pizza stone first time use


 
J

JasonHess

New member
I recently got the gourmet BBQ system pizza stone for my Spirit E310. I was thinking of trying it out for the first time tonight. It came with the most basic of instructions. Do I need to do anything with the stone before first use? Do you guys have any pizza stone tips or tricks?
Thanks!
 
I just bought the pizza stone today too for my Spirit 310. Manual said to just rinse with water.

I hope to try my stone out this week. Let us know how it goes..
 
I used mine for the 1st time last night. No tricks or secrets. I preheated the stone for ~20 minutes on a ~450F grill. Put some flour on it, then carefully slid the pizza on, and shut the lid. Kept checking it every few minutes. I'm guessing it cooked 10 minutes or so. (no photos)

Crust was awesomely crispy, and the top was bubbly. Very good stuff.

It was a pain getting the pizza with sticky dough on there and handling raw pizza. Next purchase will be a 'pizza paddle', which is essentially a huge spatula. Hopefully that'll make it easier to handle.

I also wish the pizza stone was larger, as it'll only fit a 12" pizza or so.
 
Sorry I haven't responded earlier. I did pretty much same exact thing. Sounds like the same delicious results. I'm thinking of going with two smaller pizzas next time rather than one bigger one. Thinking it help the crust be a little thicker. Plus, it will be easier to handle. We too had a heck of a time getting the raw dough to the stone. It was basically folded like a calzone by the time we got it off the pan onto the stone. I had to smooth it back out and spread the toppings around again. So, we too will be looking for either a pizza paddle or at least a large spatula.
How did you clean yours? I just used warm water and our kitchen sponge, and tried to get it as clean as I could. I hear it's ok to still have some "burn" marks and stains on it.
We are excited to continue to play around with it. The possibilities seem endless. From breakfast pizzas, to appetizer pizzas, to dessert pizzas! Please keep me updated on any other tips or tricks you learn along the way, or any good pizza ideas. I'll post the same.
 
My biggest tip for using a pizza stone is to make your crust on a piece of parchment paper. You can slide that paper right onto the stone just fine and makes moving it around really easy. As the crust sets up the paper can be pulled out from under it since it lets go of it and you don't have to worry about it sticking to the stone anymore. I find it much easier and cleaner to do over using cornmeal.
 
Thanks Shawn! I never thought of that. We tried pizzas tonight for the second time (before I saw Shawn's tip). This time though I made two smaller "personal" pizzas instead of one big pizza. Plus, we invested in a pizza paddle (pizza peel is what it's actually called I guess). My wife found a 24" bamboo one at Bed Bath and Beyond for about $15. With those two changes the pizzas were way easier to handle this time. I still had to use a lot of flour to prevent sticking to the paddle though, so I'm excited to try Shawn's idea.
 
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