Last Thursday I created my first 3 minute pizza on my Big Green Egg (BGE). My dough recipe and pictures of resulting pizza are found under the Pasty’s clone thread in New York Style forum.
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1053.msg25942.html#msg25942Here is the setup on the BGE:
Place a second fire ring on top of the first ring (the ring is the thing above the fire bowl).
Stack lump charcoal up to the top of lower ring and light charcoal and close lid.
Cover bottom of BGE pizza stone with aluminum foil (shiny side down) and center on top of platesetter.
Once BGE is preheated place platesetter (legs down) on top of upper fire ring.
Once top of pizza stone is up to 700 F place pizza on stone.
Close lit and put daisy wheel on top with just a little opening. This part is important for the top and center of pizza to cook.
(I am not sure what the bottom vent should be doing at this point. 1” should be good if dome is preheated correctly.)
Comments
First of all, with that much charcoal the BGE does not seem to get enough draw to support a proper fire. This may have been due to the second fire ring, but I believe it to be a draw issue. I was getting a flashback every time I opened the lid during the preheat. I then recalled that a friend of mine build a 2’ stainless chimney to improve draw on his BGE for searing steaks. So a grabbed an empty 28 oz can and placed it on top of the exhaust opening. This helped slightly, but I had to crack the lid about 1” to get more air into the fire.
After 35 minutes the external temperature of the lid/dome was 560 F +-30 F. I then installed the platesetter with pizza stone and waited for the top of stone to reach 700 F. The trick here is to point the IR thermometer down through the exhaust port to take the stone measurement. This works surprisingly well.
Key for following photos:
The first is the makeshift chimney extension
The second is the extreme chimney exhaust
The third is my stone setup.
The last is one of the 5 pizzas made that night
FYI – the metal band that holds the lid and base to the hinge was so hot the metal expanded and became loose. The next day I had to loosen all the nuts and adjust lid to get it to sit flush on the base again.