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[MWTC]

Willard,

When I get it going, I'll post the pictures. Don't worry, I'm not going to use it inside the house. Thanks for the PM on the venting issue.

MWTC 

[2stone]

I am looking forward to comparing
notes when you get the bayou 2stone casings
(won't be long now).... this was todays lunch

as you can see the 48 hr cold proofing is
changing the way its baking, and we are starting
to get those trademark "Caputo leopard spots"

willard

[Bill/SFNM]

I am looking forward to comparing
notes when you get the bayou 2stone casings
(won't be long now).... this was todays lunch

as you can see the 48 hr cold proofing is
changing the way its baking, and we are starting
to get those trademark "Caputo leopard spots"

willard

Willard,

That isn't Caputo Pizzeria Flour. It looks like Extra Blu:

http://www.molinocaputo.it/eng/extrablu.htm

The Pizzeria flour will have a drawing of a pizza with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

http://www.molinocaputo.it/eng/pizzeria.htm


Beautiful looking pie!

Bill/SFNM

[2stone]

Oh Bill... thats too bad,

Does that mean I can expect the real Caputo
to turn out better or worse!!
actually this pizza was some of the best I have ever tasted and I
notice a huge difference in the way it handles the heat.

well I can say now that I have given up on finding it local unless
there is a distributor in Detroit as I saw on a post from you or peter

willard

[scott r]

It will turn out even better with the caputo pizzeria.  If you can't find it locally Chef's Warehouse will ship.  Good luck!

[2stone]

Oh thats good Scott,

I'm hoping then that it is a little more elastic
than this one.

thanks,
willard

[Bill/SFNM]

Does that mean I can expect the real Caputo
to turn out better or worse!!
actually this pizza was some of the best I have ever tasted and I
notice a huge difference in the way it handles the heat.

willard,

I have never tried Extra Blu 00 but it has been my experience that the real Caputo is less forgiving than other flours. But from look of your latest efforts, you may have stumbled onto the perfect flour for your device.

Bill/SFNM

[hopgeek]

Hmm, seems that I have been using the Extra Blu as well.  I've still got about 6 bags to go through before I buy any more flour.  I'll try to get some of the pizzeria flour when it runs out.

I did another round of pies last Saturday on the 2stone pizza grill.  I tried a hydration of 60% which was too low, my pies baked for about 90 seconds at 850F and were cooked but the bottoms were rather burned.  Surprisingly even being burned they tasted really good.  This was one of the first times I really got a nice smokey character in the crust.  I'll post some pics later.

[scottfsmith]

Here is a graph on two Neapolitan pizza attempts I just cooked on my 2stone.  This is a probe in the air 1/2" from the top, in the middle. I was doing a lot of other experiments with the grill lid, putting aluminum foil on the sides, etc. so there is lots of noise here.  But what you can still see the general temp and how it drops when you put the pizzas in (more than normal due to various failed experiments I was doing to try to keep temps up -- all backfired).

In this batch I had aluminum foil under the bottom stone, between it and the spinning black piece.  This caused the stone to warm up much more slowly, too slowly in fact.  I wanted the stone more like 800-850 and it never got there (bottom stone temps were 650-750 with IR gun).  The first pizza cooked in 2 minutes and the second one I left in a bit longer, for 2.5 minutes. They came out good but the bottoms were not spotted at all so more bottom heat was needed; the foil was not a good idea here. See pictures of pies below as well.  The second pie which burned on the side was sloppy 2stone technique, I didn't get it centered at first so was focused on fixing that.  The toppings on the first one were very lightly cooked.  It may not look like an authentic pie, but it did taste very good.  These were caputo 00 pizzeria flour with an 18 hour proof; you can't tell too well from the pictures but these pies have excellent shape, and the taste/texture was also very good, floppy and chewy and fresh-tasting.  If there were more heat on the stone the toppings would have cooked more via the bottom heat.  I'm not sure if I will ever get charring on the toppings area though, there is not as much convective heat as the edges and the radiant heat coming down from the top stone is not quite enough to compensate.  More experiments are needed.  Willard, you seem to be getting more heat there from your pictures; I think the Bayou attachment may be putting more joules into the upper stone (and everywhere else) so the temp is not dropping as much upon an insterted pie like it is for me.  Maybe I will eventually get a Bayou attachment.  For NY style its unnecessary, but for Neapolitan its looking mighty handy now.

