Want some pizza advice

wpendlegg · April 2014

The lucky lady and I will be making a Pizza and catching up on some Game of Thrones tonight. I think I want to try it on the egg.

I have a large with a standard plate setter. We also have a pizza stone that will hopefully hold up.

How would you all do this? Legs up or down? Stone on the plate setter or on a grill? How do you prevent it from sticking?

Thanks in advance --

TexanOfTheNorth · April 2014

I go platesetter legs up, a grid, some paving stones, another grid and then my pizza stone. The idea being to get the egg up higher into the dome so that the crust does not cook before the toppings.

Many use parchment paper to prevent sticking. I just use some corn meal on both my peel and a little on the pizza stone itself. I will rotate my crust a bit (while on the peel) as I add my toppings.

TexanOfTheNorth · April 2014

Forgot to welcome you to the lifestyle!

calracefan · April 2014

Legs up,your cooking grate, stone (if possible raise the stone even higher with fire bricks), get your temp established with everything installed.Preheat for 30 minutes or so (stable temp 600 degrees,lower if your dough contains sugar). To keep from sticking to the stone I use parchment paper,it can be removed after just a couple of minutes usually.
Back to the temp, your pizza stone may not hold up to the high temps. I had a Pampered Chef stone that held up to 500 degrees but gave up dramatically at 600.
You will want to remember to burp your egg before opening to prevent flash back with singed eye brows ! Cook pizza for 6-8 minutes rotating pizza (for even cooking) 1/4 turn every couple of minutes or 1/2 turn half way through cooking time. Enjoy !

TexanOfTheNorth · April 2014

I had a pampered chef stone at one point. When it finally broke into 3 pieces I quit using it.

NPHuskerFL · April 2014

TexanOfTheNorth said:
I had a pampered chef stone at one point. When it finally broke into 3 pieces I quit using it.

Ouch! I used SWMBO pampered chef stone (which is close to 15yrs old) for quite a while. It is now almost completely black and seasoned perfectly. After I read all the horror stories of P.C. stones shattering, cracking etc under high heat of egg I stopped using it and purchased a BGE stone for my LBGE. Fortunately my SWMBO's P.C. stone survived until I got my stone :-). That would've been ugly ;-)

wpendlegg · April 2014

Hmm -- One more question. Do you stretch the dough on the hot stone and then add your toppings while it's in the egg? Or do you put the stone/pizza into the egg?

NPHuskerFL · April 2014

wpendlegg said:
Hmm -- One more question. Do you stretch the dough on the hot stone and then add your toppings while it's in the egg? Or do you put the stone/pizza into the egg?

Huh? Stone should be preheated in the BGE with your p.s. or AR setup. You want your stone at temp when you place your pie in to bake. Is this what you were asking?

calracefan · April 2014

Build pie on a peel or counter top and tranfer to the pre heated stone. You can build it on parchment and put parchment on stone , remove after a couple of minutes cooking time. Or use some corn meal on the stone and put the dough on directly on the stone.

wpendlegg · April 2014

You got it husker.. and cal race just answered my questions.

Thanks fellas -- I'll include some pics later.

Egglegal_Alien · April 2014

Setup: PS feet up > grate > pizza stone that way you need no spacer (but you don't have easy access if you need to add some charcoal/wood)... try to make sure your pizza stone will be level with or higher than the edge of the Egg or you’ll have a hard time getting the peel under the pizza to take it off.

Temp: I do mine at 700+ (using 00 flour) but anything over 500/550 should be fine. At 700 I put the cheese on top of the toppings to avoid them getting dried up and charred.

Time depends on temp and dough, with 00 at 700+ they take about 7 minutes, at 550 they might take 12 and the crust will tend to rise a little more… at 7 min start checking the crust (just rise a side of the pie a little with a spatula or the peel) until you see it’s browning to your likes.

When building the pies, put some cornmeal on the peel before transferring the dough on top of it so it will slide off easily onto the stone, then put the sauce and toppings with the dough already on the peel, try to do it fast because once you sauce the dough it can get damp and mess the pie up.

Some cornmeal directly on the stone when you’re about to transfer the pie from the peel to it.

PS. Be sure to check the bands on your egg the next day when it has cooled down and retighten if needed, high temps can loosen them specially the first few times.

PS2. One more thing... search the forums / youtube / google for flashback info, they can be a serious hazzard at high temps.

cortguitarman · April 2014

First timer advice. Have the number for the local pizza place handy. I've burned quite a few before I got good at it. I put my ps let's down, then a spacer of 1/2" plumbing tees then the stone. Heat and stabilize to 550. Rotate the pizza every couple of minutes until done. I use parchment. It is easy. I pull the parchment after a few minutes.

wpendlegg · April 2014

I combined the advice from everyone. Here is what I did. Lucky lady will be referred to as Trusting Wife in this story, because I had to convince her why this was better than using an oven.

I put some lump in and started it with no wood. I did PS legs up, grate, some pavers, and a pizza stone. It was just above the felt line.

Trusting wife rolled out the dough on some parchment paper. When it was time, we slid that onto the hot stone. We gave it a few minutes for the dough (a wheat crust) to rise a bit. Then, we pulled out the parchment paper. I let her put on the sauce, toppings, and cheese. The temp was about 390-410 (I didn't put in enough fuel to get it higher -- I was shooting for a single cook).

End result? Took about 30 minutes. We did this with very humble ingredients that we use for our oven pizzas -- left over pasta sauce, walmart shredded mozarella, onions, bell peppers, and some hard salami we needed gone.

Goodness gracious, it was amazing. It had a hint of smoke/bbq that was very subtle. It was WAY more delicious that being cooked in the oven. I was very impressed considering we just threw this together with more or less what was on hand.

Pics are attached. Drinking Hans Pils from Real Ale Brewing here in Texas.

calracefan · April 2014

Looks like a winner ! I have never baked the crust then sauced, always prepare it and bake it all at once !

Zmokin · April 2014

I've pre-baked crust in my oven, but that's because I wasn't using a stone to cook the crust on. The wife doesn't like it if the dough hasn't risen well.

NPHuskerFL · April 2014

@wpendlegg‌...as you make more pies you'll get accustomed to the "feel" of your dough. To wet, to dry, proved enough, to much etc. But, straight up these pies for a first timer are looking damn good! Enjoy!

cortguitarman · April 2014

Nice work. If you really want an airy crust, learn to toss your dough. Not like spinning in the air, but from forearm to forearm.

Want some pizza advice

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