Hickory-Smoked 5-Meat Stuff Pizza

What do Stanley Ipkiss and Papa Murphy's 5-Meat Stuffed Pizza have in common this week? They're both "Smmmmm-okin'!" (spoiler: that won't be the only corny movie pun in this week's post. I apologize in advance).

The Char-Griller Duo with Smoke Box and the 5-Meat Stuffed Pizza

With Spring well upon us and the smell of charcoal in the neighborhood air many a night, we decided to try something this week we've never done before - grilling a pizza. I've heard so many friends rave about how great it tastes, and the super-meaty 5-Meat Stuffed seemed like the perfect candidate to try it with. Meat and grills just go together, after all. And boy, was I right ... though the experience wasn't without its mistakes and learning opportunities. Maybe you can help us out and provide a few tips? But first, this pizza's story.

It was quite the busy day at the South Rutherford store again this trip, but we had our order in hand fairly speedily, all things considered. It's a bit crazy watching just how much goes into one of these 5-Meat Stuffed pizzas. We weighed it after we got home, and it rang in at a whopping 5 lbs., 4 ounces. Good heavens!

Another busy pizza night in south Murfreesboro

I'll have my meat with some meat and a side of meat, please

More smiling faces! (albeit somewhat camera shy)

We had already decided that we wanted to cook this pizza on our grill, but the question remained - direct heat or not? We're fortunate enough to have a grill that affords us three cooking options - gas, charcoal, or indirect heat and smoke from a side box. We decided we'd go for broke and actually smoke this pizza with some charcoal and wet hickory chips.

We added a little flour to the pizza peel to help the pizza slide on and off.
It was a bit tricky getting it off the cooking sheet initially, so be careful
not to tear the crust and take your time if you're trying this.

Hickory wood chips that were soaked in water for a few hours prior

We got some tips from a couple of friends on Facebook and also read a how-to article on SimplyRecipes.com beforehand, though we ended up winging most of it. The article was for a homemade pizza and suggested grilling one side of the dough before adding any toppings, which we couldn't do with our pre-topped one. And our friends were grilling and smoking their pizzas with the heat directly beneath, whereas we were going to use our smoke box attached to the side of the grill. So we figured we'd just get the grill up to 375°F and keep it there for about 25 to 30 minutes. It sounded fairly logical, and had I known a little more about the heating capabilities of charcoal, it probably would've turned out a little better (or at the very least, a little faster).

Thermometer says it's time to add the pizza!

Now we're cooking with smoke!

Mrs. Friend, Mr. Friend, and Mini-Friend hanging out
on the patio and enjoying the smell of grilling pizza

Thing 1 and Thing 2, yelling at the cook
for no other reason than "because we can." 

Getting the grilling chamber up to 375° took a little while, but after adding the pizza, I found it nearly impossible to maintain a temperature above 350°. As it turns out, if you want to cook with indirect heat in a setup like this and you require a higher temperature, you should be burning wood as your main fuel source, not charcoal. Wood burns hotter than charcoal, and our fire simply couldn't get enough hot enough to keep the temperature we needed (and I probably wasted a lot more charcoal than necessary while trying). Since all my friends who grilled with charcoal and wood chips were doing so directly underneath their pizzas, they didn't have this issue, and it simply never crossed my mind that indirect heat would make such a big difference. Also to note if you are reading this article and and curious about smoking your pizza with wood: if you are using charcoal as your main source of heat, you need to soak your wood chips before adding them to your grill. If you are burning wood as the main heat source, then it should be dry and stripped as free of bark as possible (we bought our hickory wood chips pre-bagged from Publix and Wal-Mart).

It's as ready as it will ever be

Tools of the trade

I wish this picture was scratch-n-sniff ... this smelled sooo good!

The good news is that the pizza still turned out well, and it tasted amazing! The only two blemishes were that the top-center portion of the upper crust was still doughy in an area about as big as a half-dollar coin, and the bottom edge of the pizza closest to the firebox opening had burned ever so slightly. When it came time to eat it, though, I ended up with the burnt piece and never even realized it until I was on my last bite. The doughy part wasn't unexpected due to our lower heat and longer cooking time, especially since you had a second crust up top on these stuffed pizzas. The burnt section was due to my negligence in remembering some comments about this grill when I bought it. Their is obviously a lot more heat in the grill on the side where the smoke box connects, and I didn't think about this when I placed the pizza on the grill. The heat from the smoke box rises as it first enter the grill and cooks that side faster. What I should have done was place my pizza on the grill as far from the smoke box opening as possible, and then rotated it halfway through cooking to get a more even heat to the crust. But live and learn. It was a fun experience and we have some good lessons learned to apply to our endeavors next time!

Pizza Cutter depth check

That is some serious pizza right there

I have never eaten a smoked pizza before, and it blew my mind just how much flavor the hickory smoke added. It's honestly hard to describe what this pizza tastes like, because I feel that it would have been completely different different coming out of the oven. The grill added a real depth to the taste - a very warm, bold flavor. The smell alone was incredible, and I'm surprised half the neighborhood wasn't beating down our door. Naturally, this was a very meaty dinner - the 5-Meat Stuffed comes packed with pepperoni, Italian sausage, bacon, ground beef, and Canadian bacon. If "awesome" was an ingredient, I would suggest that someone had thrown that in while I had my head turned at the store, too.

