I've had an Ooni Koda pizza oven since the kickstarter, and I've hacked it since I've had it. While it's a really good portable pizza oven, anything can be improved. In my case, I've been tinkering with turntables for the Koda for a while, in order to ensure even pizza cooking. My last turntable effort worked pretty well, but only lasted for almost 2 years. Eventually, the high-temperature epoxy gave way, and the stone separated from the lazy susan.

So, I wanted to start over with a different design. A better design, that didn't rely on epoxy. A design that, as things turned out, would fail the first night I used it. Yeah, don't run out and buy these parts, you don't want to build this. Instead, read through and relish my failure.

I did discover a different, useful tool, though.

So I went to the scrapyard and got a new sheet of stainless as a base and a strip of 3/4" wide steel. In a fatal decision, I bought a 12" lazy susan as my turntable, plus all the screws and everything else. My 13" corderite stone from the prior turntable was salvagable, so I reused it.

The really challenging part of this design was going to be perfectly centering the lazy susan on the stone. With a 13" stone, I only have about 3/16" clearance on either side, so I couldn't afford any wobble. I had to reach back to my 7th grade Geometry class and remember how to find the exact center of a circle using a compass.

Eventually, I got everything perfectly centered and blue-taped together so that I could mark holes for the metal strips, and turn them into retaining tabs to hold the stone.

We drilled them, and fastened them on with tiny stubby bolts. These bolts had taken some doing to find; I was at Eagle Point Hardware for forty minutes searching through the cabinets with one of the very knowledgable women there, and eventually found these stubby metric bolts intended for repairing appliances. But they were the right 5/16" length. I also centered it and attached it to the sheet steel, so that it would be stable and centered in the oven.

I slid it into the oven. Success! It fit perfectly and spun easily. Now, to make pizza!

That night I was making pizza for a party -- 8 pizzas in all. I grabbed my dough and toppings, fired up the Ooni, preheated it for half an hour, and got ready to bake.

My first pizza, a margherita, was perfect. The easy spinning of the turntable let me even out the heat and it had a beautifully spotted crust and no scorching.

But, I had 7 more pizzas to make. And around pizza #4, things started to go downhill. The turntable started sticking, and not just a little; it completely locked up and couldn't be turned. I burned the crust of two pizzas. What was wrong? The oven was 800F and the guests were arriving; there was no pulling it apart to check. I grabbed my old pizza spinners and did things the hard way.

I got through all of the pizzas, and got them ready to serve. Pictured here was my successful hack; I bought two folding cake layer racks to use as multi-pizza racks. These worked really well for stacking six pizzas at once and making sure their crusts didn't get soggy.

Later, I took the turntable apart. What had happened is that with the heat, the 12" lazy susan had warped, which meant that as I spun it, it would bind where the ball bearing track was now too tight. This wasn't fixable, and even if I swapped in a new lazy susan, it would happen again.

In the end, I decided to fork out for a Zifa Pizzatwister, and pay for (and wait for) the shipping from Germany. More blogging once I try it out.

Yeah, I know it's been a stupidly long time since part 1 but I've been busy and we also had a long, dreary winter in Portland during which using my pizza oven outside wasn't even a possibility. Also not being able to invite anyone over has meant making less pizza. But I'm finally back to it, and making more changes to my Koda.

If you recall from Part 1, one of the unsolved issues I have with the Koda (as do many other folks) is the back-to-front temperature differential, which can be up to 300F different. This tends to result in pizzas burning in back while they're just starting to cook in front, and thus a lot of skillful work with pizza spinners or a turning paddle. I wanted something more relaxed, particularly something that would also work with harder-to-turn items like pide and galettes.

The first thing I tried was swapping out the pizza stone for an improvised "pizza steel", just a 1/4" steel plate. The idea was that the conductivity of the steel would transmit more heat to the front of the oven. This was not a success; the pizzas on it burned their bottom crusts before the cheese was done.

So after that, I started looking at turntables. A number of folks sell motorized spinning pizza stones for the Koda online, but I didn't want anything so bulky. For me, one of the main assets of the Koda (at least, during normal times) is its portablity; at half an hour's notice I can toss it in the trunk and have a pizza party at a friend's house. I wanted something lighter-weight, simpler, and cheaper.

