BGE tempature when cooking

BarbJackson · September 2018

Yesterday I cooked my first set of homemade pizza's on the BGE. I let the Egg get to 500f and held it, with the plate-setter in place. Added my first pizza it dropped to 450 even though I opened and kept playing with air flow. I couldn't get it back to 500. For the second pizza it dropped when pizza was added but returned to 450. Each pizza cooked approx 20 minutes. After taking the last pizza off, the temp very slowly continued to fall.
How do You hold a higher temp for longer periods?

Looking forward to all the helpful suggestions.
Barb

unoriginalusername · September 2018

For pizza I heat up with the stone in to about 600-700 and then shut the daisy wheel and the temp quickly drops to about 400.

Once stops dropping quickly I open it up and let the heat come back up. Now the ceramic and everything is hot so when it’s reading the temp it’s actually that temp and not just a flame kissing the temp gauge.

I cool the stone with a wet cloth and put the pizza on. I can do four or five and they each come out the same and take the same amount of time and with the dome hot I gind it cooks / broils the top better. I aim to cook above 600 so my time per pie is 4:30

The Cen-Tex Smoker · September 2018

Hi Barb- welcome aboard. im wondering if you didn’t have enough lump in your egg to maintain high temps for a long period of time. The only thing that can make your temps go down is lack of fuel and/or lack of oxygen to that fuel. When I do pizza I fill the lump all the way to the top of the fire ring (the ring that sits atop the fire box). This should burn hot enough to do pies for a few hours. If you had enough fuel in there, then you either didnt have the vents open enough or you had some type of blockage to your airflow. This can happen if small bits of lump clog the air holes in the fire grate.

Anyhow- you are off to a great start. Just make sure you have plenty of lump and that your airflow in unimpeded before doing a cook like pizza or an overnight low and slow. I like to clean mine out before cooks like those so I know my airflow is clean.

BarbJackson · September 2018

Very very good points. Thanks

StillH2OEgger · September 2018

Those look darn good from where I'm sitting. The longer you let the BGE settle in at your target temp the less those temps will change after adding a pizza. Also, did you preheat with the pizza stone in or add the pizza and stone at the same time? The stone will be more of a heat sink than the pizza alone.

SaintJohnsEgger · September 2018

Welcome Barb. that pizza looks good. Its the end results that count. And you will get the hang of getting the right fire and temps. Just follow the advice and keep practicing. And remember its easier to go up than it is to bring the temp down.

bucky925 · September 2018

Nothing to add except your pies look much better than mine! Keep trying, at least that's what the wife keeps telling me. Gawd I hope she is talking about pizza.

GoooDawgs · September 2018

It's hard to know the temp of the stone by just looking at the dome thermometer. The stone blocks a lot of heat to it - especially if the stone is elevated. I like using an infrared thermometer gun to check the stone temp. I've gotten much more consistent results when I can get the stone around 575/600 for my dough recipe.