Cracking your pizza stone


 

Donna Fong

TVWBB Super Fan
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Anyone ever do this? I was being lazy and used my char baskets to hold the briquettes on the sides with a square pizza stone instead of using a vortex with my round pizza stone. The pizza stone ended up cracking because it was in three different temperature zones.

This happened on my second pizza. I heard a crack and looked around. I thought it was a kid throwing something in the alleyway next to my house. Couldn't find the source of the sound. Luckily, I have several pizza stones.
 
It's cool how the stone fractured along the line of the pizza crust!

Once you've fractured all your pizza stones, you can graduate to a pizza steel. :D
 
I've got three more to go then. This begs the question. Do people use direct or indirect heat to bake pizza on their grills?

I was using a round pizza stone over a vortex directly and had no problems. Then I was reading Jaime's latest book and he says to use indirect heating. So I used the wings with the stone in mostly indirect cooking and crack! I know I switched from Trader Joe's pizza dough to some organic frozen dough, but my results weren't as good. The pizzas were very flat and didn't rise up at all. Don't know if it was the setup, the dough or my technique.

We cooked in a green egg (deflector on bottom, then grill, then pizza stone on top) on Friday and the pizzas were superb. The crusts were bubbly. I attributed this to the additional heat coming from the ceramic lid which I can't do so much on a Weber.
 
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About 20 years ago, was using a pizza stone as a heat deflector, trying to smoke a brisket on a Kettle. Since then, its been used as a place to set a chimney after I've dumped out the hot coals.


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Looking through the posts on the baking steel got me wondering, is there any reason you couldn't used something like a cast iron griddle? I honestly never thought about it before so I'm wondering, what would the pros and cons be of doing something like that.
 
It's cool how the stone fractured along the line of the pizza crust!

Once you've fractured all your pizza stones, you can graduate to a pizza steel. :D

I'd bet it fractured along the edge of the pizza at least in part due to the thermal shock. IIRC, it's not all that uncommon, even in an oven.

I've never used a stone or a steel in my charcoal grill, but have to be careful on direct vs. indirect heat. Direct heat chars the bottom of the crust in just about nothing flat.
 
Looking through the posts on the baking steel got me wondering, is there any reason you couldn't used something like a cast iron griddle? I honestly never thought about it before so I'm wondering, what would the pros and cons be of doing something like that.

Lodge & many others make CI griddles, I've seen a lot of good pies made here on them.

There's a lot of ways to make a pie - some even throw the dough right on the grate, flip, remove, top, & put back on.

Some of my favorite pies have been made in my 12" lodge CI skillet.

Edit: (old pics for attention :) )

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Have never used a stone only my cast iron stuff or I simply put the pizza directly on the grill
 
Regular ceramic stones are good for ovens, but they can’t handle the high heat from a grill. Look for a cordierite pizza stone for grilling and try to keep the charcoal around the edges and not directly under the stone.
 
Heck, I used to use ceramic tiles from my kitchen floor project, they’ve served very well for some time, now I have a Pizzaque though I’ve not fired it up yet! Soon it will be tested, I hope.
 
Thank you Robert. That is interesting. I never considered lifting it even higher. It makes sense. I will have to give it a try. I have been avoiding cast iron anything lately because my wrists aren't strong enough to lift them and even two handed, it can be difficult. I try to see if I can lift the rack and put a stone on top. Thank you so much.
 
I slide pizza onto the grate, but indoors, I use these unglazed tiles. A box of about 30 6" is about $25 at lowes/home depot.

They also work great for the bottom of an rv/camper oven.

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Donna;
You'll find the rack to be quite light. It is easily handled. The stone works VERY well on top and both the top and bottom of the pizza finish at the same time. As I may have mentioned, I use a flash light and look through the top vent on the lid to check on progress. I can do that in day light or night time. Sometimes, depending on the fire, you may want to spin the pizza 180 degrees half way through. Again, you can check the progress through the top vent.

Keep on smokin',
Dale53:wsm:
 

 

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