to the top rack (since I still had hot coals). They took about an hour.

Dinner is ready - very early. I think with these new methods in place, I'll be able to more accurately estimate timing for dinner. For us, the 160 degrees seemed to be a little too done, so next time, I'm shooting for 140 to 150.

Happy smoking!

Grill heats up a pizza

My 13-year-old son Cian said my smoker looks like R2-D2. It's a Brinkmann Smoke 'n Grill, which resembles the "Star Wars" character of R2-D2.

But this day, just one day after my 14-hour smoking experience with the 5-pound pork roast, I decided it would be pretty cool to grill (or smoke) the extra Papa Murphy's pizza she picked up. Since it was taking so long on a Sunday to smoke the 5-pound pork roast, we opted for some take-and-bake pizza.

The pizza and bread sticks went in the regular oven, and the kids were pleased. We ate dinner outside while I watched the end of the smoking process (that took another few hours). They had fun, had dinner, and I was able to continue smoking the roast (until 9:30 p.m.).

So, my wife says she bought two pizzas that night, because they were on sale. The older kids (Cian, 13,  and Parker, 11), went back to their mom's on Sunday afternoon. That night, when we discussed dinner options, I threw out the idea of grilling the extra pizza that was laden with artichoke hearts, bacon and whatever other vegetables it had on it.

But, how to do it? A quick search revealed many grillers were faced with a dilemma. Grill the pizza over direct heat and burn the crust, or pull the pizza off early, without melting the cheese.

This sounded like a grilling problem for ... well, me. I immediately went to the indirect grilling method, which meant nothing would burn. I placed a 9x13 baking dish in the center of the grill and dumped burning coals on either side of the pan (I used Trader Joe's briquettes, but you can use regular lump charcoal - keeping away from the compressed name-brand briquettes that use fillers and nasty binders).

I set up the grill the same as I would if I were using my trusty Weber as a smoker. I figured it would work well for a pizza, since most grillers posted they set the pizza directly over the coals -- using direct heat. They all complained about burned crusts and non-melted cheese. Using the indirect method, and a little extra time, the pizza should come out spectacular. I added some water to the baking pan. Some grillers use disposable pans, but I figure I can use a real pan and pocket the difference.

Veggies first
I threw some broccolini on one side of the grill and red bell pepper on the other. I turned both a few minutes in. This was a way to let the coals cool down a bit while not wasting the heat.

The pizza would take a lot of space, so this was a good way to use the coals prior to placing the pizza on the grill.

Turn, baby, turn
Using the baking sheet that comes with the Papa Murphy's pizza, I rotated it every couple of minutes to keep the edges nearest the coals from burning. I cooked it for a few minutes over the recommended time for an oven. I believe it was 18 minutes, but be sure to check it yourself. I could have let it go a few minutes longer to make sure the center of the dough was cooked a little more. Overall, this was a success.

Go ahead and use the Papa Murphy's Take-n-Bake baking sheet that comes with the pizza. It makes it much easier. Rotate the pizza every few minutes to keep the edges from burning. Cook it for a little longer than oven instructions to ensure the dough is cooked through.

A few soaked wood chunks tossed directly on the coals adds a nice smokey flavor to the pizza.

Brisket proves challenging for California boy

I've always wanted to try my hand at smoking a brisket, but in the Golden State, they are about as elusive as finding an honest politician.

We checked with our local butcher and he said he "always has them in stock" and I wouldn't need to call ahead. One weekend I decided to give it a try and stopped by his shop on Friday to pick up the meat. They were all out.

I stopped by another butcher that evening after work and he too said they usually have two or three per week, at most, and didn't have any on hand at the moment. He offered other alternatives (pork roast, etc.) but I had my heart set on the brisket.

"You know, you could try one of the pre-packaged briskets," he said. "It's just in a brine. Toss out the corned beef spices and you should be good. A restaurant in town does that frequently when they run out."
I picked one up and brought it home, ready to give it a try.

Since I hadn't had much luck with the Brinkmann Smoke 'N Grill, I opted to convert my Weber grill into a smoker. I'm more familiar with my trusty Weber and figured I could better control the temperature.

SET UP
Place a disposable roasting pan (or an old roasting pan you don't care about) in the center of the charcoal grate. Pour water in the center (to help regulate temperature, but it isn't absolutely necessary). Place lit coals on either side of the pan.

This is a good example of setting up the grill for smoking. Use a disposable roasting pan (or junky old regular pan) to separate the coals. I also use the space directly over the coals to roast veggies.

Place the meat, fat side up, directly over the roasting pan (which will act as a drip pan). Keep your bottom vent open all the way to help feed the coals.

Keep the grill's temperature to about 250 degrees (a nice medium heat). Place a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the brisket and place on the grill. The brisket will be done with the temperature reaches about 160 degrees (for medium) or 170 degrees (well done). According to the book, a 10-pound brisket takes about 8 hours.

I did my 5-pound brisket in five hours, so it went pretty well. Add charcoal and soaked wood chunks every hour.

The only drawback to using the brined brisket is the salty flavor. It worked OK for sandwiches with barbecue sauce, but by itself, the salt was too much.

The next time, I plan to get a real brisket from the butcher well in advance of my planned smoking day. I did not take photos of this experiment, so use your imagination.