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[nmalnati]

Hello:

I am new to pizzamaking.com and have received a used large Big Green Egg.  I've done a few cooks and am now starting to look for an easy-to-follow procedure for heating up the egg.  Like many newbies, I own a 100% stock egg, which includes no pizza stone or a plate setter.  The only thermometer I own is the one that comes with the dome.  My goal is to create authentic Neapolitan pizza without destroying the ceramics.

If you've fired your egg up dozens of times and cranked out hundreds of pizzas, my guess is that you're done experimenting and know how to thermally charge your egg.  Please help the forum develop a Best Practices guide for the newbies to follow. 

If you use extra equipment involved from a stock setup, please state it.  If you're measuring temperature, let us know where and how you're measuring it.  Be specific.  If you open the dome, give a duration it stays open and describe the temperature before and after.  How do you use your pizza stone, right next to the plate setter or using some sort of brass/copper tubings? What are target times and temps to reach?

I know there's a ton of posts out there already on this.  What's your Best Practice for setting up your egg?

[UnConundrum]

First, I suggest you visit the EggHeadForum which you can find HERE .  Lots of people to help you there and it's devoted to using the BGE.

When making a pizza, I set my egg up with the plate setter, legs up, the grid, and then my pizza stone.  The plate setter diffuses the heat and avoids hot spots on the pizza stone.  The temperature you shoot for depends on the type of dough you're using.  If all purpose flour, stick to around 500 F.  You can go higher with high gluten or 00 flour.  Preheat for about an hour.  That's an hour at temperature, not including warm up time.  Use an infrared thermometer to take the temperature of the stone.

[duegatti]

My best practice, to date, is plate setter legs down, grid, and then the BGE single level, folding, stainless still grid extender, then the stone.  This gets you just about up to the thermometer.  Right now, I don't have a gasket, because this kind of configuration destroyed a replacement felt gasket installed carefully with the 3M adhesive.  I believe a legs up configuration can potentially spare a gasket, but the two times I've tried this, I've noticed distinctly lower temperatures, longer cooking times, and a little lag on the part of the top relative to the bottom.  The cooking dynamics are decidedly better legs up.  And the temperatures I'm talking about are from around 600 to the upper 600's.  I don't know how anybody can hit 800 in a BGE; I've never been close.  Even if I vacuum it out, use fresh lump, and build the fire.

[UnConundrum]

Lot of debate on legs up vs. legs down, but I've been over 1K at times.  It can be done.  What I did forget to mention is that I use a spider to raise the stone into the dome in a fashion similar to your use of the extender.

[Parttimepizzaiolo]

Check out my blog (click on the little globe to the left of the message).  I'm going through exactly what you are.  It's frustrating because I've burned quite a few pies trying to come up with the right combination of hardware and technique.  Yesterday I had my stone up to 800F, but the dome temp was only 600F (I took the plate setter out this time).  It took 2.5 minutes to cook the top of the pie with some nice char, but it burned the hell out of the bottom (because of the 800F stone).

I told my wife I'm only going to be cooking dough on the BGE until I get it right.  I hate wasting all of the premium ingredients I've been using.  I'm going to try putting a pizza screen between the pie and the stone and only bring the stone up to 600F next time.

[duegatti]

It's easy to burn the bottom with a platesetter.  I can't imagine leaving it out, and I don't recall anyone on the egghead forum doing that. 

[Parttimepizzaiolo]

Well, there's first for everything then.   

I'm going to try again tonight, with the plate setter, with a stone preheated to around 550F.  800F floor temp is just way too high.

[Tubbys SmokeHouse]

Check out my blog (click on the little globe to the left of the message).  I'm going through exactly what you are.  It's frustrating because I've burned quite a few pies trying to come up with the right combination of hardware and technique.  Yesterday I had my stone up to 800F, but the dome temp was only 600F (I took the plate setter out this time).  It took 2.5 minutes to cook the top of the pie with some nice char, but it burned the hell out of the bottom (because of the 800F stone).

I told my wife I'm only going to be cooking dough on the BGE until I get it right.  I hate wasting all of the premium ingredients I've been using.  I'm going to try putting a pizza screen between the pie and the stone and only bring the stone up to 600F next time.

I did that to with my grill and stone, 500 is max i can go on the stone without frazzeling the under side of my pie, it's black before the cheese on top melts.............jim

[essef16]

My method is a little different, but it's been working for me for a while. I own a large BGE.

First, I take my stone and plate setter and put them in my convection oven and bake for about 45 minutes at 550F (as high as it will go). I use my plate setter legs down and have 3 copper or brass elbow pipes (about 1 inch diameter) that i place between the stone and the setter in order to raise my stone to cook the top side of the pie.

Second, I start my egg a few minutes later (making sure it's been cleaned out) and add quite a bit of lump charcoal in order to have a high temp fire that burns for a while. My pizza's are made of Caputo Rosso flour with a recipe I found on-line about a year ago. I use a 65% hydration recipe in order to cook fast with high temps. When I cook, it takes about 2-3 minutes at most.

Third, once I've gotten my fire going and closed the lid, I wait until that puppy is between 650-700 on the thermometer (stock, nothing special) before I consider putting the stone on. After I do this, I wait at least 20 minutes or so to get the stone up to temp even more. Once that's all done, I start cooking.

Generally I make 4-6 pizzas at a time over about 30-45 minutes. By the time my last pizzas are cooking, the temp is a decent amount lower and it takes a lot longer to cook (obviously). I do try stoking the fire over time as best as I can to keep the temp up, but it doesn't work out too well.

I'm always trying to learn new techniques, so if anyone has any comments on this, I'm all ears. Oh yeah, and like most of you probably did, I burned out my gasket, and replacement, and another replacement early on in the life of my egg. I've never used an IR thermometer on my stone either to see how hot I'm actually cooking.

Nate

[Cayman]

I use the platesetter legs down. Since my egg is in a nest, I use the 3 feet that came with the egg and place them on the platesetter. I then space them apart enough to hold my stone. Seems to give me a more even temp, even though the back seems to get a little hotter. This allows for the air to circulate below the stone too... although I don't know if that is good or bad.