AI-Powered Pizza: Frozen and Fantastic

Whenever I think of pizza, I don’t think of one I pulled from the freezer section at the grocery store. I think of a freshly baked pie, preferably one that’s wood-fired. Sometimes, that’s not in the cards due to time or budget constraints. What if an AI-enabled pellet grill could change that?

I’m in the process of moving, and because of that, each night is filled with packing and hauling belongings to my home. In trying to find quick meals that are a bit more than a basic sandwich, a frozen pizza is sometimes the best option for a busy family. In a stroke of brilliance or delayed realization, I decided to skip warming up my home with the oven during these extreme temps and instead opted for my pellet grill.

Wood-smoked pizza for the win

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Brisk It’s AI-powered pellet grill is great for tossing a quick burger or steak, but Vera, the AI assistant, can help cook anything.

Chris Wedel/CNET

For this cook, I used one of the best pellet grills on the market today, the Brisk It Origin 580. On the surface, there isn’t much that stands out when looking at the grill. It has good build quality, a serviceable 580 square inches of cooking area, and a digital control panel along with a 22-pound pellet hopper. What is different about this grill is the software.

That’s right, I said software is what makes this grill stand out. Now, can you use the Brisk It Origin 580 to cook without any of the fancy software? It does a fantastic job. I thought instead of trial-and-erroring to get the right temp and cook time to get my frozen pizza perfectly melty, I’d let the Vera AI system help out.

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I skipped the pizza stone portion of the directions and put the pizza directly onto the grates. The results were delicious.

Chris Wedel/CNET

I’ll never cook pizza in the oven again

The final results produced a perfectly cooked pizza with a crispy crust that was soft and chewy in the middle of the dough. The toppings were wonderfully melty and with some crunch on the edges of the cheese near the crust. Sure, these results could all be achieved via a traditional oven. The added smoky flavor put this pizza well above what that cooking method produced.

I considered putting the pizza on early in the start-up process for the grill, which is much smokier as the grill begins to roll to the set temp. I decided not to for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted to see how it tasted using Vera’s direction, and secondly, I wanted more of a hands-off approach as I was very busy. Had I put the pizza on at the beginning, I’d have to remove it partway through once the smoke receded.

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