"..
I
kept on thinking of ways to build my ideal pizza oven – an oven that
would be easy to operate, maintain and transport, and one that would
simulate the heating and cooking characteristics of a brick oven..."
Bert Touma, Creator of
The Mighty Pizza Oven
Albert: Here is an interview with Bert Touma the inventor of the
Mighty Pizza Oven.
Bert was very open and honest as he reveals the secrets of his creation.
How
did you get into making pizza?
Bert: I grew up in Lebanon eating flat
pita. Back then, I didn’t know that pita was a distant relative of one
of the most popular foods in the world. Also we had Manaeesh, a popular
Lebanese food consisting of dough topped with thyme, cheese, or ground
meat. Manaeesh is quite similar to a pizza and can be eaten sliced or
folded, so it was little wonder that, when I immigrated to the US back
in 1982, pizza became my favorite food. Eventually, making pizza would
become my passion — a hobby I enjoyed as often as I could.
Albert:
How
did you come up with the idea?
Bert: My friends and family always
enjoyed the pizzas I made from scratch, but it took lots of time
preparing and baking. Over the years, I tried to cut down on preparation
time by using better tools and techniques.
One
thing I couldn’t improve is my oven heat. I knew the importance of
baking pizzas at a very high temperature (much higher than my home oven
could manage) in order to cook the dough and ingredients quickly without
drying them out.
In
search of higher baking temperatures, I found that wood-fired ovens are
the best kind of oven for baking pizza because they bake in three ways
simultaneously: by means of conductive heat, reflected heat and
convective heat transfer. But a wood-fired oven wasn’t for me. I just
wanted something practical that I could turn on and off easily –
something movable, affordable, and that didn’t occupy too much of my
back yard. I found a few oven designs that I liked from overseas
suppliers, but they weren’t cost effective once I included price of
shipping.
Still,
I kept on thinking of ways to build my ideal pizza oven – an oven that
would be easy to operate, maintain and transport, and one that would
simulate the heating and cooking characteristics of a brick oven:
conductive heat, reflected heat and convective heat.
December 2011, an idea popped into my head as I was ordering a burger at
a cafeteria. I watched the chef cover the meat patty with a basting
cover and started thinking of building a pizza oven that combined the
features of a basting cover and those of brick oven.
Albert:
Did
you build a few different prototypes? How did you decide on the final
design?
Bert: To implement my basting cover
idea, the first thing I needed was a heat source, and using my gas grill
for the purpose was a no brainer. Plus it would give my underutilized
grill a new purpose in life. The grill produces lots of heat, the main
ingredient for a perfect pizza.
I used
to use a ceramic stone when baking pizzas in my home oven. Pizza stones
store heat and pass it on to the pizza, replicating the conductive
properties of a brick oven. However, I couldn’t use my ceramic pizza
stone directly on my grill because ceramic cannot tolerate sudden
extreme changes in temperature and cracks when it comes in contact with
fire. So I used an aluminum pizza pan as a separator, to protect the
stone.
I
replicated the heat that is reflected off the walls and top of a brick
oven by using a round, deep cake pan as a cover. The problem was that it
did not reflect enough heat, so I fixed this by adding another pizza
stone above the pizza being cooked, to store and reflect more heat from
on top.
My
first prototype worked well, but there was still room for improvement,
especially as regards the type of pizza stones I was using. The top
stone wasn’t getting hot enough because it didn’t get any direct heat
and I actually broke few stones by accidentally getting them exposed to
direct flames.
Luckily at that time, Cordierite pizza stones became popular,
affordable and easy to find in multiple sizes. Cordierite is a material
that is even more durable than ceramic and that can withstand direct
contact with the grill’s flames. Just what I needed! This allowed me to
increase the upper stone size to store and refract more heat, and I
could now place the bottom cordierite pizza stone right on the flames,
using the grill’s heat more efficiently. My oven design became simpler
and more effective.
Still,
I wasn’t completely happy with the results; I needed even more heat, so
I replaced the round cake pan with a square one and used a square top
stone to capture and store as much heat as possible for baking top side
of the pizza pie.
This
was definitely an improvement, and yet there was one last thing missing:
convective heat. Brick ovens have a vent and chimney system that draws
hot moist air from outside and passes it over the pizzas, cooking them
faster while preventing the topping ingredients from drying out. To
reproduce this, I cut an opening in the pan to act as a chimney.
And oh
boy, what a difference it made! Everything finally came together.
