Mojoe Pizza: A Customer's Experience

A recent buyer of the Mojoe Griddle, Bryan, sent in this description of his first solo attempt to bake a pizza in his backyard using a Mojoe Griddle on his Weber BBQ.  Bryan bought the Mojoe Griddle because he has always wanted to make pizza in his backyard and was even considering spending thousands of dollars to install a brick pizza oven.  Bryan saw the "Mojoe Pizza Oven: Baking Pizza on the Campfire" video on this website and decided that a Mojoe Griddle was a far less expensive option.  Here is his experience in his own words:

Hi Cam, Last night, I made another Mojoe pizza (actually 2). This time I tried:

- cut the pizza stone to fit,

- heated the stone in the Weber-Mojoe oven

- used half the dough at a time to make two (generous) individual sized pizzas

- prepped pizza (with toppings) on the pizza paddle and slid it onto the hot stone

- put corn meal on paddle and stone to prevent sticking

- turned on the propane starter for a couple of minutes prior to putting the pizza in to raise temp (don't know if this made a difference, but temp was about 500F).

- to keep things simple, I didn't try to smoke it, just used the setup as an oven,

- baked 12 minutes

- slid first pizza off the stone onto a pizza pan with spatula and immediately had the second ready to go on the pizza paddle

I made one "white pizza" where I brushed the dough with an olive-garlic mixture and put grill eggplant and red onions as well as mushrooms and ricotta cheese. The other had the tomato based pizza sauce with mozzarella cheese, eggplant, bell pepper, artichoke, and mushrooms.

So, you are wondering, how did it turn out?  Well, crust was fantastic! Perfect, crispy thin crust! Susan approved so I know its a winner.

I need to work on toppings, wasn't enough "bite" to either of them.

The white pizza needed (a lot) more garlic! And I would spice up the eggplant more next time.

But, bottom line: I've got a system that puts out great pizza. Now, I'll work on my toppings and, with some tuning of the timing, I think I can get from starting a dough from scratch to a pizza in a little more than an hour. I'll keep you posted...

One concern/question I have: I feel uneasy leaving the hot Mojoe grill sitting out after I shut down the BBQ. Would it be OK to hose it down to cool it? Or other suggestions?

Handles were very easy to work with and made it easy to carry and put away this morning.

Best,

Bryan

Mojoe Outfitters responded to Bryan's questions as follows:

Awesome!  You put a lot of thought into it and that's what it takes for success.  I think you are already better at the Mojoe Pizza thing than I am and that's because you are focused on it!  When you have the process completely nailed, I would like to come over and make a video of the master at work.

No problem with hosing down the Mojoe.  The plate steel won't be harmed by a quick cool down.  Cast iron would most likely crack if you did that.  Often, when I heat up the Mojoe, it ends up getting too hot for the food I plan to cook.  When that happens, I simply pour water on it while it's still on the heat source and I instantly get the griddle temp that I want.

Just don't leave the Mojoe in a pool of water because you'll have a rusted mess in the morning.  Stand it up against a wall to dry off.  Also I would not put so much water on it that the griddle is completely cold.  If it is still warm, any remaining water drops will evaporate quickly.