Cookaholics Bulletin Board

There is another link within this linked story to Bakerstone; this link gives some background. The price seems excellent.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-growth/the-challenge/baking-box-turns-backyard-grill-into-a-pizza-oven/article25097577/

Wino,

I'd swear I saw a bad review of this device. Search Serious East?

You can do the same thing with two pizza stones and some split firebricks for a lot less money.

Tim

ps: The Serious Eats review has been removed.

Glad to see you back, Tim!!!

Thank you Linda. It's been a very busy year.

I also wonder what the box has over the baking steel (which I love).

Disclaimer: Everyone has different tastes, equipment, recipes and expectations. So, for any given solution, someone people will WTH, I've never had that problem, some will think it solves the wrong thing and some will love it.

That said, my view:
The problem with grilled pizza, in particular quite thin pizza's (such as Neapolitan pizza), is getting enough heat to the top before the bottom gets over cooked. Even in a wood fired oven, you'll often see the cook "dome" the pizza; when the bottom is done, he/she will lift the pizza into the dome to get some extra heat on the top to get the right level of done-ness. I watched them do this just a few weeks ago at a Perfectionist Cafe. I've seen it other places too. I don't think all ovens require it. When you use something like the plain pizza kettle (a grill accessory for weber kettles for pizza), you are quite likely to need to do this (I certainly need to), as the stone runs very hot and the heat above just isn't there. The solution (other then doming, which is not possible on a conventional grill as the cover has to be lifted to gain access) is to put a much lower ceiling over the pizza that can radiate heat onto the top and -- hopefully -- get the top done at the same time as the bottom. I've used a large steel on top of my kettle pizza to do this. It is tricky; you need to get the heat balance just right, and the low ceiling makes it hard to dome as a back up; you tend to squish the pizza in to the ceiling.

The box is almost certainly aimed at achieving this holy grail of both completing at the same time. The problem is heat balance can be very hard to hit, and the amount of ingredients, wetness of ingredients and thickness of crust all affect how fast the bottom gets done. So the box might work for one recipe well, but not for your favorite. Or maybe it'll be perfect.

Just saw it tonight at Costco for 169. So you can always buy and try with confidence knowing you can return it.