Brand New Pizza Stone

Head to public and get a ball if their dough. I made some dough myself last weekend and it was OK but public is so much easier and I don't have to clean up the bread machine

After the first pizza, you may want to wipe the top of the stone with a damp rag to cool it off a tad so that the second pizza doesn't burn. Up to you though.

It varies for everyone, but I like 550°.

Check the ingredients of the dough. If there is sugar or oil in it I would say 500* max.

I have found that if you let the dough get close to room temp it will be easier to roll out and it wont shrink back up  

Carolina Q said:

If you buy dough from the grocery store, get the oldest one they have, up to 3 days or so old. When I make dough, I let it sit in the fridge for a few days and it gets better by the day (up to a point ). Of course, it doesn't matter whose fridge it sits in. You could buy dough made today and put it in your own fridge for 2-3 days too.

Never understood putting cornmeal on the stone. I have never had a pie stick to the stone, just to the peel. I put a pinch of semolina on the peel to make it slide off without sticking (much better than cornmeal, imo). If you don't have a peel, you can build your pie on the underside of a cookie sheet. Be sure to add the semolina (or cornmeal or even flour) before the dough goes on. 

I dislike parchment paper. I don't think the crust is as good . However, it does make it easy to get the pie onto the stone. If you use it, pull it out from under the pie after a couple of minutes. Crust will improve.

Put the pizza stone in the egg when you light it, so it comes up to temp with the egg. Make sure it is hot before you slide the pie onto the stone. I suspect that is why some have pies that stick to the stone. If you don't have an infrared thermometer to check stone temp, just let the egg stabilize at your chosen baking temp for 15-30 minutes. You don't want a hot egg and cold stone.

For most doughs, 500°-ish is a good temp. A bit lower for a good deep dish, higher for a wetter dough than grocery stores will have. I've done them as high as 900°. It's an adventure!! )

Raise the stone up into the dome a bit and add spacers between the stone and the indirect piece (in my case, a platesetter. My setup looks like the pics below.

Good Luck!!

Question, how do you get the pepperoni crisp and curled a little???  I love it when its a little crisp, have a fav pizza place that does it that way…what's the secret to that??  Thanks.

I also use semolina on the peel rather than corn meal.  I have 2 peels - a wood one for building the pizza and putting it on the stone and a metal one for removing it.  That way we can be building the next pizza while I have the metal peel at the BGE to give the pizza a turn halfway through.

One of the most important things I have learned is to give the pizza stone plenty of time to warm up to 500 degrees.  It takes a lot longer than you think - probably close to a half hour.  I use an IR thermometer to check the stone temp.

Fat_Chef said:

I have found that if you let the dough get close to room temp it will be easier to roll out and it wont shrink back up  

This is very important. I leave my dough ball out on the counter for two hours before I start to shape the pie.

We've made individual pizzas a couple times now for parties. We use Bobby Flay's pizza dough recipe (Google: best pizza dough recipe.)  I've got a Woo 2 AR Combo and put the pizza stone on the top tier. I sprinkle corn meal on the stone before placing the pizza on and cook it between 550 and 600 degrees. Just got a Super Peel and used it on the last cook - it made moving the raw pizza around much, much easier. I highly recommend this product if you do pizzas very often.

Congrats!