MBE (Mini Black Egg) Project

[norma427]

Thanks Norma.  I hope to keep you smiling.   Here is the same 50/50 blend again with 1% sugar added for giggles.   This time I went with 0.05% IDY and these were fermented at room temps for close to 22h.  The dough was hand mixed, rested 30m, did a few folds, rested another 10 min, a few more folds, bulked 16h, lightly balled, and proofed ~5.5h.   

This workflow was adapted and inspired by Roberto's dough video and Norma's pictures of Roberto's dough.
Thank you Roberto and Norma.

220gm doughballs stretched out to 11".  A rim was left after opening and the edge pulled/extended prior to baking.  First pie had buffala and the 2nd one fior di latte with roasted green chile. 

Chau

Chau,

I am still smiling!     Those pies look wonderful.     Glad you had success with your new method.  I had to laugh when you said you put sugar in for the giggles.

Norma

[c0mpl3x]

i settle into 6-10min pies much easier for some reason.  think its the meddling of cheese and toppings.   recently i made a green onion (stem and bulb), green pepper, pepperoni mushroom pizza on a knockoff PJ clone recipe scaled down to NY thickness and i was amazed.  never had such rave reviews from so many people

[Jackie Tran]

Pies from my pizza party yesterday. 

1. cheese
2. Pepperoni mushroom
3. Sausage, red onion, roasted green chile
4. White pizza:  Alfredo, garlic chicken

[Jackie Tran]

5. Buffalo chicken pizza
6. Pepperoni, sausage, jalapeno
7. Pepperoni
8. Apple pie

[Jackie Tran]

My kitchen after it was all over. 

[BrickStoneOven]

Man those look good, especially the last pepperoni. By the way what brand are you using or are they just cut thick? I like when pepperoni cups like that. I wish I had that counter space at my house.

[Jet_deck]

Very nice selection of pizza.  They look very good, did they all meet your expectations?  My invitation must have got lost in the mail.
Did Santa bring you a wfo?

[Jackie Tran]

Man those look good, especially the last pepperoni. By the way what brand are you using or are they just cut thick? I like when pepperoni cups like that. I wish I had that counter space at my house.

Thanks David.   The brand of pepperoni is Dietz & Watson.  It's probably my #2 favorite after Boar's head.  I do slice it moderately thick by hand.   I buy this brand b/c it's fairly cheap and readily available.  After trying so many and being somewhat disappointed, this brand and boar's head are my go to. 

Here's more pictures of that Pepperoni Pie.  I too like the look of this pie.  I like how the pepperoni and cheese oil off together.   I have to say that I'm quite happy with the way the MBE bakes now.  I can get a real even char above and below and the cheese and toppings seem to cook just right.   

Chau

[Jackie Tran]

Very nice selection of pizza.  They look very good, did they all meet your expectations?  My invitation must have got lost in the mail.
Did Santa bring you a wfo?

Thank you Gene.  Did they meet my expectations?  Wow what a can of worms that is!  For the most part yes.  I do remember the days of turning out mediocre pies for my family and friends and apologizing to them.  They were always so kind and paid undue compliments but it always spurred me on to work harder.  When I got compliments last night, I received them whole heartedly b/c the pies did deserve them.   I was asked to make pizza for my BIL's brother who was in town for the holidays.  In the midst of making pizza I caught some indistinct chatter from the other room.   My guest was dissecting the pie and said the crust was really good and reminded him of a local high end pizzeria "Il Vicino" who claims WFO pizzas.   I then heard my SIL say, "he has come really far with it".  I was happy to over hear real compliments spoken behind my back.   

To be really picky, I did overknead this batch a bit so I had to work a little bit harder than normal to open the skins.   But from start to finish it took me about 2 hours just to turn out about 9 pies, so I was please the dough lasted.  I had a slice from each pie and some of them, the crust, was really good.   These were 100% HG and room feremented about 12hr.   I would like to re-explore a 24hr ferment and/or perhaps cut in 25% 00 flour to aid in increasing the digestibility of my pies.   

Chau

[buceriasdon]

Digestibility be damned! I'll pay the price tomarrow.  Tonight the song of the pizza sounds as a siren's song does to a lonesome sailor alone at sea. ( cue dramatic music in the backgound)

[Jackie Tran]

My invitation must have got lost in the mail.   Did Santa bring you a wfo?

I wish I could make pizza for everyone on the forum, but I'd need a WFO to churn out 1 min pies.     I have put the WFO on the back burner for a bit until I can find the right crew to do the rest of the outdoor kitchen. 
I did get this for Christmas though.  I'm excited to grow some Neapolitan Basil this winter. 

http://www.sonnylightled.com/shop/LED-Grow-Lights/LED-Kitchen-Garden/prod_2.html

[dellavecchia]

I think that is the biggest kitchen counter I have ever seen. You have so much room for all your dough experiments.

