Burning pizza...help!

You need two layers of deflector. One for the pie and one underneath that separated by an air gap.

I have better luck with temps at 450 and parchment paper under crust for first 10 minutes or so.  And my stone is 3” above felt line so toppings get done and cheese is golden brown.

I have been experimenting with temp and stone position for a while. Tonight I had the plate setter feet down with my PS Woo upside down with the stone on that. This put the stone about 3” above belt line. I use a home made crust using 00 flour and very little sugar. Tonight I cooked it at 475 for about 20 minutes.  The crust and the toppings were done perfect. I tend to load our pizza’s pretty heavy so it needs a bit more time to get the toppings done.

I started out cooking at 600 and found the crust finished way to fast. As mentioned we load it up with 3-4 meats, peppers, onions, mushrooms...etc.
I was having a bit of a challenge getting the pizza to slide off the peel. I now put a short piece of tinfoil under the leading edge to help drag it off the peel. The corn meal sometimes doesn’t let it slide off on its own. Our pizzas are usually around 16”.

Do you put a bunch of flour on the stone? I have made that mistake before... The flour burns and funks up the whole crust... 

Hoster05 said:

Too. UCB sugar in the dough and no air gap between platsetter and pizza stone.  Go plate setter legs down, 2 bricks then pizza stone on top of that.  I run that setup between 600-650 degrees for all my pies.

Too much^*.  Not enough coffee yet today. 

fishindoc said:

I'm wondering....could I put the stone on just a few mins before I cook them or will that crack it?

No, but you could split the difference and only leave it on for half the time before it is fully saturated with the heat. Say 30 minutes. The problem is this only works if you are cooking a single pie.

I'll defer to the experts on here, but the keys for me as a novice have been shooting for around 500 degrees, especially with a little heavier topped pizza and a normal crust. This also lets me use parchment paper (you can remove halfway through), which I think allows for the easiest transfer without using cornmeal, which I don't care for, or something else to make handling it easier. Also, let the BGE temp settle in longer than you think you need in order to get the radiant heat you need coming from the dome so the top of the pizza will finish before the crust burns.

Yeah I think the easiest step would be to just turn the heat down. Another thing you can try is using a pizza screen or pizza pan. You can start  cooking with a screen or pan then slide the pie on to the stone if needed to crisp up the bottom.

Lowering the temperature is probably the answer here.  You have to use the temperature for the dough recipe that you are using.

A pizza dough made with Italian Typo 00 flour, water, salt and yeast (no sugar, no oil) will call for a higher baking temperature. (600F+)

A pizza dough made with regular AP or bread flour, water, salt, sugar, oil and yeast will call for a lower baking temperature (arround 425F)

Are you using cornmeal under the pizza?  It has enough sugar to burn. Try semolina flour instead. A little grainy like cornmeal but won’t burn

The amount of water in your dough makes all the difference.  Just up the water content if you want to cook hotter without burning the bottom.   Of course this is easier said than done, you'll still need to figure out air temp, plate temp, dough water content combination.  Lots of trial and error.
Another thing I learned over the years, no need for parchment paper, semolina or cornmeal.  If you preheat your stone, it's not going to stick.  I've done sloppy wet dough and super high heat and it doesn't stick.  It might stick to your peel though!  Flour the peel and keep shaking it regularly while assembling your toppings for no stick, then quickly slide it onto your preheated stone.