I was
extremely happy to find that my homemade
Mighty Pizza Oven prototype allowed me to bake better pizzas
faster. It really took my pizza experience and skills to a whole new
level. My pizzas now tasted so much better, even though I was still
using a food processor recipe book and a rough measuring technique.
Now
that I had all the right tools, baking delicious pies became as simple
as preparing any other homemade meal!
Why
did you decide to invent the
MPO?
Bert: I soon realized my prototype oven
could really be useful to other pizza enthusiasts like me, who wanted to
cook top quality pizza without spending huge amounts of money on a pizza
oven. I was also excited at the thought of doing something I really
enjoyed, and which could hopefully become a steady source of income to
replace my engineering income that has not been steady in the last few
years.
Albert:
Have
you invented anything else?
Bert: I have not invented anything
else, but I have many ideas that I hope one day to develop.
Albert:
What
is your favorite pizza?
Bert: I do not have a favorite, I have
enjoyed eating while experimenting baking different type of pizza with
MPO like NY pizza, deep dish and Neapolitan.
Albert:
Can
you share a favorite recipe with us?
Albert:
Do you
have any pizza tips for the home pizza maker?
Bert: Keep open minded to others ideas,
tips and techniques to improve your pizza making skills, here is a link
to few tips and techniques I started on my website. I am always looking
for something new to try out myself!
Albert:
I
understand you can cook more than pizza with the MPO. Do you cook these
items directly on the pizza stone?
Bert: The
MPO can also be used to cook much more than pizza. For example,
you can grill
vegetables or meat using
a griddle instead of the Mighty Pizza Oven’s bottom stone or just use
grill grates with no stone. This is an exciting new angle that I am
starting to explore, with great results so far.
Basting cover is used to concentrate the heat to bake food under it
faster. Think of MPO as a basting cover on steroid, your food is being
cooked from all sides at the same time especially top and bottom., so
for example when grill steak under MPO, your steak top is being cooked
due to MPO top stone extremely high temperature (over 600 deg f). So
when you flip your steak you will not lose as much juices as you
normally do.
Albert:
I
understand you tried to fund raise the launch of the MPO. How did that
go?
Bert: As anyone who has ever launched a
project on Kickstarter can tell you, the hardest part is getting enough
exposure and traffic to your project in the few weeks the campaign
lasts. While I got several pledges for the Mighty PizzaOven in the first
few days, I unfortunately did not manage to build up enough momentum
early on to take the Kickstarter campaign all the way to its funding
goal.
This
is just a minor hurdle and I am currently looking at other ways to
market and sell the Mighty Pizza Oven.
Albert:
How
were you able to get listed on Amazon?
Bert: It wasn’t difficult, I was time
consuming due to Amazon requirements. I have the mighty pizza oven pizza
peel sold and shipped by Amazon. I am hoping to do the same with MPO,
which is currently listed on Amazon but shipment is fulfilled by myself.
Albert:
What
is the future for the MPO?
Bert: I am working on designing an optional
gas burner base for the Mighty Pizza Oven. This will take the Mighty
Pizza Oven experience to whole new level, giving you complete and
accurate control over the baking temperature. Best of all, it will make
the Mighty Pizza Oven setup 100% portable, so you can easily take it
with you on camping trips and to tailgate parties.
I will
also be able to test many more new recipes than I otherwise could,
compile a Mighty Pizza Oven cookbook and work harder than ever to make
your Mighty Pizza Oven experience the very best it could possibly be.
Also I
am working on developing an optional charcoal/wood burner base, and an
optional adapter for indoor gas stoves and additional accessories for
the Mighty Pizza Oven.
Albert:
Will
you be doing any demos of the MPO at trade shows?
Bert: I would love to one day, I have
not been able to sue to my full time job and family.
Albert:
Is
there anything else you would like to add, Bert???
Bert: I continue to work harder than
ever to make Mighty Pizza Oven experience the very best it could
possibly be.
Thank
you Albert for testing MPO and for your interview.
I took the Mighty Pizza Oven for a Test Drive, here is my MPO Review
Mighty Pizza Oven uses three types of heat
to cook pizza: conduction. reflection and convection.
Conduction is the actual heat by having the pizza in direct contact with
the pizza. Reflection is the heat of the top stone mirroring back the
heat, to cook the pizza. Convection is the heat from the inside
circulating all over the pizza.
I found the secret to cooking
great pizza on a gas grill: The
Mighty Pizza Oven. The notion is to
sandwich the heat source, and thereby cooking your pizza from the top
and the bottom.