Another important observation is how quickly the air temp is increasing, at least with the grill lid open (this is open about 1').  I tried it all closed or all open or 4" open and nothing beat 1' open.   One advantage of this fast heat-up is I think that the stone temp. alone can be used as the target in heating up:  go until the stone is 800-850F and then insert pizza; the air will be warmed by then.  Also, when the pizza is done and you are not going to immediately put in the next one, you could turn the heat off until you are almost ready.  I was not doing this before and the stone was overheating to 1000F and burning the pizza bottoms.

One thing I forgot to measure was the temp of the top stone.  This is also important because you want to make sure it has gotten hot enough before inserting pizzas.  Next time I will measure that with the IR gun as well.

I also was experimenting with covering up various parts of the grill edges with alu foil sheets during this period; I found that covering the sides was a big help and covering the front area was a hurt.  So from now on I will use that layout.

Overall, I feel like I am close to getting some very tasty and consistent pies here.  They will not be the same as a brick oven which the Bayou attachment seems to get you closer to, but on their own terms I think they will be very good, perhaps with more "fresh topping" flavor in comparison.

Scott

[2stone]

Scott,

That is absolutely the coolest setup you have there. Does that device (the logger as I think you called it)
have to be plugged into the computer while you are measuring or does it have some type of built in memory in it.
It looks like your ramp up time was around 20 min is that correct? ......and your high temp when you inserted the first pie was over 1000?..... What was it you did when you had the first big temp jump on the graph?
I think your idea with the foil underneath the stone is great and works, just downsize it next time.
All in all you are really maxing out your grill. I always felt that 3-4 min was huge compared to 15-20 in my oven.
Your first pie looks about like my last one I posted. I always thought people were exaggerating when explaining the taste, but when you start getting everything right they really do taste awesome.

very impressive measuring setup Scott.

willard

[scottfsmith]

Does that device (the logger as I think you called it)
have to be plugged into the computer while you are measuring or does it have some type of built in memory in it.

Willard, you have to plug it in to set it up but then you can unplug it while recording data.  However this particular logger has no readout on the logger at all so if you want to follow the temperature in real time you need to plug it in to the computer.  So I bring my laptop outside while grilling.  There are many brands of loggers out there and I would have preferred one with a readout on it but I have a Macintosh and there is only one brand of logger that is Mac-compatible, Onset, and they have no real-time readouts on them.

It looks like your ramp up time was around 20 min is that correct? ......and your high temp when you inserted the first pie was over 1000?.....

Yup, maybe 18 minutes ramp up and just over 1000F when pies inserted. The ramp-up might have been half as fast if I had kept the lid open, most of the time it was closed until I popped the pizzas in and the closed lids are just not as efficient at heating due to bad airflow.  No more closed lids for me ever again.

What was it you did when you had the first big temp jump on the graph?

The big jump up was opening the grill lid.  I had started it closed.  There is some very graphical evidence of the reason to keep the lid open, which ran counter to my intuition but after this graph I am 100% converted.  Note that if you download the image I have some annotations explaining some peaks that are not readable on the smaller version above. The big temp rise just before insterting pizza 1 I did not mark but that is when I opened the grill again (I was experimenting with different lid openings there).

I think your idea with the foil underneath the stone is great and works, just downsize it next time.

What I am thinking of is putting the foil as a ring around the outside only (say outer edge to 1-2" in) since the edges seem to be a bit hotter and that will even it out a bit.

