Baking Pizza on a 600 degree (F) pellet cooker ??

[SmokinGuitarPlayer]

Well as some of you know, I am not hooked on this pizza thing .... baking the best Vera Napoletana ...Since we are Big Green Egg people we bake at least once a week at our store on either a Large or XL egg and I am trying to perfect a setup in the Egg that will produce the best results. ... that being said ..today ..I was staring at one of the Country Smoker pellet grills ...they easily go to 600 degrees .. are indirect cooking ... and could easily be modified...so the question is .. .is anybody baking pizza on one of these?  (Country Smokers by Louisiana Grills - manufactured by Dansons in Canada) AND will 600 degrees cut it?

[4D55 Performance Inc.]

I am not as familiar with the Country Smokers, but I use a Treager Grill to cook my pizzas. My Treager only gets up to about 500F but the Treager is a convection style grill. Because it is a convection grill, cooking at 550F on my Treager is in all reality equal to about 650F in a conventional oven. I am guessing it is the same for the County Smokers.

[GotRocks]

I feel you'd be much better served sticking with the BGE with a pizza stone. I would speculate that pushing a pellet cooker to those temps has got to cause some issues down the road.
Would you happen to be the music & BBQ guy that advertises on the smokering? shoot, I can remeber your business name right now "XXX music & BBQ" ??

[scott123]

SmokinGuitarPlayer, can this do 600 deg. sustained heat?

For Neapolitan, 600 indirect, won't work for the majority of stone materials. Fibrament, cordierite, soapstone, quarry tile and fire brick are all out of the question. What may work, and this gets into a somewhat theoretical realm (based on some pretty conscientious number crunching) is a cast iron slab. It would have to be pretty thick- thicker than those cast iron grills lodge sells, and you'd need two of them- one for the hearth, one for the ceiling. If you're doing one or two pies, I think 1/2" thick might work (with a few minutes in between to recover), but, more than that, I think you'll want 3/4".

Not that 1/2"-3/4" 14x14 (or larger) cast iron slabs are all over the place. If you could get one, though, I think it could be done.

Now, that's indirect.  If you put down a fire brick hearth and fashion some sort of stone/metal ceiling, you could probably burn wood right on the hearth.

As far as 600 degrees damaging this cooker in some way.. I'm not seeing it.  I've seen people attached blow dryers to webbers with no adverse effect.

[SmokinGuitarPlayer]

Gotrocks ...yes I'm an the barbecue guy ... Fred's Music & BBQ Supply ... www.fredsmusicandbbq.com

Pizza making is my current passion ...well 2nd favorite passion after pizza eating.

FB/SGP

[SmokinGuitarPlayer]

Scott123


That cooker will keep 600 degrees all day long! I actually will get hotter. We have them in stock but at the moment I don't have a demo unit ..maybe soon we will "break in" another demo unit and I can test. I'm not looking to bake authentic napoletan ...just some great pies ... at the moment , I am back experimenting with Large and XL big green eggs .. sometimes I get excellent results, sometimes burnt bottoms... the quest continues....

re: cast iron ...somebody on this forum sent me a message that he uses cast iron on top in his oven with great results but at probably 500 to 550 deg.  ... someday I will try that approach.

With the "Egg" I am still trying to figure out a way to get high temp but keep the stone at a reasonable temp ...

[GotRocks]

With the "Egg" I am still trying to figure out a way to get high temp but keep the stone at a reasonable temp ...

I think your true problem lies is the flour you are using! Flours in the US are not capable of handling high heats like the Caputo 00 is, the Caputo really shines in those super high heat environments, but if you cook at lower temps, they look pale and anemic. Caputo is usually used at a higher hydration percent too, so that helps also.

How about getting the BGE up to temp, and adding the stone later to keep the bottom temps down until you get some Caputo flour???

[mysticalman]

I have done a few pizzas on my cs-570 and have not had any issues keeping 600 plus.

With 100% oak pellets I have been able to maintain close to 800 over the fire pot.

The only issue I have had is at those temps is my handles melt and break. Dansom said there was some issues with the handles and sent me out 5 sets to keep around.