The 5 lbs.+ behemoth really showed just what a monster it was when we sliced it up for serving. We cut our family-sized pizza into 8 slices, and between the four of us, no one managed more than a single slice. Which if you're doing the math, still comes out to over a half-pound of pizza per slice. Insane.

"Use the Fork, Luke. Trust me." (I told you there'd be another movie pun, didn't I?)

The next time we smoke a pizza, we're planning to do it with indirect heat again, but with wood as the main fuel source. And we'll most likely do it with a non-stuffed pizza, which should lower the necessary cooking time. We also plan to try grilling a pizza directly over charcoal sometime soon, as well as on the gas side of our grill with a foil box holding some soaked wood chips. So, fellow pizza grillers and smokers - any tips, tricks, or suggestions for our next attempts?

My 10 oz. slice of pizza

Everybody caught on camera smiling at once - it's a pizza night miracle!

Cooking Up The Combo Magnifico - Papa Murphy's Newest Pizza Creation

I'd love to say that we're a week behind on blogging due to some marvelously fascinating event. "My first bite of the brand new Combo Magnifico pizza was immediately followed by a phone call from Michael Bay insisting I fill the primary role for Transformers 4. A role I regrettably had to turn down due to Chuck Norris showing up as I took my second bite, telling me to put down the phone and finish my slice, or else ..."

The Combo Magnifico, Up Close and Personal Before Cooking

Truth be told, however, we brought our pizza home, had a wonderful little picnic outside in the pollen factory that is middle Tennessee in April, and then came down with horrible sinus pains a few hours later. It was so bad that I never could sleep and had to call in to work the following day. Then the Easter festivities began, and the weekend became the week, and the week became mid-week, and now here we are.

But enough of the excuses and pity parties - we still got to have our pizza picnic, after all, and we have a brand new pizza to talk about!

Building the Combo Magnifico

Familiar Smiling Faces!

This week we brought home the brand new Combo Magnifico pizza. It's the first pizza in Papa Murphy's new Italia line. The major differences between this pizza and your standard Papa Murphy's pies are a new pizza sauce along with a new type of crust, which Papa Murphy's describes as "not-too-thick, not-too-thin crust." That description doesn't roll of the tongue quite like "Thin Crust" or "Deep Dish," but you have to give them credit for calling it just what it is. The Combo Magnifico comes topped with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, and onions. The cheese is mix of mozzarella and parmesan along with some herbs.

Ready for the oven

Is it pizza yet?

All cooked up and ready to slice 'n serve

We found the new crust to be a great balance between the thin crusts on the deLITE pizzas and the standard crust. More of that satisfying crust flavor like what you get with the standard crusts, but a bit lighter on the stomach and perceptibly less guilty feelings when grabbing an extra slice. We'll most likely request our next regular pizza order  be put on the Italia crust, too, just to mix things up a bit.

Up close and personal, post-cooking. Those toppings look good! 

Pizza cutter depth reference check

For as much as I enjoyed the new crust, I have to say that I'm still more of a fan of the regular pizza sauce. The new "zesty red sauce" tasted very good, but it seemed a bit sweeter to me than the standard sauce. Taste is obviously a very subjective experience, and I love that Papa Murphy's has introduced a couple of new sauces in the past month for folks who do prefer a slightly sweeter experience. More choices are always better! But for me, while I very much enjoyed this pizza overall, their tried and true regular pizza sauce remains steadfastly atop my favorites list.

Sliced and ready for consuming!

If your mouth had eyes ...

I asked the wife to sum up the new pizza in one word, and after contemplating a bite for a few seconds, she replied, "Gourmet-y." Made up words aside, I'm inclined to agree with her. Something about the culmination of all the Magnifico's ingredients just gave it a more "gourmet" flavor than your standard pizza. After a couple of weeks of meat-focused pizzas, I also enjoyed the balancing flavors from the mushrooms and onions this week. Overall, the ingredients all work very well together, and I'm looking forward to seeing what other Italia pizzas are offered in the future.

Excited about having a front yard picnic!

Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry and the Combo Magnifico ... Yum!

It was so pretty out this past week that we decided to throw a quilt on the front lawn and have ourselves a pizza picnic. Killer pollen allergies waiting to strike aside, it was a lovely evening. And we found out that we weren't the only Papa Murphy's fans in the yard. I don't know what species this little fellow is (and I'm resisting the urge to sound more informed than I truly am by Googling it prior to writing this), but he really loves this pizza. So much so that he not only risked getting within arms reach of a 17-month-old to have a few nibbles, but actually let his guard down long enough that she managed to sneak a quick *flick* to his tail that finally sent him retreating to the nearby tree.

Our drop-in guest

Hey Mikey, I think he likes it

Stayed tuned for another blog update this week; even though we got a week behind in our posts, we're still on track with our weekly pizzas, and our latest one from last night was something a bit different and fun that we hope to get some feedback (and tips) on from our readers. Spoiler alert - it also weighed in at a massive 5 lbs, 4 ounces!