Scott

[scottfsmith]

Heres my latest round.  I think I finally got the 2stone tuned correctly.  I had foil on the outer inch or so of the stone, including up the sides, to get that area relatively cooler since it was burning too much there.  Also foil on from the 2stone sides to the edge of the grill, but not in front.  I heated up to 700F with the lid 4" open and after that went to 1' open lid.  These openings gave me the optimal heat-increase on my grill.  It took around 25 mintutes to get the stone to 850F.  I popped the pie in at that point; the air temp was about 975F.  The pie cooked for 1 1/2 minutes and the air temp was 800F at the end.  The pizza itself was made by my 7-year-old so it had a flaw or two, in particular too much sauce.  I also folded it a bit getting it on the stone, oops.  But the point is the leoparding and the bottom both look excellent, within my interpretation of the Neapolitan standard.  The top could have used more heat, in particular with the over-saucing, but I'm not going to complain.

I also attach a temp profile.  I cooked two pizzas, and the two sudden drop points are pizza-in points and two quick rises are pizza-out points (at each pizza-out point there is a spike: first way up since the pizza is out, then way down because I killed the heat).  I killed the heat between the two pies so the stone would not overheat and that worked excellently since the next pizza also had a similar stone and air temp.  I can add labels to the graph if you are having trouble picking out the points.

Scott

[2stone]

Scott,

In a few days you should be seeing results
from the 2stone oven's early adopters.
There the heat is not an issue.
But I am really impressed by what you are achieving
with your grill. (I have to say it again, I never intended
for it to do neo's at a 1000+ on the grill)
The bottom is perfect, and great to see
that you are teaching your kid early. I gave my 18
year old son a run through today. (It is not as easy
as it looks, when you've got high hydration dough and
have to land the pizza on a relatively small target.

By the way I spoke to Fred from Orlando Foods (the importer of
Caputo flours) I asked Him about the Caputo blue "00" He indicated that it
was also great for pizza but was more of an all purpose flour. The pizzeria
flour has a higher protein content and is actually easier to use than the blue.
So Hopgeek, we should be doing better as Scott r said with the real thing.

regards,
willard

[scottfsmith]

Willard, I think the fact that I have been able to get it to such high temps shows how flexible the design is.  Overall I think you have made one amazing device here.

For the other people who may be getting one I wanted to list the tips & tricks I have found so far.  These I believe hold whether you are making NY style or Neapolitan or any other.

• It is very important to put the pizzas in at a consistent stone temperature.  If the stone is too hot you will burn and if too cold will undercook the crust.   I think an IR gun is the best way to achieve this, but there are probably other ways.  I also found it very helpful to put a temperature probe in the 2stone to measure the air, but that is probably not as critical if you at least fixed the stone temp.  It will take some experimentation to find the ideal stone temp for your grill and style.
• Be aware that the air temperature is going to drop when you put the pizza in.  It is dropping 150-200F for me when starting at 1000F.  At lower start temps it will not drop so far but will also go down.  There is just not enough heat stored up in the stone etc to keep it high.  This drop is not happening in a wood- or coal-burning oven which has huge reserves of heat.  I don't think its all that bad a thing but it does mean you need to get the temp way up at the start since it will be progressively coming down.  It also means you need to wait a couple minutes between pizzas to let it warm back up again.
  
• If you are not putting the next pizza in right away, you probably want to kill the heat for a bit to keep the stone from over-heating.  I was always burning my second pizza until I learned to do this.
  
• I originally was doing just a couple big rotations of the spindle during cooking, but that did not produce consistent results.  The best I found is many small rotations.  For the 1 1/2 minute pizza I like one every ~5 seconds; probably you can go slower on a less hot bake.
  
• You will get more heat if you can put the 2stone lower in the firebox of your grill, below the grate level.  I have mine sitting on the heat radiator plates.  Since the stone is a bit below the front of the grill in this configuration you need to use the poker to grab the pizza when you pull it out. After I get the metal peel under the pizza I grab the crust with the provided metal poker.  If you don't grab it, it will slip off.
  
• The 2stone front is narrow and a standard peel may be too wide.  I had ordered the aluminum peel with my 2stone and it came in extra handy since my wood peel does not fit.
  
• Blocking any grill area on the sides of the 2stone will help get the temperature up.  Blocking in front of the 2stone on the other hand is not a good idea.  I have my 2stone sitting all the way back against the back of the grill.
  
• If you are having problems with burning right along the edges of the crust bottom, take the stone out and run alu foil along the edge about 1-2" in.  Have the shiny side out.  Alu foil blocks heat radiading into the stone at that point.
  

