Pizza and temps

icemncmth

For those of you that are newer on the forum..I cook a lot of pizzas on the egg. That is what I bought it for and I have pizza parties where I will do a dozen pizzas in one evening..

Now for temps when cooking. It all depends on the hydration of the dough...so how much water is in your dough makes a huge difference on how the final product turns out.

There are also different styles of pizza that you can make. If you really want to get good at pizza toss out the measuring cups and use weights...That is the only way to be consistent. If you don't believe me than weigh a cup of flour on a good scale. Do this every day for a week and see how much difference you can have in the amount of flour you have per cup.

Having said all that....water makes steam and produces the bubbles in the dough along with the gas from the yeast. Think of the bubbles as balloons. The more you work the dough the smaller the bubbles will be. The less you work the dough the larger the bubbles will be..Now add a moist dough to the equation and you will have some nice size bubbles in the crust..

I make my dough using 60-65% hydration. Since my dough is very moist I use a high heat when cooking. My egg is open wide, vent on bottom open all the way and no top..

I cook at around 800-900 deg most of the time..this pizza was cooked at around 800 deg for 3.5 mins.

So crust...cooked at 400 deg can be different as night and day depending on how much you work it and how much water is in it. Google "Pizza making Forum" and you will be amazed...

emt_24

Thanks for the info!

RVH

Looks good, Rob. Are you planning to cook again at this years Oklahoma Eggfest?

omba

IceMan,

Brilliant! Well said.
I have done considerable research on this, and I also make a wet dough and cook really hot on the egg. In fact, it was pizza that no doubt caused me to go through two gaskets in the past 2 years.
I recently had some communication with fishlessman, and he no longer uses a gasket at all. Do you?

I am also curious about your setup, as my humble results have been very inconsistent.
Sometimes the pie is great.
Other times the bottom burns.
I have played with temps and learned that the dough I prefer demands high (800-900) heat and short (3-4 minute) cooks.

I have toyed too much with too many setups to remember the best one. My dough is calculated (http://www.pizzamaking.com/dough_calculator.html) at 65% hydration. I plan on pizza-playing this weekend again, so ...
If you don't mind sharing, what setup do you like?

My latest failed setup (^) was:
fire ring
grid
platesetter - legs down
ceramic feet
pizza stone

Thanks,
Peter

Knauf

Peter- I've had goos success with this set up...
fire ring, plate setter legs up, grid, grill extender then pizza stone. This keeps the heat from making a direct turn toward your gasket and gives me great convection high in the dome. I also use parchment paper for the first 2 minutes and that helps with the transfer of uncooked dough into the egg. For what it's worth.

omba

Thanks!
I NEVER thought of using the extender.
In fact, I should probably try using the adjustable rig I've got.
Duh! I feel stupid.
Gonna give it a shot, and I appreciate your sharing.

Later,
Peter

Crimsongator

You do 800-900* on an indirect cook? Will you please post pics of your eyebrows. That is flashback city right there.

JLOCKHART29

That really does look great! What kind of gasket (if any) do you have?

icemncmth

I am ...and I will be cooking pizzas....and some other goodies!

icemncmth

Sorry for the late reply...I use plate setter legs down..1/4" copper elbows on top of that..I use a larger cermaice pizza stone than the BGE and that is about it...

When I do parties I put fill the egg and I can do an easy 20 pizzas in one evening..

Oh..gasket has been gone since week two..

icemncmth

My gasket has been gone for a while..and I can still do a 26 hour low and slow..