Strong carbon taste in pizza

Smoker317 · July 2015

I have egged a couple dozen pizzas now and have never had a problem with carbon taste. I had two slow smokes since my last full clean out of the egg. I had about an 8" circle of leftover BGE lump charcoal with some mostly burnt pecan & cherry chips. I use an electric heating element to ignite the lump. Once that was going, bottom vent wide open, daisy wheel removed from top chimney, I put in my plate setter legs down, my two foil covered fire bricks on top of plate setter and then my egg pizza stone on top of two bricks.

Egg only would get to 575 but I figured that was normal with all the moisture we have had and the egg not being completely clean. I let it burn and took a digital reading of my pizza stone and surface temp was 275 degrees. No visible smoke at 575 degree dome temp was coming from chimney.

I throw on my Wally World 5 meat pizza and pull out about 8 minutes later. Cheese was just starting to turn golden brown in places. Crust was nice and crispy and not burnt.

The toppings tasted awful, epic fail. It as if I took a burnt carbon block and used my lemon zester and shaved carbon during the layering of the pizza!

What the heck? What changed?

The only thing that I can think of is the plate setter side with legs down is almost black as it does not get foiled and is in contact with the fuel side, as when I smoke the legs are up and that side is foiled to catch any drippings.

Do I need to somehow clean my plate setter leg down side? Other side is fairly clean since I foiled from the beginning to catch drippings when the legs are up.

I have egged for less than a year and am still learning. Thanks

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5017260/uploads/editor/4l/t0w58v0f4c7b.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5017260/uploads/editor/d2/cjw9enhhncud.jpg

Grillin_beers · July 2015

I'm sorry that happened to you. I haven't run into that problem yet. That's a puzzler.

HoustonEgger · July 2015

Sounds like it's the lump/leftovers that need to be cleaned out - if you toppings are off, then it must be related to the airflow. Give it a good vacuuming/clean out and replace the lump so you can start the next one fresh.

My plate setter is all black, and I've never had this problem.

SmokeyPitt · July 2015

I have had that issue before. When the egg will only get to 575 or so wide open, then it sounds like there was some air restriction. When this happens even at higher temp it will not burn clean even though you don't see smoke. Before I make pizza I like to clean out the egg pretty good and start with mostly fresh lump. I let it burn for a long time even if I don't see smoke. Hold your hand over the top and smell it to make sure it smells clean.

Of course there is also the brand of lump. I have heard that Rockwood will burn much cleaner if you can find that so you don't have to wait as long.

YYZegger · July 2015

I never use any wood chunks or chips when I make pizza, the Za will absorb all that and potentially give you that flavour in my opinion. Only Lump and I let it warm up with the stone in for at least 1 hour and never had any issues, did 7 pizzas on Tuesday night and they were fantastic. Try it again with no wood, and let it burn hot for an hour?

gamason · July 2015

Just curious, do you usually use Walmart pizza or was this something new. Maybe the pie itself?

Raymont · July 2015

I think it is possible your lump had drippings/other in it. I don't see anything wrong with your platesetter. Other place I would look is the inside of your dome to see if there is a lot of build up. We've all had weird cooks. No worries. Just try again!

Legume · July 2015

I'm not sure about the carbon taste, but for an XL, you may not have had enough lump left to get it up to temp. I always load generously for a pizza cook. If you didn't really stir that leftover lump well, I would bet a good third of it was already ash or well on it's way and didn't have much heat left in it.

stemc33 · July 2015

Very possible your left over smoke wood caused the problem.

Sonny3 · July 2015

A friend of mine is a new ceramic cooker owner (not BGE). And the first couple of cooks for him were pizza. He raved about the flavor. Then he smoked some ribs. The next pizza he cooked was not edible, he said. He had not cleaned out the pit and found wood chunks still there. He cleaned it and put in fresh coal and found the pizza was back to the way he first tried it.

DoubleEgger · July 2015

A lot of this is already mentioned above but I think your problem is multi-faceted. Looking at your picture, I'm confident that you didn't have enough lump. It should never be that low when you finish any cook. You can't control a dying fire. Your fire was smoldering at the end under the platesetter but the dome of the egg was still holding the heat. Second, any time you do low and slows, the entire egg gets a coating of greasy gunk of it and that includes the unburned lump. Take a ball of aluminum foil and give the inside of the dome a scrub and hit the sides of the base as well. That'll knock off any residual gunk that could be stinking up your pizza. Third, no smoking chunks for pizza. You gotta fish them out beforehand. The idea here is to have a clean burn so use the highest quality lump that is available to you.

Smoker317 · July 2015

Thank you to all for the great advice. I will clean out as everyone mentioned above and make sure to use fresh lump. The one picture with just ash is because I decided to just let it burn overnight; there was still lump leftover after the cook.

As far as the Wally World, I have baked probably 6-8 and when we don't have time to make our own and they have been fantastic. We add our own cheese and some veggies to the meat only and they are pretty darn good.

I really like the aluminum foil ball idea!

Strong carbon taste in pizza

Comments

Categories