I'd like to hear comments on these or other tips/tricks people have found.

Scott

[mmarston]

Here's a link to a relatively inexpensive ($80) Ir thermometer, 0-1000 f, from Sears. It seems to be out of stock on the web but I got one at my local Sears last week and it works just fine for pizza.

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_03450466000P?vName=Tools&keyword=thermometer

[bolabola]

I've made about 30 pizzas now on the 2stone but last week for the first time I made 5 at once where as I usually only make one..
I found it better to keep the weber lid as closed as possible( just enuff to be able to rotate the 2stone wheel ) and to also close the lid after each pizza to bring the heat back up..

Willard..I can't tell ya how happy I've been with my results..
perfect pizza every time with no burnt bottom and charred crust on top..just the way I like it..
I've tried 2 picture down sizing sites with no luck and wish I could post some pics here to show ya my results..
cheers

[canadianbacon]

Hi Bolabola,

Sounds like you are really having a ton of fun with the 2 Stone ! I wish I was there to see some
of the exictement

As for images, you could upload your photos to www.imageshack.us and that website will auto-down-size them for you,
or if you are using Windows XP, you can do a simple trick to resize.

This is a very simple trick, and easy to do.  Practice it a few times, and you'll be very amazed.

• Go the the folder of your pizza images
  highlight the images you wish to scale down.
  Go to the left column of your windows window, and select "E-mail the selected items "
  Windows will pop up a new small window, and make sure that "make all my images smaller " is checked off
  ( it should be by default )
  Click "OK"
  Now a new email will be created in Outlook Express
  Now go to the File menu and click on "Save Attachments"

** If you wished to actually send the email with those scaled down images attached, all you do
is fill in the TO: field with the recipient's name, and click "send" and bingo it's that easy 

Voila ! - the deed is done, you now have all those images saved in a smaller format and
you can now post them on the forum website here.

-------------
TIP: - Make sure you don't overwrite your originals, - if your computers tells you the files exist already,
then just save them to another folder on your computer like one called "scaled down " or whatever.
This should not happen ( Windows telling you the files exist, and want to know if it is ok to overwrite them )

I've tried 2 picture down sizing sites with no luck and wish I could post some pics here to show ya my results..
cheers

[bambino32]

Bolabola

I use a freeware image viewer called Vallen JPegger to do all my downsizing. It has a "quick downsize" feature that gives you 6 choices for size and 1 custom. It automatically saves a copy of the file to the same folder as original adding the new resolution(nice feature) to the file name. It is a popular program that has been around for years.
New members not allowed to post links so you can do a search for Vallen JPegger is your interested.
How long between pizzas? Love to see some pictures.

[2stone]

Bolabola,

Great to hear you are getting the hang of it.
It's a lot of fun isn't it.

What a coincidence, I just did my first larger run of pies
this weekend for my sons birthday party. I did six 2 min pies
one right after the other and it went off without a hitch.

Here is a download link to the app. Bambino refferred to:
http://www.download.com/Vallen-JPegger/3000-2094_4-10153225.html

regards,
willard


Please, Please......"You Bayou Guys"
Go easy on the 2stones!

The baffle should be glowing, but not too
much else. (I use the 5" one so most of the
flames come up the back)


Also judging by all the creative use of tin foil,
I wonder if putting a sheet of foil on over the top
stone, (over the whole top) before you put on the aluminum lid
wouldn't boost up the top temp?? 

[scottfsmith]

Also judging by all the creative use of tin foil,
I wonder if putting a sheet of foil on over the top
stone, (over the whole top) before you put on the aluminum lid
wouldn't boost up the top temp?? 

The alu top is already reflecting the heat down, but the foil shiny surface could indeed bump up the amount of heat reflected back.

I had a couple questions about the design of the top, Willard.  Did you ever try putting vents in other places on the top, e.g. small holes in the back for example?  Also did you try any more thermal mass on the top, say another stone?  I have a spare pizza stone and I may throw it on the top next time to see if more thermal mass up there helps keep the temperature up after the pizza is inserted.  This would be on top of the existing stone there but still under the alu lid.

Scott