Beautiful pies as always.

John

[msheetrit]

this project is overwhelming chau. your mbe is great i should make one, my parents have black grill just like it.
your pies man... my god!
i'm an amateur from my perspective you are a pro. here in sirael you could open pizzeria and make lots of money.
very good, keep up the good work buddy.

[compatta]

I thank you all for giving me really great idea's on this MBE Build! I think i finally cooked my pizza correctly! (it even browned on the top)

For about a month or so, i've read both the LBE and MBE threads thoroughly and i've been really experimenting on trying to get my pizza to cook correctly to have that even heat balance on the top and the bottom. I think the real essential part to making my MBE better that were already mentioned in this thread were:

-Having a 2 inch x 8 inch vent in the front of the MBE.

-Using the heat damn mod to make sure the heat come from the back and over your pizza. (essen)
(kinda like how heat radiates from the back of a wood fired oven and over your pizza)

-Using a solid stone, as opposed to firebrick halves, created a much much more consistent bake.
(I bought a 2 x 16 inch cordierite stones from my local ceramic supply for 18 dollars each)

-Absolutely essential to use a top stone as i believe it radiates heat to the top of the pizza. Radiative heat transfer is king!
(maybe its more peace of mind...)

-I finally implemented Chaus "Sand Heat Diffuser." I remembered that when you push the sand bowl forwards, it creates
 more of a heat zone in the back. As i used too much sand in my bowl, all the areas above the sand bowl were about 400 F
 while the areas near the back of the pizza not covered by the sand bowl were around 600 F. Next time i will put less sand, about
3/4 level, in the sand bowl so that there is more a variance between the two zones. (pizza baking zone, cornicone baking zone)

Something i did a bit differently that were mentioned in different threads of this forum were to:

-Place Lava rocks between the pizza cooking area and let it heat up and absorb that convective heat from the air. The lava rocks would than absorb this energy
and radiate it to the top stone and conduct energy to the bottom stone. When you want to cook your pizza, push the lava rocks to the
back of the LBE, where hot air happens to flow, blow off the lava rock dust on the bottom stone, and continue cooking your pizza.

-A lower conductivity "heat diffuser" below my bottom stone. In this case, i placed a 16 inch pizza pan, filled it up with sand, and placed my stone directly on top of it.
 The thermal properties of Sand (Specific heat-0.25, Thermal conductivity-0.15-0.25 w/m.k) in comparison with the thermal properties of cordierite (Specific Heat-0.35, Thermal
 conducitivity-3 W/m.k) creats a "heat bottleneck" for the bottom stone. In essence, it has the heat absorption properties of Quarry tile with the conductive properties of cordierite.   
 
Along the way, i've tried the following to failure:

-Using Lava rocks as a diffuser directly over the bayou burner. Contrary to popular belief, lava rocks don't act as a diffuser in this situation,
 but actually act more like "Infrared Heating Rocks." Ever notice how people with lava rock grills back than would say "Lava rocks make my wood juicier?"
 , it is mainly because the rocks act as great radiative diffusers as opposed to convective diffuser. I would notice my lava rocks glow bright red (which
  is about at least 1600 degrees Fahrenheit) and cooking my pies on firebricks in under two minutes (i always wondered how it was possible to cook pizza
 for more than 3 minutes in the MBE)). In theory, if you were to replace charcoal briquettes with Lava Rocks in a chimney starter over your Bayou burner,
  heat it up until it glows bright red/orange and place it between the 2-3 inch cooking zone where your pizza usually cooks, it would act like placing charcoal
directly on the stones itself, without the mess. Your lava rocks would transfer its heat through radiation to the top stone at nearly the same rate as the bottom
stone. For my bake on this occasion, i just placed some lava rocks on my bottom stone and waited for them to heat up sufficiently until i could push them to the back
to act as my radiative/hot heat source.

-Using no Diffuser. My bottom firebricks at the time would heat up like mad.

-Using firebrick halves especially if i wasn't using the heat dam mod correctly. The air would escape between the firebricks.
If i were to use firebricks next time, i would make sure my bottom stone was in no way connected to where the burner would
initially heat the stone. (aka use an air gap or sand)

-Having a massive Air gap between my stone and my cordierite spacers on the grill. Even with the Air Dam mod involved, What this definitely created was that air would
go below the bottom stones and create a less intense heat over the stones.

-As indicated by the thread, having a 3 inch air gap between the top and the bottom stone. once i decreased this, my pizzas were cooking a bit better.

Overall, my mods were are show in this picture. Thank you all!

