The Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds is the beautiful setting of the Georgia Mountain Eggfest. This is the perfect place to have an Eggfest. We were excited to come back for our second year.

A huge thank you to John Hall and the North Ga Eggers for coordinating this event again this year. Eggfests like this are fantastic events for new and old Eggers to get together. I am always amazed at the ingenuity and the culinary skills of my fellow Eggers. There were some amazing dishes again this year. And, as one newcomer to the Egg community said to me "All the chefs are so friendly and answer all your questions". I learn something new at every Eggfest we attend!

We started out the morning with some great conversations, and as the pizzas started coming out, folks were lining up for a taste.

We had a very curious crowd who wanted to learn how we converted the Big Green Egg into a pizza oven. It is great having so many people interested in how the Pizza-Porta works. Cooking over a thousand pizzas in the Pizza-Porta this year has taught us a few lessons. Here were the top questions that we were asked about the Pizza-Porta:

What is that? I have never seen it before. - Yup, we are pretty new, as last year was the first time we had product to sell.
What is in there? The pizza stones and the rack are standard parts available at any Egg dealer.
What kind of stones do you use? We use the Big Green Egg stones - they are really durable, and thick enough to take real heat.
Are there two stones in there? For shows, we use the Roswell Rig by Innovations by Chance so we can cook 2 pizzas at a time.
What is your setup? The plate setter is in the bottom legs up, then the double rack sits over it creating an air gap.
How long does a pizza take? At 625 F we cook for 4 - 5 minutes
Why do you need that? So that you have steady oven temperatures and balanced heat. With these handled, you can relax, enjoy your company, and focus on making great pizzas.

Meanwhile, inside the booth, Ben was teaching folks how to stretch the dough and make pizzas. Some of his pupils were newer to Egging than others! He had a few questions that seemed pretty universal:

Do you make your own dough? Yes, although we only do pizza as a hobby, we make pizza dough all the time.
How do you keep the dough from sticking? Dough balls with a little bit of skin, plus a tiny bit of semolina on the peel don't stick.
How do you keep the dough from shrinking back? Dough at room temperature is much easier to stretch.
How big are those dough balls? We stick to 8oz dough balls as they are easy to stretch, transfer and handle. Cooking multiple 12" pizzas gives you a chance to try a number of different topping combinations each time you cook.
Aren't you going to put tomato sauce on that one? We have found that some combinations are fantastic without a tomato sauce base.
Hey mister can you make a cheese pizza? Why yes we can.

The girls decided on a tre formaggi (triple cheese) pizza. Good choice.

Here are some additional photos of the afternoon. We were glad to meet so many people who enjoy cooking on the Egg, and we hope that our demos and advice were helpful. Making pizza on the egg is simple, can be healthy, and when you have friends or family gathered around the Egg, it is a fun evening.

I want to thank my wonderful team for all of the hard work behind the scenes putting our Eggfest offering together. Thank you Becca for serving hundreds of tastings with a smile, and Nancy for being our orchestrator and organizer, Ben for putting together nearly every pizza today, and Tim for being our DJ, photographer, pizza cook and Instagram-er.

All told we cooked all 42 of the doughs we brought, and gave out 770 taster plates. It was a great day!

To learn more about the Pizza-Porta, check out a techy blog here

To see some 3rd party reviews of the Pizza-Porta, click here

If you are ready to convert your Big Green Egg, Kamado Joe, BSK, Grill Dome, or round Primo into a wood fired pizza oven, click here

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @pizzadashporta

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Cortlandt

North Georgia Eggfest 2017