And, I succeeded in making one! You can too. Here's what you'll need:

• 12" to 13" circular corderite or lava stone
• 1 6" steel "lazy susan" turntable
• Four 3/8" machine bolts and matching nuts that fit the holes in the turntable
• 1 tube JB Weld High-Temperature Epoxy Putty
• One 12" square piece of scrap steel, around 1/8" thick.

Since I'm also a potter, I got my 13" round corderite from a kiln supply place, allowing me to get one that's 1/2" thick, but the standard ones should also work. Astute metalworkers will notice that the High Heat epoxy is only rated to 500F, which is risky for a pizza oven. However, the JB Weld Extreme Heat epoxy, more of a patching compound, did not have enough grab onto the corderite to work; I tried it and it broke off. So we'll see if the High-Heat epoxy holds up.

Now, here's how to assemble:

1. Center the turntable precisely on the scrap steel, using the side with the larger screw holes. Mark the holes and drill them to fit the machine screws.
2. Set the steel plate aside. Put the machine screws pointing out through the holes in the turntable. Secure them loosely with the nuts.
3. Very very carefully center the turntable's other side (the one without the screws) on the stone. You really can't be too exacting about this; if it's off-center by more than 1/4", the stone will not work for you. I spent like 1/2 hour with a t-square and compass. Mark where the corners of the centered turntable go.
4. Mix up the epoxy putty and put around 1/2 tsp of it in each of those 4 corners, smashing it flat into the stone. Rough up the corners of the turntable with steel wool or a dremel.
5. Press the turntable into the putty, making sure it's re-centered. Press it really firmly, the putty is tough. Leave to dry for 24 hours.
6. Put a wedge or putty or something (but not the epoxy putty) under each machine screw to hold it up. Carefully remove the nuts and line up the holes on the steel plate with the screws. Secure the plate to the turntable with the nuts.
7. You now have a pizza turntable for your Ooni!

So, how did it work? Well, take a look:

See! No more burned edges! Perfect leopard-spotting of the crust. It was so easy, much more relaxing than frantically turning the pizza with the spinners (although I did use one of the pizza spinners to spin the stone. Do not use your fingers).

That's a "winter margarita pizza", with buffalo mozzarella, frozen pesto, and canned cherry tomatoes.

And, as desired, I can easily slide the turntable apparatus in and out of my Koda. This means I can still easily take it on the road, and I can put my custom square stone back in if I need to. I also thought it might be hard to deposit a pizza centered on a round stone, but it was really no trouble at all.

However, all is not perfect. First, those pizzas had a rather pale bottom crust. I haven't figured out why; I might not have pre-heated long enough. Or ... the turntable is taller than my 5/8" thick pizza stone, so it's also possible that it's raising the pizza enough that the top gets done before the bottom is. I need to tinker more. So, expect a Part 3; just don't expect it soon.

Thanks to Portland's large Slavic population, I've been able to readily buy sulguni cheese for the first time in my life. This has me wanting to make khachipuri, the famous "Georgian Pizza", frequently. However, while the cheese is readily available, dough is another thing entirely, until I found a shortcut for weeknight dinners.

Imeretian Khachipuri, which is a disk of dough, stuffed with cheese, with a small hole in the top, is my favorite kind, probably because that's the first type I had in Moscow. I have two dough recipes for it, one is a yeasted dough that takes 1.5 hours, and one is a yogurt-based dough that's faster, but finicky delicate and hard to work with. Neither was really suitable for a weeknight dinner of khachipuri and lobio, starting cooking at 7. And then, at Albertson's, I discovered this:

Thin-crust, prerolled pizza dough, like they sell in many parts of Europe. It's not a very good pizza dough, but it makes an excellent yeasted dough wrapper for empanadas, and for other things. Like khachipuri!

Since then, we've had more "weeknight khachipuri" than is really good for my chloresterol level.

