Pizza Temperature

Tony S.

I built a nice fire. Put the setter and stone on when the temp was around 325. Could not get the temp past 400. I am doing something wrong. Can you please tell me what it is.

egret

Yep.....put the PS and pizza stone in right after starting the fire. Leave the DFMT off until you get near your target temp., then put it back on with the slider partially open and the daisy wheel in the all-open position. I just did two pizzas tonight at 500-550 degrees.......

Tony S.

That is what I did. I had the top off totally, and the temp refused to go past 400.

I will give it another try.

SmokeRinger

Sounds like the grate under the coals is clogged with debris. A good cleaning will likely help

Tony S.

This is really annoying ... I cleaned the grate ... took off the setter and stone. Let it rip, and it got up to 550 ... put the setter and stone back on, dropped back to 425 and will not go higher.

I am using Royal Oak lump for the first time. Could this be the issue?

"Sparky"

Listen to what Egret said.Start the fire,and put the platesetter and pizza stone in(right away).Let it all come up to temp together .

JohnB

My experience with getting a high temp with a pizza set up is that you need to build the lump pile like you're doing a low and slow:

completely clean out the egg. I remove the fire ring and box and blow ALL of the ash out the bottom vent

large pieces of lump on bottom, next medium, etc...

fill to the top of the fire box.

open bottom vent and take off iron cap

put the PS and stone in

Now, it make take a while for all the lump to get going and for the inside if the egg, the PS and the pizza stone to get to a regulated temp -- maybe 20-30 minutes. The last time I did pizzas this way it hit 700 (sort of fried my gaskets but the pizzas were great!)

Luvs to shoot clay

Any time I can't get the heat up, I turn on a fan. I used a cheap WalMart clamp on fan before I got a Guru. Air plus fuel equals temperature (or something like that)!

Tony S.

I am going to clean it all out first thing in the morning and give it another try with the Royal Oak.

Can the problem be the lump? Does not sound like that according the the many responses.

JohnB

shouldn't be the lump once the fire gets going, unless you left it out in the rain.