Last Campfire Pizza of 2011

The first week of August is our traditional long camping trip of the year. My daughter always requests a camping trip for her birthday, and gets to pick some of the meals. She always has campfire salmon packets and pizza.

I've been working on making pizza for a number of years now and have tried with varying success to make it camping. Getting a hot enough fire isn't a problem. Controlling the temperature can be a challenge.

I've tried grilling the crust directly on the grill, but I've never cared for the results. Using a cast iron pan works pretty well, but the size of the pie is limited. Then there is the problem of getting enough heat to the top of the pie. Most grilled pizza recipes call for precooked items that are placed on the crust after  flipping it over. Meh, not my style.

Last year, I folded a cardboard hood with aluminum foil taped to it to hold in and reflect the heat from the campfire. It worked, but was awkward to maneuver. There's also the chance of a hood fueled bon-fire. I tried freecycling a Weber dome grill cover thinking someone might toss out a rusted grill with a usable cover but heard nothing. 


This year, while shopping for a large metal bowl ($30 ouch!), I walked past some disposable aluminum roasting pans for $2. They can be reshaped into a lightweight dome - perfect.

Be prepared for equipment failure!

You'll also want some basic equipment: pizza peel, grilling spatula, tongs, pizza baking stone, pizza cutter, corn meal, disposable table top cover, etc. 












You'll need some dough...

We're trying to make healthy meals and have come up with a whole wheat pizza dough we like. I've been playing around with the ratio of whole and white flour, trying to get the right gluten stretch to give me that crispy bottom crust and chewy bite.

I use King Arthur Flour (kingarthurflour.com). They have some great high quality flour that delivers consistently good results. I use a ratio of 66% King Arthur Bread Flour and 33% King Arthur Premium 100% Whole Wheat Flour. I've tried 100% Whole Wheat and a 50/50 mix. Both will work, but there isn't sufficient gluten to stretch a thin crust.


I use baker's percentages and weight measurements. There just isn't a better way to get it right. I'll provide volume measurements but they won't be as accurate. To measure flour by volume just scoop up some flour with your measuring cup, tap the side a couple of times, and scrape it level.

Dough Ingredients

%	grams	volume	ingredient
66%	357	3 cups	King Arthur Bread Flour
33%	178	1 1/2 cups	King Arthur 100% Whole Wheat Flour
59%	316	1 1/3 cups	Water
2%	11	2 1/4 tsp	Yeast
1.75%	9	2 tsp	Sugar
1.25%	7	1 1/3 tsp	Salt
3.5%	19	4 tsp	Olive Oil

Directions 
Spread your disposable table top cover on a picnic table and secure with clips. If you don't want to live dangerously, I suggest working under a canopy. Birds tend to locate the most inconvenient locations when you're camping. Mix the ingredients in a large bowl. Toss some flour on the table and start kneading the dough. 


When you're done kneading the dough, put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in the bowl, and toss your dough ball around the bowl so it's covered by the oil. Cover and set aside to rise for at least two hours. I like to let it go for at least six or as long as twelve hours. 


If you're feeling ambitious, skip kneading the dough and let it rise for twenty-four hours. Shape into a ball, stick it in a large zip-loc bag and toss it in your cooler for a day or two. Take it out of the cooler, put it back in a bowl with a bit of olive oil, and let it come back up to "room" temperature before making pizza. You'll get a nice crisp crust with a bit of tang. The long first rise develops the gluten without kneading the dough. The second rise adds the tang.


Cut the dough into single pizza pie portions and shape into balls. The recipe above should give you enough for four pies. If you have picky eaters, divide into eight and make small individual pizzas. A warning, you'll spend a lot of time making eight pizzas.

While you're waiting for your fire to burn down, roll out your dough and toss. There are plenty of guides online for doing this. Just be careful not to drop the dough or hit the canopy. Watch for crawling insects and keep your dough covered. You can toss the next pie as the prior bakes or toss all of them and let them rise a bit while you dress and bake each.


Toppings, it's pizza not bread... 
Don't go heavy on the sauce, cheese, and toppings. Your campfire "oven" isn't going to have sufficient top heat to finish a heavy pie. Think light. Some of the best pizza you can make is nothing but a bit of olive oil smeared on top of the dough, rubbed with a couple of tomatoes, a few slices of fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil. Pizza sauce, cheese, and few meats are fine. Just go easy and pre-cook the meat.