Now, a note on the cheese: if you can get sulguni, do use it for this. Most folks can't, though, so a good substitute is 2-3 parts dry part-skim mozzarella (but not pre-shredded) to 1 part crumbled feta cheese. In the recipe below, that would be 3oz dry mozz, and 1-2 oz feta. In a pinch, just dry mozz or even Monterey Jack would work.

weeknight khachipuri

• 4-5oz sulguni cheese, or substitute
• 3 Tbs minced cilantro, parsley, or green onion
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander, unless using cilantro
• 1 egg
• 2-3 Tbs greek yogurt
• 1 thin-crust "European style" prerolled pizza dough

Place a baking stone, or inverted cookie sheet, into your oven and heat it to 475F.

Grate the cheese on the large holes of a grater. Mix with the egg, yogurt, minced herb, and coriander (if using).

Unwrap the pizza dough and unroll it, smoothing it out. Make a circular heap of the cheese mixture in the middle of the dough, and then press it into a compact disk. The cheese should only cover about the middle 1/2 of the dough.

Fold the dough over the cheese, turning it 1/8 with each fold, so eventually you have an octagon of folds. The edges should not quite meet in the center; you want to leave a hole that's 1-2" wide.

Trim the baking parchment the pizza dough comes on so that it's not a lot wider than the khachipuri. Slide the khachipuri onto the baking stone (or sheet). Switch the oven to convection (if you can). Cook for 11 to 15 minutes, until the dough is brown and the cheese is foaming and threatening to bubble out of the hole.

Take the khachipuri out of the oven and put it on a rack to cool for 5-10 minutes; you want it hot, but you don't want to destroy your mouth. Cut into 4-6 wedges and share.

Note: Pillsbury also sells "prerolled pizza dough" in a carboard cannister. This is not suitiable for this recipe, or much of anything else either; it has a texture like factory biscuits.

This is another of my "easy baking" recipes, mostly because it doesn't require much kneading, and it's hard for it to fail on you. The oil makes sure it's tender, and the flat shape limits a lot of potential rising problems.

Depending on how much you use in the way of toppings, this bread can either be a side dish, or can be a lunch in itself, particularly with a small salad or a bowl of soup. Serves 6-10 people depending.

Giant Pan o' Focaccia

4 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves (subs. fresh sage, oregano or thyme)
1 cup boiling water, plus 1 cup warm water
2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tbs honey (subs. 2 tsp sugar)
2 tsp salt
1/3 to ½ cup virgin olive oil
2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
2 to 3 cups bread or all-purpose flour

Toppings, any/several of:

• ½ cup sun-dried tomatoes, partially rehydrated and cut into strips
• ½ cup sliced olives
• 1 cup grated Italian hard cheese, such as parmigiano, pecorino, or asiago
• 2 tbs large coarse salt crystals, such as fancy sea salt
• ½ red onion, thinly sliced

Equipment: Large rimmed baking sheet, parchment, large bowls

Chop half the rosemary roughly and bruise it in a mortar (or mince it). Put it in a large mixing bowl, and pour the cup of boiling water over it. Dissolve the honey in the water. Let sit 10 minutes. Add the cup of lukewarm water; the mixture should now be just warm. Be careful it's not warmer than 90F, which would kill the yeast -- test against your wrist to be sure. Add the yeast, stir to dissolve, and let sit another 5 minutes.

Stir in the salt and two tablespoons olive oil. Add the whole wheat flour, stirring in 1/2 cup at a time always in the same direction, until completely mixed. Add about 2 cups of bread flour in the same manner. Then add flour until the dough just holds together and can be kneaded. Knead gently for 5 minutes, adding just enough flour as necessary to keep it from sticking. Form into a ball, oil the ball on all sides, and put it in a rising container in a warm place for 1 to 1½ hours, or until doubled in size.

Line the bottom of the baking sheet with a sheet of parchment and oil it. Punch down the dough and turn it out onto the sheet; using your fingertips, press it out gradually until it covers the whole baking sheet (a rolling pin will not work). Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap, or a damp towel, and let rise for another 30 to 45 minutes.

While it's rising, heat the oven to 375F. Dimple the top of the focaccia all over with your fingers; drizzle it with 2 to 3 tablespoons oil, sprinkle on the remaining rosemary, and scatter optional toppings sparsely across the surface (this isn't pizza). Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, just until it turns golden brown. Cut into slices and serve.

