MM is a crappy pizza cooker

Lit

just burnt a pizza and calzone. After one side of the calzone burnt in under 5 minutes at 425 dome I got my IR thermometer and the stone was over 600 degrees. What a horrible design with the platesetter so close to grate level. Wish so bad I had kept my KJ Jr.

Lit

This was under 5 minutes at 425 dome. 

SGH

Lit said:

 What a horrible design with the platesetter so close to grate level. Wish so bad I had kept my KJ Jr.

Careful my friend. It's no secret that I like giving you crap, but I would hate for the buffalo to strike. Who would I aggravate if you got struck

stompbox

Did you elevate the grate? Use a pizza stone?

Lit

Platesetter in woo with grate then stone. I use this same dough in my XL and it takes about 10 minutes to finish a pizza at 500-550.

JohnInCarolina

I think with most of these rigs you have to monitor the stone temp pretty carefully.  I never go by the dome temp.

Tbent

I like my MM and use it all the time, but the damn thing has been the hardest one for me to get used to cooking on. 

outrageous

What I have found with mm is to put pizza on air bake pan , elevate with spacers or tin foil balls above pizza stone,  then as pizza gets cooking, slide off pan onto stone to brown up bottom.    the mm does have a learning curve with the design of the plate setter.

Lit

I did the pizza first the done was 525 for it. The stone was so hot it burnt the parchment paper. I have used parchment in my old large for 750 degree pizzas and it didn't burn like this did. My stone had to be 750 plus. Needless to say the crust was black after a couple minutes and the top was still not cooked. Looks like I'm doing pizzas in the XL from now on.

pgprescott

Lower the temp. Solved. Invoice is in the mail. 

Lit

pgprescott said:

Lower the temp. Solved. Invoice is in the mail. 

If I lower it to 350 dome to get the stone to the right temp will my toppings cook. To get pizzas to cook evenly on the large and XL my done was always hotter than my stone. Doesn't seem like lowering the dome is going to help.

yljkt

Paper usually ignites at 451 degrees. Dome temp has little to do with grate or stone temp. Good luck with the next attempt. 

SkinnyV

I cooked 6 no problem last summer. 

Lit

yljkt said:

Paper usually ignites at 451 degrees. Dome temp has little to do with grate or stone temp. Good luck with the next attempt. 

The parchment doesn't I use it all the time at 500-550 and used to use it hotter.

pgprescott

Lit said:

pgprescott said:

Lower the temp. Solved. Invoice is in the mail. 

If I lower it to 350 dome to get the stone to the right temp will my toppings cook. To get pizzas to cook evenly on the large and XL my done was always hotter than my stone. Doesn't seem like lowering the dome is going to help.

General practice is to lower temp to allow the toppings to cook without burning crust. That is exactly what you should do. Also raise the stone a little bit. Good luck. It's just fine tuning. 

SkinnyV

http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1177863/mini-max-pizza-test-drive#latest

This is wasn't my summer cook but it cooks exactly like the large or mini. No issues. Ps, grid then stone.
MM is not a crappy pizza cooker. It works just fine, may want to change the title. How about pics of your setup while cooking? 

SGH

Lit said:

Wish so bad I had kept my KJ Jr.

Lit, at the risk of getting buffaloed myself, I'm going to repeat something that I said over a year ago. The KJ has more head room than the MM. Thus, it's almost identical to cooking on a small BGE. This is not the case with the MM. Grate to dome clearance isn't the same. As mad as it may make some people (the buffalo included) KJ got it right with the JR. I own both and can honestly say the JR is more versatile. Not trying to bash the MM, just simply stating the facts. 

SkinnyV

Haha....waiting for the oops....the plate setter wasn't in

Lit

SkinnyV said:

Haha....waiting for the oops....the plate setter wasn't in. 

I stated above the setup. Here's the pic. My only other guess is I am using the medium pizza stone since that's what BGE said to use when I called them. I am going to get the wet saw out and cut it down tomorrow since it's bigger than the platesetter so it's not completely indirect.

SkinnyV

I'm kidding but yeah it should work fine, I've done it a few times no issues but yes I will say I used my mini stones   Never splurged on the medium one, But it's a head scratcher if that's the difference. Or dome thermo? I don't know only success when I tried.

stompbox

SGH said:

Lit said:

Wish so bad I had kept my KJ Jr.

Lit, at the risk of getting buffaloed myself, I'm going to repeat something that I said over a year ago. The KJ has more head room than the MM. Thus, it's almost identical to cooking on a small BGE. This is not the case with the MM. Grate to dome clearance isn't the same. As mad as it may make some people (the buffalo included) KJ got it right with the JR. I own both and can honestly say the JR is more versatile. Not trying to bash the MM, just simply stating the facts. 

