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Charcoal Life

407BGE
407BGE Posts: 187
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
I have been cooking more and more pizza. Last week I cooked 12 13" pizzas at 700 - 750. I warmed up the egg ans the stone for 1 hour at the temp and cooked the pizzas over the next hour or so. After 2 hours the temp started to drop and would not go higher than 500.

Any ideas how to keep a 750 fire for three hours? I cleaned out the egg before hand and the charcoal was mostly gone after the cook. I was using Royal Oak from Walmart and it was the made in USA type.

I want to avoid reloading as I have the rig with 2 pizza stone and it is needless to say rather hot!

Comments

  • fishlessman
    fishlessman Posts: 32,669
    ash will build up, use a wiggle stick thru the botttom vent to shake it out. long handle, its hot. with a full load mine stalls out at 900, then after a few pizzas, shake it down and it will climb to 1200 with everything wide open and no daisy. be careful opening the dome, not because of flashback, but because extended long hot cooks will thermally expand the bands and the dome can and will pop out if your not careful.
    fukahwee maine

    you can lead a fish to water but you can not make him drink it
  • Grandpas Grub
    Grandpas Grub Posts: 14,226
     
    Heat = air + fuel.

    You never said what size egg or how high you loaded the lump.

    If you ran out of lump, you need to load more into the egg.

    GG
  • stike
    stike Posts: 15,597
    tough to hold a 720 fire for two hours....

    no need to warm up for an hour if you are already at 750, frankly. that just gained you an extra hour.
    ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta -Dante
  • Celtic Wolf
    Celtic Wolf Posts: 9,773
    Why so hot? Even the New York Pizza ovens don't go much above 600.
  • 407BGE
    407BGE Posts: 187
    Grandpas Grub wrote:
     
    Heat = air + fuel.

    You never said what size egg or how high you loaded the lump.

    If you ran out of lump, you need to load more into the egg.

    GG

    Your right, its a large with a full load of charcoal 1/2 way up the fire ring.

    From the first post I bet it is the ash building up.
  • fishlessman
    fishlessman Posts: 32,669
    that brings up another issue with the flow in the egg, the flat stone will stall the heat rise making it hotter down below and cooler in the dome. with my dished head setup the fire swirls upward better and actually gets the dome hotter than the stone below, i think the right sized wok full of sand may hold up to the heat but never tried it.
    http://www.eggheadforum.com/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=55&func=view&catid=1&id=411252
    fukahwee maine

    you can lead a fish to water but you can not make him drink it
  • fishlessman
    fishlessman Posts: 32,669
    some styles of pizza cant be cooked as low as 600 ;)
    fukahwee maine

    you can lead a fish to water but you can not make him drink it
  • 407BGE
    407BGE Posts: 187
    Celtic Wolf wrote:
    Why so hot? Even the New York Pizza ovens don't go much above 600.

    Pizza's on the egg are one of the main reasons that I love the egg (many more but this is the top of the list).

    Pizza dough made with flour, yeast and water needs very high temps to brown the bottom. There is very little sugar to speed up the process.

    I have been to Italy many times and I try to make pizza like I have eaten there. It is hot and fast and the crispyness of the crust is much better than a pizza cooked at 400 - 500 (to me at least). I'm not one to say that this is the only way but for those who have not tried it, the pizza is much better than you can get at 99% of pizza places.

    The Neapolitan pizza officially cooks in less than 90 seconds at close to 900 degrees in wood fired oven. Once I perfect 700 degree pizza in the egg, I am going to try and push it even hotter.

    As a side note, before the egg I toyed with building a brick pizza oven in the backyard. I balked as this is a $3,000 toy and will take many hours to complete. I now have the egg and it has has a dichotomic effect. On one side I now have something that can likely cook a pizza 90% as good as a beehive pizza oven. On the other side it has shown me how a quality tool can significantly increase the effectiveness of any cook. I certainly could not cook as well with my prior grills and its mostly due to the egg.

    Given that life is a once and done proposal, I will likely build a pizza oven once I build an outdoor kitchen. This kitchen will obviously include a couple of eggs (I'm thinking 2 large and one small).
  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817
    407BGE,

    Load the lump to the top of the fire ring. Put a fan in front of the egg. Close the vent down and ease up to 750*. Leave the fan on and you will get the three hours without the ash buildup. The fan will help you stay cool while working three hours in front of lava. :laugh: As stike said, no need to heat the stone up for an hour at that temp.

    Steve

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

  • highpress
    highpress Posts: 694
    Last week I cooked 12 13" pizzas at 700 - 750

    I love pizza as much as the next guy but man that's alot of pizza. :ohmy: I'm assuming you're very impressed with pizza off the egg if you're doing 12 at a time! :P I'd like to try a pizza someday on my egg. Looks like i know who to turn to for pointers! :woohoo:
  • If ash is indeed the problem, making a charcoal grate out of expanded metal will go a long way in remedying that. I have been using an expanded metal fire grate for a long time now, and have never needed to use my wiggles stick since the switch.
    At those temps I would have an Orka glove on my hand and have the rest of my body out of the flashback zone.