First Post - Working out the kinks with pizza

fakewiig

Hey all,

I'm new the the forum and a new XLBGE owner. You guys have been super helpful as I look to figure out how to equip and use my new egg.

Anyway, one of my first missions has been to figure out how to do pizza well in the egg. It's been a fun process. Here are my attempts over the last 10 days or so.

Attempt 1 - Got the egg going wide open. Set a cheap 15in stone on the grid. left for about 10 minutes. Came back out with a pizza, egg was nearly 900 degrees. Stone was split right down the middle... 

Attempt 2 - Picked up a 3/8 thick, 18in diameter carbon steel plate to cook with. Setup Egg with Woo2, cracked ceramic stone on bottom rack as a deflector, set steel plate on top of the top grid near the felt line. Got the Egg stablized around 550. Went to get pizza to the egg, couldn't get it off the cookie sheet, we didn't use enough flour and corn meal. We took spatulas and scraped the the pizza onto the steel plate, it ended up in an oddly shaped pile on the steel plate. It cooked well considering the circumstances. It was very ugly, but tasted well.

Attempt 3 - Used same setup, but removed the ceramic plate (I don't know what I was thinking...). Brought Egg up to 550 again. Prepped pizza with plenty of corn meal and flour. Slid the pizza on the steel plate and immediately smelled a bad burning smell. Waited it out anyway. Pulled the pizza out with the top looked perfect, crust crispy brown on the edges, cheese crisp in a few places, it was a thing of beauty. Got the pizza inside and looked at the bottom, it was complete charcoal. We tried scrapping the top of the pizza off to eat, it was very acrid. Complete failure. The deflection of the coals is very important when using the steel plate...

Attempt 4 - Same setup, put the ceramic stone back on the bottom of the Woo2. Brought the Egg up to 550. Prepped pizza with plenty of corn meal and flour. Pizza ALMOST slid on the the steel perfectly, ended up with one flat side. After 5 minutes or so, I opened the bottom up to get some hotter air to help crisp up the top. Dome temp was almost 700 when I pulled the pizza out after a total of about 15 minutes. Bottom was crisp, with a few darker spots, no burning. Top was crisp with bubbling cheese. It was exactly what we were trying for!


Pictures from Attempt 4 below.

pgprescott

Nice pie right there! I'd dub it the Bermuda Triangle. It's gonna disappear! I personally think the odd shapes add a kind of personal character to the pies. Love it! 

Botch

Congrats and Welcome, @fakewiig.
 
First off, get yourself a wooden peel.  I've never gotten a raw pie to release perfectly from a metal peel; sprinkling a bit of cornmeal onto the top of the wooden peel, and rubbing a bit of flour onto the bottom of the dough before building the pie, has worked perfectly for me.  There is a cool cloth/roller thingie out there that transfers a pie very well, but you won't see the pizza places use them, and they're expensive.  A metal peel, or cookie sheet that you used, works great for removing a cooked pie, and having both a wooden and a metal peel really helps when you're cooking multiple pies for a crowd.
 
Finally, remember that a pizza's cook temperature should depend on its thickness, just like a chunk of meat.  The 900º you hit your first time out is perfect for a thin, margharita-style pie with light toppings, it'll cook perfectly in 90 seconds!  (that your stone cracked, I can't say; I've used my stone for years and it hasn't cracked yet).  A heavy, "Cowboy"-style pie from Papa Murphy's cooks best at 425, just like their commercials ask for.  550 works good for a NY-style pie, as you've found out.  
 
Enjoy!  

jtcBoynton

Baking steels transmit heat faster than stones.  You need to adjust time and temperature from recipes and recommendations to account for this.

StillH2OEgger

I'm a relative pizza novice when it comes to the BGE and usually don't go over 550 degrees, but I highly recommend using parchment paper rather than flour or cornmeal to eliminate any miscues with the transfer from peel to stone. It has worked great for us.

Legume

Great story - welcome, and nice pie there.

blasting

@fakewiig  welcome to the forum.  Did you get your steel from baking steel, or have it cut locally?

 @botch gave very solid input above.  

InterestIngly, I do the reverse of Botch as far as the peel goes.  I build and launch it off the metal peel, and use the wooden peel for the finished pie.

bgebrent

Welcome!  I do as @blasting does.  Keep at it and you'll find your way.  Bermuda Triangle pizza!

fakewiig

blasting said:

@fakewiig  welcome to the forum.  Did you get your steel from baking steel, or have it cut locally?

I had a local fabricator cut it for me. Fun experience, but not sure I'd recommend it over the ease of just buying from Baking Steel. I spent a few days reading about and trying to remove the mill scale before I seasoned it and used it. Fortunately, I'm a big fan of restoring cast iron, so I was familiar with the process.

Thank y'all for the input and insight.
The pizza journey continues!

jak7028

Looks like you nailed it through trail and error.  Most posters on here would probably be lying if they said they never messed up a pizza when they were learning to make them  (I will eat almost anything, and I had to throw a couple pizzas away).

I second the wooden peel with cornmeal on it.  That works best for me.  If I am making more pizzas and want to get some ready a little ahead of time, I use parchment paper.  Put the pizza and parchment paper on the hot pizza stone, after a few minutes when the crust starts to cook, the paper will slide right out from underneath the pizza so you can finish the cook.  (I have only done this with thin style pizzas, not one like you made in the pics.)

THEBuckeye

I'd go back to the Attempt 1 process......

Too funny

Pizza is fickle. Once you get your process down to your likeness your result will be different, trust me. Still good, just  different. 

I've found cooking raised indirect on a BGE stone with a corn meal dusted wood peel works for me. I'll go 450-550 for about 10 minutes (as thin a dough as I can make it). 

Keep cooking and have fun with it. 

Ivanhoe

I have gone to a small sprinkling of semolina flour on a wooden peel and that has worked well for me. I found that after using cornmeal with about 4 pizzas, the build up on the stone would start to burn and cause a smoky mess. You also have to be careful with your dough when forming your pizza and if it feels sticky at all you will need to dust the bottom with more flour.