[Jackie Tran]

Digestibility be damned! I'll pay the price tomarrow.  Tonight the song of the pizza sounds as a siren's song does to a lonesome sailor alone at sea. ( cue dramatic music in the backgound)

Thanks for the laugh Don.   

Compatta - Really nice post and I like the diagram as well.  I'm such a visual learner but lack the compooter skills. I'm glad the information in this thread has been helpful to you.   I think member Villa Roma deserves so much credit for his original LBE/MBE work.  I also think Mike deserves credit for his disk mod as well.  I was able to concentrate AND balance out the bake even more after implementing that mod.    I'm also really pleased with my lid air dam mod as well and credit also go to members Buceriasdon and Jet_deck for their ideas and input as well.  These particular mods made a real difference to achieving a great bake in my MBE.  Of course having good dough is another essential part of the equation to good pizza. 

The only real differences between our setups as far as I can see, is that I have the sand bowl pulled towards the front and I don't use lava rocks on the grill around the perimeter of my stone.   BUT if you are getting great results then go with that.  BTW, feel free to post pictures of your bakes as well.  I'm sure the home viewing audience always appreciates looking at pizza, especially when they aren't eating it.

I also agree about getting rid of the firebrick floor.  It worked better for me prior to the Essen disk mod, but I am currently baking on a cheapo $12 thin pizza stone.  I have since learned to dial my hearth temps back to match my desired baking times. 

When I first implemented the sand bowl, I also tried lava rocks and charcoal grilling ceramic stones and discovered that they didn't work to buffer heat.  Thats where the sand idea came in and it works well so I haven't tried removing it since.  I did find that a little less than 3/4 of a bowl works well.

Overall, I would have to say that the MBE is an awesome little pizza oven.  Quick heat up times and great results.  I couldn't be happier. 

Cheers,
Chau

[CMY]

Overall, my mods were are show in this picture. Thank you all!

No... thank you! That was one of the more detailed write-ups I've seen yet.

Just curious if anyone can take some actual measurements of everything that exists between the burner and the top stone?  I'm working on a modified version of the MBE (details to come-- still gathering parts) but it's really quite hard to tell what dimensions are involved (or what works best for you guys) by videos and pictures alone.

I won't be working with a Weber platform but I *think* I'll be able to use a larger top stone and have the ability to make a lot of vertical adjustments to fine-tune the finished product.. I just need that decent 'baseline' to get started.

Thanks!

[buceriasdon]

Welcome CMY, Here's the straight skinny my friend, you're on your own. You say you won't be using a Weber ?, then any dimensions anyone gives you would be useless. Useless. Judge by pictures and text to get a general idea of what you need to do. You will have to engineer and then re engineer many times over to obtain even baking on top and bottom of your pizza in your oven. An inch here, an inch there. It's called trial and error and I can say without a doubt you are in for plenty of it. Quite frankly I would have abandoned the project if at some point I didn't realize I had to figure it out on my own what I needed to change in my setup. What others made work for them simply was not working for me as their grills were different than mine. For me it was ditching the aluminum plate in the lid and replacing it with Staillo tile. I use no diffuser bowl, others do. Experiment! Keep your dough recipes simply at first, flour, water, yeast and salt. Use the best flour you can get. Take pictures and keep good notes! Start a new thread and tell us about your oven. Keep at it and ,trust me, you will be rewarded with great pizza in an oven you created.
Don

No... thank you! That was one of the more detailed write-ups I've seen yet.

Just curious if anyone can take some actual measurements of everything that exists between the burner and the top stone?  I'm working on a modified version of the MBE (details to come-- still gathering parts) but it's really quite hard to tell what dimensions are involved (or what works best for you guys) by videos and pictures alone.

I won't be working with a Weber platform but I *think* I'll be able to use a larger top stone and have the ability to make a lot of vertical adjustments to fine-tune the finished product.. I just need that decent 'baseline' to get started.

Thanks!

[CMY]

Welcome CMY, Here's the straight skinny my friend, you're on your own.

Thanks Don!  

I kinda figured as much (and I'm looking forward to starting my own thread) but I have no problem with R&D on this; I asked more in a sense of "what ballpark should I be looking at?" rather than a schematic to success.

[Jackie Tran]

CMY - welcome to the forum.  I agree with Don in that there will be a lot of trialing and error unless you use the exact same set up as some one else.   I had almost given up on the MBE several times but glad I didn't.   As nice of a pizza oven as it is, you'll be limited to 11" pies so I tend to push folks towards the 18" LBE.  That should allow for a maximum pie size of 16" with the flexibility of doing smaller pies as well. 

I stopped by Lowes the other day ready to pick up the 18" weber when my eyes happened upon the new Charbroil Patio Bistro infrared portable grill.  These things come with an electric heating element or LP option.

