Pete, there are countless ways to achieve NY style baking times on a grill. With all the work you've done on your own setup, you should be acutely aware of this. The market has the 2stone, the Mighty Pizza Oven, the KettlePizza insert and a host of other simple DIY approaches. A $60 fibrament grill stone on a typical gas grill can hit NY bake times. NY on a grill is child's play. The market is completely oversaturated.
What does NOT exist, though, is a way to make Neapolitan pizza on a grill. This is the fountain of youth, cold fusion, bigfoot and unicorns wrapped up in one- to match the results of a multi-thousand dollar wood fired oven in a multi-hundred dollar grill setup. This is what probably at least 300 people have tried and failed to achieve in the LBE thread. This claim is a very big deal and shouldn't be dismissed because the majority of the public may not know what Neapolitan pizza is.
I assure you, if any person can ever invent a device to make Neapolitan pizza on a grill, it will garner them a great deal of money, due to the fact that it can produce something that no other inexpensive device can.
Sorry, Tim, but x number of BTUs aren't going to guarantee 90 second bakes.
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4753.0.html
I've read through this incredibly long (92 page) thread at least 3 times in the last year. These are pretty much all people working with 90K to 185K BTU burners. Out of at least 300 attempts, only 2 members broke the 2 minute mark. And your design, without a skirt covering the grill area outside the device, doesn't even focus every precious BTU up and through your baking area.
If an LBE with two cordierite stones can't guarantee 90 seconds with 90K BTUs, that pretty much means that no BTU number is the magic number to guarantee that bake time.
While you can, by heating the top stone on it's own, create a more favorable top to bottom heat ratio, it's important to remember that over time, the bottom stone will get hotter and that advantage will be lost. Unless you're going to take the bottom stone out of the oven between bakes (something that would be extremely unsafe to do), you'll only get the full advantage of the pre-heated ceiling for the first pizza. If this staggered stone pre-heat does produce a 90 second bake, you'll need to be clear in your advertising that it's for the first pizza only- that is if you truly wish to make sure that "the end-user has a clear understanding of what to expect."
I don't think many people want to cook just one pie per fire up. So I hope you can come up with a better way and show multiple pizzas baked back to back in your video.
I have to agree, there is nothing that really compares to a perfectly constructed wood-fired brick oven with an expertly tended fire; it is in a league of its own. However, the 2Stone appears to put out some pretty amazing pizzas, the MPO looks like it produces some excellent results, the Kettle Grill appears to make for some good eats, and The Brick Oven Box definitely puts out some awesome pizzas. Some pizzas cook in around 90 seconds, some pizzas cook in around 2 to 3 minutes and some cook in 3 to 6 minutes. It ultimately comes down to the type of dough used, style of pizzas made, exact grill setup & specs, external factors (climate, etc), tending of the pizza, and the management of the heat, etc. It's similar to how the performance of a WFO comes down to its construction, design, quality of the components used, type of wood used to fire it, external factors (climate, etc.), management of the fire iteself, placement of the pizzas, etc.
I am not claiming that The Brick Oven Box is as good as a perfectly managed WFO; I am claiming that it can bake Neapolitan (would Neo-Neapolitan be a more acceptable term?) style pizzas in around 90 seconds, with excellent results. I'm also not saying that I have the "the fountain of youth, cold fusion, bigfoot and unicorns wrapped up in one" as you say it would be. I'm saying that it's a great product that puts out excellent quality pizzas for an extremely reasonable price, for those that are not fortunate enough to have access to a WFO or deck pizza oven, or those that do not want to always go through the work of firing their WFO.
The statement of preheating the top is simply a suggestion for how to achieve the hotter top of the box quickly. True, the top and bottom of the box can level off over time, however, through managing the flames, you can balance the heat. I have seen great results through experimenting with different "firing" strategies, and am certain that there are others that will find better strategies than I have after working with The Brick Oven Box.
I have been extremely busy this week but I am trying to find the time to fire some demos to post as we discussed; hopefully by this weekend.
Again, thank you all for the feedback and I look forward to getting more once I have a chance to post the pics and videos.
Have a good night!
Happy Pizza Making!
Tim