I really like my Ooni Koda pizza oven, but as I said in the last post I wasn't quite getting the perfect pizza I wanted. Particularly:

1. The top and bottom of the pizza weren't getting done at quite the same rate;
2. The 300F temperature drop between the back and front of the oven meant that I either burned the back edge, or needed to spin the pizza the whole time it was cooking;
3. I had to do a lot of cranking the oven up and down to preheat it, then to lower the heat for actual cooking.

So, time for some pizza oven hacking. I was going to try a few things. But first, I had to replace the faulty gas regulator that came with the Koda, which required an Amazon order because, for some bizarre reason, no hardware store in Portland carries a gas regulator with more than 14" of hose (Ooni paid me back for the purchase).

My first thought was about the pizza stone. The corderite stone the Koda comes with is only 3/8" thick, and I was wondering if a thicker stone might both retain heat better, as well as conduct heat to the front of the oven. So I headed down to my local pottery store (Georgie's) and had them cut me a 12" x 12" x 3/4" kiln shelf.

Here it is in the oven. I realized after I inserted it that I should have gotten 13" x 13", but tried it anyway. You can see that doubling the stone thickness makes a big difference in how it looks in the oven.

My second hack had to do with spinning the pizza. I bought some of these:

These are "pizza spinners", which sounded like exactly what I needed to keep that pizza spinning if I can't even out the temperature. The idea was that you can grab the pizza with the two little claws, and spin it without taking it partway out of the oven, as you need to do with a spinning paddle.

So, how did it work? Pretty well.

The thicker stone did make a big difference in temperature retention. I didn't need to crank the heat up and down; I could leave it on a medium heat, get the stone nice and hot, and pop one pizza in after another.

Even better, raising the pizza 3/8" resulted in even top-and-bottom cooking. The position of the pizza on the thinner stone is just a little too low, and raising it one pizza thickness made all the difference.

You can see here that I got excellent blistering on the bottom of the pizza:

And pretty good loft in the crust, especially for a store-bought dough (from Zupan's):

Unfortunately, the thicker stone did nothing to even out the back-to-front temperature difference; corderite just isn't a good conductor. You can see that I still had crust burning issues whenever I didn't spin the pizza fast enough:

My next attempt for that will be using a pizza steel, which ought to have better conductivity and thus help even out the heat. Will it burn the crust, though? We'll find out.

The pizza spinners did make it easier to spin the pizza quickly, in place. Once, that is, I figured out to use them like claws and spin the pizza around by grabbing the sides of the crust, instead of by poking them into the center and spinning. The latter isn't very effective, and can tear the pizza. But, the results speak for themselves; look at the even cooking of the pizza at the top of this post.

Overall, I think I'm a lot closer to the gas-fired pizza of my dreams. Just a little more tweaking and trials to go. I recommend the spinners, for certain, and maybe the thicker stone if you can get one and don't want to try a pizza steel.

Oh, and I also made some strawberry-machego empanadas in the Koda:

I've messed around with various ways of making pizza on the grill for the last couple of years with unsatisfactory results. So when kickstartered pizza maker Ooni announced the Koda, their new super-simple gas-only portable outdoor pizza oven, I preordered one. Here's my first report on its performance.

First, they're not kidding about the Koda being portable. There's no chimney, the oven's legs fold up, and the whole thing weighs less than the gas tank you use to fuel it. I've ordered a carry-case now and expect to bring this to pizza parties at friends' homes.

There's a cost to that portability, though. First, you have to find a table to put it on; I'm going to build one out of scrap for the backyard. Second, the baking surface is a 12" square, and you really want to make your pizzas a no more than 9"-10" in diameter to keep the crust away from the flame and front edge. You also need a suitably narrow pizza peel, preferably a steel one so it doesn't catch fire.

I preheated the Koda for about 1/2 hour. It did not get up to the reported 950F, but it easily got up to 800F -- possibly because I was using it on a porch where it was 48F out. Anyway, 800F is plenty hot enough for some serious pizza.

So I popped in a "winter margarita", with buffalo mozzarella, pesto, and roasted tomatoes left over from last summer. I'd used my standard pizza dough recipe, which turned out to be a mistake (more about that later).

