Lag time to heat your Pizza stone

jhl192

I picked up a THERMOWORKS infrared surface thermometer on sale a while ago.  Last night I cooked a pizza and  a calzone.  I have posted before how my first pizza's take longer and do not look as good as the later pizza's..  I lit the fire and put in the platesetter and BGE baking stone, with copper spacers in between the two.  I waited for the egg to get up to 600 degrees and for the smoke to flow clear.  About 10 minutes later I shot the surface temperature of the baking stone and it was only 285 degrees.  I waited another 10 minutes and it was 385 degrees.  The lesson learned is that it takes longer than you think for the pizza stone to get close to the dome temperature.  I got impatient and started the calzone when the stone was only 400 degrees.  

hapster

I usually try to get my egg fired up and the set up in about an hour before I want to cook pizzas...

NDG

I have that same IR Gun but always forget to use it.

Goofy Q . . . if your egg is at 700F with your Stone in place, will the stone eventually get to 700F as well?    

Grillmagic

Here is my pizza set up, once I get a good fire I then add the plate setter which is about 10 extra minutes from the time I take my electric starter out, I then add the grate and pizza Que and let it settle at 500 for 30/40 minutes. Total time from plugging the starter in is 50/60 minutes. These are photos from sevreral different pizza cooks.

cook861

I put  the ps and grill and pizza stone ounce my egg gets to 400 and let  it heat up for 45 min

SkinnyV

Got tired of that wait and burn time. I can cook a pizza in my oven with the stone once it hits temp..20-25 mins or so.
The 30 min of pre heating the stone once you hit temp is not a must, in my case.