I am not understanding this post @SGH through my research, I have read the MM shares the same dome hieght as the MM.

Couple that with the fact that they made design changes to the MM, how different are we talking if any?

Also, how does it differ from the JR?

stompbox

BTW, this post is timely..... still have not decided on a MM S or M for my second egg.

I am interested in seeing how this plays out.

SGH

stompbox said:
I have read the MM shares the same dome hieght as the MM.

Brother Stomp, the above is not correct unless BGE recently increased inside dome height. I received a MM for Christmas in 2014. I aquired a JR a little over a year before that (the day they hit the market). The JR has considerable more grate to dome inside clearance. Again, if BGE has changed this, I'm unaware of it. But looking at the pics I see posted here, it looks like most of the MM's are like mine. 

Biggreenpharmacist

I've got a small and love it. I have no problem moving it around and I'm a small guy. Holds more lump than MM and apparently not THAT much heavier. Goes great with my large egg or even my medium vision at the camp. Ive carried it to florida before on vacation. Certainly portable. 

theyolksonyou

Indian - arrow. 

Hi54putty

stompbox said:

BTW, this post is timely..... still have not decided on a MM S or M for my second egg.

I am interested in seeing how this plays out.

Get a Small. They are awesome and very underrated. More versatility than the mini and MiniMax and more transportable than the medium. I don't really understand why they thought the MiniMax was necessary...but I am biased (as a very satisfied Small owner). I have a large and XL also but my small gets a lot of the work. 

Roadpuke0

When you weren't looking the RTIC ninjas struck vengeance upon thee! 

Mikee

The mini-max and the small use the same dome.

Ceramic Dome for XXLarge EGG – XXLLC
Ceramic Dome for XLarge EGG – XLLC
Ceramic Dome for Large EGG – LLC
Ceramic Dome for Medium EGG – MLC
Ceramic Dome for Small or MiniMax EGGs – SLC
Ceramic Dome for Mini EGG – TLC

The mini-max and small used the same fire ring; but I believe that has changed with the newer mini-max's.

Fire Ring for XXLarge EGG – XXLFR
Fire Ring for XLarge EGG – XLFR
Fire Ring for Large EGG – LFR
Fire Ring for Medium EGG – MFR
Fire Ring for Small or MiniMax EGGs – SFR
Fire Ring for Mini EGG – TFR

The differences between the min-max and small are the height of the base, fire box, and cooking grate.

The mini-max should be superior to the small when cooking at high temps as its fire grate is equal to a large.

Fire Grate for an XXLarge EGG – XXLFGC
Cast Iron Fire Grate for an XLarge EGG – XLFGC
Cast Iron Fire Grate for a Large or MiniMax EGG – LFGC
Cast Iron Fire Grate for a Medium EGG – MFGC
Cast Iron Fire Grate for a Small or Mini EGG – SFGC

Biggreenpharmacist

Ive got a hi-que grate in my small. That sucker will blow a jetstream really quick if you arent paying attention. 

Jupiter Jim

Lit said:

pgprescott said:

Lower the temp. Solved. Invoice is in the mail. 

If I lower it to 350 dome to get the stone to the right temp will my toppings cook. To get pizzas to cook evenly on the large and XL my done was always hotter than my stone. Doesn't seem like lowering the dome is going to help.

It makes a lot of sense to go with a lower temp only because what you did failed. The correct temperature is the one that works and it could be much different than what you do on an XL I would have never expected a MM to work the same as an XL. If the XL makes great pizza just use the XL. 

Lit

Jupiter Jim said:

Lit said:

pgprescott said:

Lower the temp. Solved. Invoice is in the mail. 

If I lower it to 350 dome to get the stone to the right temp will my toppings cook. To get pizzas to cook evenly on the large and XL my done was always hotter than my stone. Doesn't seem like lowering the dome is going to help.

It makes a lot of sense to go with a lower temp only because what you did failed. The correct temperature is the one that works and it could be much different than what you do on an XL I would have never expected a MM to work the same as an XL. If the XL makes great pizza just use the XL. 

I'm thinking cut the stone down so it's smaller than the platesetter so it's truly indirect and create more space between the platesetter and stone. I have cooked pizzas on every other sized egg except the xxl and never had this issue. I agree about just using the XL and normally do but that's a lot of lump to keep the XL at 500 for an hour especially since I bought a bag of rockwood. That's like $10 in lump to cook $8 worth of pizza.