The pizza cooked fast at that heat. Too fast, in fact; it started to burn along the back edge. And by "burn" I mean "bright yellow flames". I quickly pulled it out, and then started to rotate it to get the rest done. The whole pizza was done in about 3 minutes.

Over the next 5 pizzas I made I learned a bit how to deal with the Koda. First, crank the heat between pies, but then turn it down when inserting the pizza. Second, rotate that pizza as soon as you can, and keep spinning it. If you have thick toppings, it can also help to finish them against the top of the oven. The other pizzas I made included:

• Shaved asparagus and Fontina Val d'Aosta
• Zucchini, roasted tomato and olive
• Buffalo mozzarella and rosemary

Of these, the mozzarella/rosemary was the biggest hit. I baked all 6 pizzas in less than an hour, taking a break between the first and second three.

Through this I continued to have a problem with the back edge burning. Part of this was my fault due to the dough recipe; apparently doughs with sugar or honey in them are a Bad Idea at 800F and tend to burn. However, the Koda also has a pretty serious temperature dropoff between the back of the oven and the front, like 250F difference. This really isn't that surprising considering the Koda's design, but it does mean that pizzaiolos need to keep the pizza spinning, as much as possible.

Fortunately, one thing Ooni has is a friendly, super-pizza-geeky community on Facebook who were all-too-happy to speculate and advise on how I could do better next time. I'll also experiment with a thicker pizza stone and other tweaks.

Overall, though, I am very pleased with my purchase. The Koda makes superior pizza, and is certainly the best pizza oven you can get for $300, as well as the most portable and the simplest to operate. I expect many pizza-making nights this summer, and I'll try naan and kachapuri in it too.

What's the difference between a pizza and a flatbread? Well, one is a meal for $20 and the other is an appetizer for $15. Since these are appetizer-sized, I'm calling them flatbreads.

For those who haven't done grilled pizza before, here's how it works:

1. get the grill nice and hot
2. carefully lay some oiled pizza dough on
3. grill for 1-2 minutes, until the bottom is dry and has grill marks.
4. flip over and top with toppings
5. grill for another 4 minutes

The really important thing for grilled pizza is not to overload it; a soggy pizza will fall apart on the grill. Just put a few scattered toppings on, and nothing wet. This is one such, taking advantage of the second-crop asparagus.

grilled asparagus and halloumi flatbread

1 lbs refrigerated pizza dough
1 bunch asparagus, around 1lbs.
6-7 oz haloumi cheese
2 oz mozarella cheese
1/2 lbs plum or San Marzano tomatoes
1/2 cup olive oil
pepper

Heat up the grill. You're looking for medium-hot grill heat here, around 550F.

Grill the asparagus for 3 to 5 minutes (depending on thickness); you're looking for it to be parly cooked here, and lightly seared on one side. Take it off the grill and set aside to cool.

Slice the tomatoes into small, thin slices. Slice or dice the mozarella and the haloumi into small pieces, around 1/4" cube or smaller.

Divide the dough into four pieces. Roll each into a ball, then roll it out with a rolling pin until it's around 6" in diameter and very thin. Dock the dough so it doesn't puff up too much, using a docker or a serving fork. Paint both sides with olive oil using a basting brush.

Put the dough on the grill. You'll have to carefully lift it and drop it on with your fingers; the oiled dough is liable to stick to any pizza paddle. Close the lid and cook for two minutes; in that time the dough should be dry and puff up in little bubbles. Remove from the grill onto a platter.

Slice the grilled asparagus on the bias. Use thinner slices for thick asparagus, and cut long pieces for very thin asparagus.

Assemble the flatbreads. Flip the grilled breads over so the side with the grill marks is up. Dot each bread with the mozarrella. Add a few slices of tomato. Scatter 1/4 of the asparagus on each bread, and then top with 1/4 of the haloumi. Sprinkle with ground pepper. Do not overload the breads; you want a scattering of toppings, not a thick layer.

Slide each bread back onto the grill and cook for about 4 minutes. They're done when the edges are brown, the breads are stiff, and the haloumi has started to soften. Cut each into pieces and serve.