Pizza & Platesetter. Is it science or preference?

Plate setter low, heat is not deflected right at the gasket, leading to a gasket burnout. Plate setter high, you can load more lump to facilitate longer burn times for extended pizza cooks. I dunno, just made that up.  8-}

I'm not looking to 'hijack' this post ... but, does anyone have any advice on prebaked pizzas you get from the market. So far, the 3 I've done have not turned out very good.

I've only cooked pies with store-made dough so far.  We get ours from Trader Joes or Harris Teeter.  This is more out of laziness on my part than anything else.  They come in little bags and you still have to shape it into the pie, but IMO the pizzas are very good.  

I always did platesetter legs up, then grid, then raised grid with carriage bolts.  Now I have an AR and I use the rig extender to get way up in the dome.  After a few disasters, I can consistently do great pizzas now.

The pizza counter at our local grocery sells dough balls for 99 cents. 

@SoCalTim . I've never did a store bought but my first guess would be are you using a higher temperature than the directions recommend to try to get it done faster? The Egg should be no different than the oven on a store bought.

I buy dough also.  Everyone keeps telling me how easy it is to make, but this always seems to be a mid-week last minute cook for me and time is of the essence!  The rugrats are hungry.

The best is fresh made and most pizza places will sell it to you for $1.50 if you ask them nicely.
I've also got it in HT and TJ's as mentioned.  My HT has two kinds...a store kind and then another label that is 50 cents more and in the same deli case.  They are both good but the more expensive one is better.  (more elastic, a little chewy, can get a thinner pizza without holes).

I have never had luck buying the whole wheat or flavored doughs.  They don't come up crisp.  Don't taste as good.  Get the white flour variety.

Why use a stone at all? Just make/ buy your dough. Roll out to size. Freeze. Top frozen shell. Egg it.

Years of experimentation... Full load of charcoal. Plate setter legs down. Three firebricks on top of plate setter with pizza stone on top of bricks. Light fire, let temp get up to 350 or so and add ceramics. 600 degrees temp on egg. It will take about an hour to get all of the ceramics and bricks up to this temp. Pizza takes about three minutes to cook! As far as the dough goes... Go to Tasty Licks BBQ and follow Freds instructions/videos. He has done all of the homework. He sells the Caputo "OO" flours and this is where it all starts! We do pizza once a week and it's pretty damn good. Thanks Fred!

I don't bother trying to get the pizza up higher into the dome, but I haven't tried it, so maybe it's better.  I just do platesetter legs up, grill, pizza stone.  Temp is 600-650 and cook time is around 10 minutes.  I check it at about 6 minutes to rotate it if it's not cooking evenly.  Like deep fried food or waffles, the first is never the best, but by second pie things are cooking nicely.

I'd just buy some dough the first few cooks and concentrate on learning your setup and cook.  I buy Trader Joe's for $1.25 a ball and make two pizzas.  One less variable to worry about.  As you can see we all have different ways of doing the cook, so figure out what works for you.  Then take pictures and teach us! 

 

@SGH You lay down some serious stuff, so I wonder if your standards are too high!

I may be odd man out on this, but I have always done my pizza PS legs down with BGE pizza stone sitting directly on the PS.  Although I do recognize the benefit of having some air between the two and have told myself I will probably change the next time I cook pizza.  I heat the Egg up to about 600.  I use the dough recipe in the BGE cookbook - good enough for four personal pizzas.  I have found that the biggest impact on success is amount of toppings.  Do not load up on the sauce, toppings and cheese.

I think it is a preference issue. I go legs down, fire bricks, stone -- I have had success that way so I stick with it.

I use publix dough most of the time for convenience, but making your own dough is easy easy easy

Legs down, spacer, pizza stone. I use an IR thermometer through the top opening, being the daisy wheel is removed, to check the ceramic temperature before putting the dough on.

Try making bread on the stone. You run it around 400 instead of 650+ for the pizza. And remember, once setup, one pizza is never enough. We usually do 3 in series.

Enjoy. You will not go back to your old ways