Listen up, pieheads!

Now that I have your attention...

I've been cooking pizza in the oven with decent success so the other night, I finally tried it out on the Performer with the stone I got for Christmas. I arranged some unlit in a circle around the perimeter and covered that with a chimney full of lit Kingsford Charwood. Problem I had was I couldn't get the temp over 350. The pie turned out OK, but the crust was not nearly as good as when I cook in the oven at 550. I'm using a 15.5 inch fibrament stone as seen here:
http://www.bakingstone.com/grilling.php

I set it directly on the grill grate.

Any suggestions on getting a higher heat? Thanks!

Jim

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Any suggestions on getting a higher heat? Thanks! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

did all the k get lit? I would think that a couple chimneys of lit should get you higher than 350*.

I'm thinking some kind of forced air might help. I've seen AB use a hair dryer, I have a coleman pump for an air mattress, that has a long hose, that I've used to stoke up a fire, and I've seen grill stokers on amazon that might help.

extreme pizza mods include:

cutting out the bottom of the kettle and mounting it on a propane burner.

cutting a hinged door in the lid so you dont loose heat lifting it off.

on a side note, I bought a second stone that I'm going to mount to a lid, so I can get the top brown faster and have the top and bottom done at the same time.

HTH

Hey Jim,

Sorry to hear the first attempt didn't go so well. Keep at it. Once you get it down, you'll love the results.

Interesting that you had trouble getting the temps up above 350. My thermometer needle usually gets pegged with the exact same setup. How big is the stone? Does it take up the entire grate? If so, maybe the airflow is restricted and you aren't getting enough air to the coals. My stone is square so there is a good amount of room between the edge of the stone and the rim of the bowl.




Also, I would guess that the stone acts like a heat sink so it may take longer for the grill to come up to temp than normal. Did you preheat the stone (get past the heat sink) before putting the pizza on? I usually, like you, put a ring of unlit in a ring around the kettle, then light a full (Weber) chimney and put that in a ring around the bowl over the unlit, then immediately put the stone on the kettle, put the lid on and wait at last a half an hour for everything to come up to temperature.

As for suggestions to get a higher heat, one chimney of lit should be enough but you could add more lit. You could also try offsetting the lid a little to get more airflow.

Good luck!!

Thanks guys.

Don: It's a 15.5 inch stone, so there's a couple inches of open grate around the stone. I preheated for 10-15 minutes. That may have been my problem. Could have just been that I didn't give it enough time. Since I was using lump, I was worried about the fire burning down before I was done.

The best part is, I get to try again, and again until I get it right.

I'd use all lit coals....and preheat as long as it takes to get to the 550* temp you used in your oven, 20-30 mins.....remember a minion style fire is for low n slow ... Pizza is high n fast

Have you checked your therm? When grilling in order to get temps down to 350 I have to close all lower vents and thats only with half a chimney of lit and half with unlit.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by JimK:
Thanks guys.

Don: It's a 15.5 inch stone, so there's a couple inches of open grate around the stone. I preheated for 10-15 minutes. That may have been my problem. Could have just been that I didn't give it enough time. Since I was using lump, I was worried about the fire burning down before I was done.

The best part is, I get to try again, and again until I get it right. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>


You should bring it up to a stable target temp and then let your stone continue to heat for 15 minutes or so. It usually takes me at least 30 minutes total.

Jim, assuming you had all vents wide open, the problem is lack of efficient airflow. A couple options would be to try and elevate the stone a little bit to get her breathing better, or even just offset the lid on the kettle by 1/2" or so, this will help airflow as well.

When I do pies on the performer, I use the charcoal ring from the WSM on top of the grate, and then put my pizza screen on top of that. I still have similar problems getting temps to hold past 350-375 no matter how hot I get it before putting the pie on or how much charcoal I use, but the crust turns out ok enough for my liking.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">
Any suggestions on getting a higher heat? Thanks! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Open the vents...

Maybe add the rotisserie ring & a grate for more volume if that'll work somehow. I have to keep the bottom vents completely closed to get below 375. I have yet to try a pizza on any of my gear. Any chance of cracking the stone?

Never thought about the stone being a heat sink either. And there was definitely a lot of coal left for my next cook. I think it's a simple matter of letting the grill/stone preheat a little longer. Thanks for all the input gang!