'Proper' technique for using a pizza stone?

OzarkQ

Just pulled the trigger on a large egg! :woohoo:

I bought from a local dealer and also bought the platesetter and a bge pizza stone. I'm into old fashioned sourdough and have warped the walls of my oven cooking at 500' for too long... and I'm looking forward to baking in the egg (of course more excited to smoke something).

I see that you use the platesetter to put the stone at the level of the opening of the egg, but are you suppose to put the legs down, or up? It seems like if the legs are down and then there are two layers of ceramic to heat up and it might take a long time to get it up to speed - but the large stone is only 14" and won't be wide enough to sit on top of the legs.

Should I look for a 15" kiln shelf or larger to sit on the legs or just use the 14" stone and get on with life...

Geoff

Pharmeggist

Congrats on the Large egg.

Check out the link
http://www.nakedwhiz.com/pizza.htm

Happy Egging, Pharmeggist

Celtic Wolf

Legs down. Pizza stone on top. Some people actually prop the stone up on something as well.

The little green feet are great for this purpose.

Morro Bay Rich

Several here (or at least Egret) suggests platesetter with legs up, grill on the platesetter, followed by the BGE raised grill with the pizza stone on it. This raises the stone considerable up in the dome thus decreasing the chances of a burned gasket.

Eggtucky

I've used both setups and had good results with both..here's a pic of the first setup described..guess I dont have one of the raised pizza stone..hmm..haveta get one of those.. :P

Spaceman Spiff

Or you can get a 16" stone.
http://www.bakingstone.com/

Spacey

OzarkQ

Great ideas - thanks! I also found an old post about using a kiln shelf but don't know about toxicity related to the different materials and whatnot.

stike

a kiln shelf is a platesetter. plates are set on kiln shelves, and then fired in a kiln. hence, 'platesetter'. platesetter's ceramic, and a kiln shelf (if ordered thru a ceramic company) would be too.

easier to just get the BGE one, probably.

WessB

There is no "proper" way.....whatever you like the best is the way you should set it up...I prefer to put the platesetter legs up...cooking grid on the legs and either place the pizza stone on the cooking grid...or as others have mentioned put the raised grid in to get the pizza stone even higher in the dome....

fishlessman

i have a couple different stones, 14 inch is probably the best size for the egg imho, but my stones are 15 and 10. you want to set the stone up to accomplish what you want from it, here is how i set it up to make crusty french bread which needs some water added for steam during the cook, the other pick is for extrem temps for pizza, i cook pizza in the 900 to 1100 degree range and needed more heat deflection and mass than an average 500 degree pizza cook
my stones are soap stone and are also usable as a griddle







i set this on an inverted spider to get the stone sitting close to the dome



these last pics are a simpler setup for 400 degree temps which works well also

vidalia1

I do pizzas and bread weekly. I have my plate setter with the feet up. Then the grid. Then the pizza stone on the grid. I then put the BGE feet or I use 3 copper T's instead of feet. I make my pizzas on my 16" pizza plates . These work perfect and are less than $20 at BB&B. I have 2 16" pizza plates and when we are fixing many pies we just keep rotating the plates with fresh dough. It works great.......

when I am baking bread I put my 5qt DO directly on the BGE feet or copper T's for air flow....

Kim Youngblood
(aka vidalia1)
Lawrenceville, GA

OzarkQ

vidalia1 wrote:

..I then put the BGE feet or I use 3 copper T's instead of feet. I make my pizzas on my 16" pizza plates . T...
when I am baking bread I put my 5qt DO directly on the BGE feet or copper T's for air flow....

Kim - I'm with you up to the point where you put your stone on the raised grid and then what are you doing with the feet or T's? Aren't you cooking directly on the stone?

Fishlessman - your pizza style is exactly what I'm going for.

This guy is completey insane or a genius:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/jvpizza/

With my old fashioned sourdough, I use a cast iron pan in the bottom of my 500' oven and put a large glass of ice cubes in it to get a steady flow of steam. I think I'll just put the cast iron on the platesetter and do the same process - unless I need to re-think my strategy with the egg.