I like pizza sauce, whole milk mozzarella cheese, basil, with some olive oil sprinkled on top.

My son loves meat. He usually goes for pizza sauce, mozzarella, turkey pepperoni, ham, precooked bacon, and precooked turkey sausage. Just save some bacon and sausage from breakfast in the cooler. Cut it up and you've got toppings.

My daughter likes just cheese so I stay away from dry mozzarella. Use whole milk mozzarella or make fresh mozzarella just before you make pizza. We'll save that one for another blog post.

My wife loves Hawaiian pizza. Pineapple, onion, precooked bacon, sometimes green pepper. You want to go easy on the wet toppings. You can use canned pineapple. Just make sure you pat it dry use it sparingly.

Baking pizza over a campfire... 
Build an intense fire
I try to build up as many coals as quickly as possible. This gives me a hot and consistant heat source. When you start baking, you don't want tall flames licking your pizza stone. In fact, if you can get a nice large bed of hot coals you don't need flames at all. Hold your hand over the coals about the height of the grill. If you can't stand it for more than a couple of seconds you're ready.

Reflect the heat upward
The campground we frequent uses heavy metal truck break drums for their fire pits. It allows them to move the fire pit around is guess. They are pretty shallow and make a great chimney for the heat from the fire. You could use bricks, rocks, or metal shields to do the same. After all, any heat not directed up toward your pie is either going into the ground or sideways toward you.

Use an adjustable height grill 
It's also makes it easier to work around while baking. I have a grill that rides a metal spike that goes into the ground. One of those tripod mounted ones would work, but I think the swinging would bother me. You can get one like mine from campfiregrill.com for about $40. Well worth the cost.

Reflect the heat downward
Unless you want a crispy bottom and soggy top you're going to need heat redirected to the top of your pie. A clay lined brick refractory layer would be great but just isn't an option while camping. Ok, there are portable brick pizza ovens on a trailer. Unless you want to cater an event while camping I don't recommend it. Anyway, the best option I've found is a lightweight disposable aluminium roasting pan reshaped into a dome. It doesn't retain heat but does a decent job of reflecting it.

Adjust your grill
Adjust the height of your grill to a foot or two over the fire where you cannot hold your hand over the fire more than a second or two. Put your pizza stone or iron pan on the grill and cover with your aluminum dome. You'll want to give your stone a good twenty to thirty minutes to get hot - the longer, the better. Get it too hot and your pie will burn before you can get the top done. Too cool, and your pie will never finish. As your coals cool down, you can adjust your grill lower and/or toss another stick or two of wood on the fire. Experience is your guide here.

Build your pie and bake
Build your pie on a pizza peel sprinkled with corn meal. See the ingredients section above for advice. Remove the dome with tongs and slide your pie onto the pizza stone. Replace the dome over the pie.

You'll want to peek at your pie fairly often to make sure it isn't baking too quickly or slowly on the bottom. I use a grilling spatula instead of the pizza peel to do this. It allows you to tilt the hood without removing it. You want to keep that dome on there as much as possible. Getting the crust done is easy using this technique, the top isn't as easy. It usually takes about eight minutes to bake. If it's baking too quickly, adjust the hight of the grill a few inches higher. If too slowly, adjust the height down or, if you cannot go lower, toss more wood on the fire. If you're making just a couple of pies, you'll probably not need to adjust at all.

If your pie is browning on the bottom a minute after getting it on the stone and adjusting the grill higher isn't working, your pizza stone is probably too hot and you're in danger of burning the pie. If it's not too late, you can try holding your pie off the stone with the grilling spatula. They usually have a decent bend between the handle and the spatula which makes it easy to balance the pie over the pizza stone surface while keeping it under the dome.

When the bottom has finished and the cheese has melted, use the grilling spatula to transfer the pie to your pizza peel. I don't recommend using the peal to pick it up. It tends to push the pizza off the stone.

Let it rest for a minute, slice, and enjoy!

Once, I had a pie stick half way off the pizza peel. The darn thing just wouldn't come off. Probably not enough corn meal or it wasn't spread evenly. Just tip it over and make a calzone. Eats the same and your son who insists on getting the first pizza will forgive you.