Best Practices for Pizza?

Fairalbion · June 2012

Would somebody point me to a resource for best practice in the physical set up & temperature needed for pizza? I have a plate setter, BGE pizza stone, and a peel. However my efforts have not been stellar. In particular:

I find the crust gets cooked before the topping.
Cheese, cornmeal or loose flour that gets onto the stone burns and creates bad flavors.

I don't have problems with the pizza dough, or sticking, and know enough not to overload the toppings, But I have this sense I'm let down by my setup in the BGE. I read about home pizza ovens that need only a couple of minutes of cooking time, but I think if I tried those sorts of temperatures in the BGE, the pizza would be cremated. Seems to me I need a way to boost the heat from above.

Regards,

Mighty_Quinn · June 2012

Raise your stone as high as possible to take advantage of the heat off the dome...that helps cook toppings faster...

Mowgli · June 2012

600-700F platesetter legs up, then grate and bge pizzastone on top.

Dough without sugar to avoid black crust.

Works everytime

Little Steven · June 2012

Are you placing the stone on the platesetter or on the grid that is on the pletesetter? I hear a lot of this and I thint the grid may not allow enough air circulation to prevent the stone from overheating. I use the adjustable rig, broken platesetter with legs cut off, 3/4" or 1/2" copper plumbing tees (4 or 5) to space the stone off the platesetter. As MQ said get it as high in the dome as you can

Fairalbion · June 2012

Hmm - thanks for the comments. I simply had the platesetter legs down, with the stone directly on top of that; no grate, no air circulation anywhere, and not sitting particularly high in the dome.

rickHP · June 2012

In my experience, it's pretty hard to avoid the burnt cornmeal/flour. The only solution is to use as little as possible.

fishlessman · June 2012

my peel is raw wood with lots of slice marks in it now, seems the slice marks hold just enough flour, i rub some on the board and shake off anything loose and its enough to assemble the pie and get it on the stone if you work quick enough, no burnt flour taste

Quadzilla · June 2012

The key is balancing stone and dome temp. You need an infrared thermometer to measure stone temp.

Reply #47 in this thread shows the set up I currently use - http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13604.40.html

Here is a vid of a 90 second bake at 800* -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmPXrk1cyn0

I hope this gives you some ideas.

Good Luck!!

Fairalbion · June 2012

Thanks so much for this. I'd forgotten how generous people here are with sharing knowledge. I have an infrared thermometer; it reads up to 716F, which should be good enough.

JoeA · June 2012

Same as Mowgli. As soon as cooked pie is removed blow off the cornmeal from stone, it burns real fast & makes a mess.

DocWonmug · July 2012

Hey Fairalbion, the rig you describe (PS legs down, stone set on that with no air circulation) is just what the BGE cookbook recommends. But I did my first and only pie to date that way and burned the crust. Since then, reading here on the forum, I plan to put the PS legs down, then bricks and stone on top of that. As others have said, I want to make sure the stone is elevated in the dome. And I think the air under stone will prevent direct heat from the lump heating the stone too hot, making sure the stone is at the same temperature as the air, not way hotter.

One other tip from another recent post was that the cook (can't remember who posted it) wiped his stone down with a damp cloth before placing the pie, just to cool it down a bit. I will try that too.

Best Practices for Pizza?

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