For a long time now, I have always thought that if  I could find a round electrical heating element I would mount it to the dome of my MBE to provide top heat.  Well I did some preliminary research but was not successful in finding such options and here it is...the charbroil infrared grill.

http://www.amazon.com/Broil-Patio-Bistro-Infrared-Electric/dp/B002DM1Z5C

When you see this thing in person you'll quickly realize that is poorly built and way overpriced.  The cool thing about this is that it has the electric heating element.  What can we do with that?  Well I was thinking maybe I can mount it upside down in the lid to provide top heat and use my LP burner for the bottom heat.  That would make a great pizza oven, if one can get it to work.   

The downside is that replacement parts are expensive.  I priced out the replacement element and control dial and it's $50 each ($100 total).  The whole set up is $169 at Lowes.  So at this point it's a $170+ experiment.  If it doesn't work, I doubt I could return it in it's modified condition. 

Or I can hack up a $70 18" weber charcoal grill.  Hmmm decisions. 

CMY or anyone interested.  You guys should look into this Charbroil Patio Bistro infrared electricl grill. 
CMY, if you need any specific measurements just ask and I'll do my best.

Best of luck,
Chau 

[compatta]

Updates to Weber Modifications

Once again, my pizza was cooked even better this time! Though, i would like to report the following:

-I noticed that i wasn't an exact "pro" at turning my pizza every so while. Due to the nature of the heat vent mod, all the hot
 air comes from the back and especially if you don't turn it every so while, it burns the crust like no other!

-I know this sounds like rocket science, but the slower you heat your MBE, the less overall propane that will be used. I noticed my
 diffuser glowed bright orange (as the diffuser itself only absorbs and releases heat so fast) and that tended to also to warp the coal grates
 itself.

-Even at around 550 ish, i think my crust could be a bit more crispy (glutenboy NY style). As i have a 16 inch round cordierite x 5/8 shelf,
 i think the stone doesn't have enough stored energy/gas to make it crispier. As the stone is separated with an upside down Pizza Pan
 (which acts as an "air buffer" (which is only 1/60 as conductive as cordierite) ), even with the 4 minute bake time, the burner doesn't
 really effect the bottom stone in any ways. Perhaps if i increased the thickness or temperature of the stone itself, it might be a bit crispier.

From my constant failtures, i Noticed the following:

-Once again, sounding like rocket science, if you use a diffuser on your burner and use a solid cordierite stone on your grill, there is no need to
for Metal supports as A) the burners are not directly charring and warping the metal grill anymore and B) A solid cordierite stone distributes
the weight on the grill.

-As i said in my last post, If you want the conductivity of cordierite with the ability to slowly absorb heat like quarry tiles or fibrament, all you need
is a lower conductive "heat buffer" below it. Especially when using a heat vent mod, you want to make sure the heat doesn't escape under the stone
itself. So what i did was place my stone on top of an upside down pizza pan.

-In order to the solve the issue of inconsistent charring on the cornicone, i decided to use a "turntable mod." As recommended in other threads, making
 a turntable is as easy as attaching a 1/4 x 2 inch stainless steel bolt in combination with a bunch of washers and 1 nut. Ideally, you will have drilled a hole
in the center of the stone and pizza pan and it rotates correctly. Additionally, in order to reduce the amount of times i actually open up the grill (which i think
slows down the cooking of the top), my vent is actually 2 inches x 8 inches (which i did by mistake back then) and it allows me to use a pair of chopsticks
(you can use tongs also). The combination of the heat vent in addition to creating a turntable makes the back like a "radiant heater" (as i remember from 2stone discussions, the back
of the grill is about 100 degree hotter than the front of the grill.) More pictures about how to make this in the future.

Since i place 12 inch pizzas on 16 inch stone, as opposed to placing the pizza in the center, it was interesting to stagger the pizza near the edge as opposed to being placed
directly on the center. It will definitely creates zones of crunchiness and zones of softness on the pizza.

Perhaps this build is becoming too much like the 2stone? Than again, at this point the price difference, after buying all pizza equipment and experimenting with
a good design, comes to about a $200 for buying all the equipment. As for considering an infrared propane burner in the future, which would definitely be overkill.
But if anybody wants to collaborate on designing a commercial style 30 inch "UFO-BE" that utilizes an infrared burn to good effect, i'm game!

The following i did to failure:

-Lava Rocks, more likely than not, crowded my stone and made it difficult to put my pizza on my 16 inch stone.
-Put sand below the stone itself. As the intention of the sand was to slow down heat transfer, it slowed it down wayyy too much.
 I decide to put no sand below the stone as i definitely changed the way how my stone moves with a turntable mod.
-As i said last time, put wayy too much sand into the diffuser. I decided to use less sand this time.

Overall, the current state of mods i have on my MBE are: