First pizzas on the Gozney Dome wood only

[kyk65]

First bake on the gozney dome. Cured at 500F for about 1 hour, using 6 inch long, 1-2 inch wide kiln dried kindling. Cranked it up to 800F on the dome reader for about 45 minutes, rotated from left to right side of dome halfway through. Got a reading of 750F on the stone. Baked same day. 62% HR. 20% sourdough starter. AP flour. 48 hour CF. 2.5 min bake with dome reading 825F and floor 725F. Edges nice but center a bit floppy. Bottom not as charred as I liked.

I had trouble getting the floor temp hot because you need a big fire to preheat it up to 750F which has been ideal for me but that big fire comes with a high rolling flame that cooks the edge too quickly. Also, throws flames out the front. Not sure how i can keep a high floor temp with a low rolling flame. Anyone got suggestions? I ideally want to cook a pizza around 4 to 5 minutes for crispiness.

Since some might be interested, shipping took about 8 days from pilot freight. Dude even took it off the palet and transferred into my patio. Nothing broken, box was in great condition. Took about 2 hours in the Texas heat to build the stand, taking multiple water breaks, but was super easy.

[TXCraig1]

For 4-5 min, I'm thinking you'll need to run the oven around 600F. The data in the chart below was pulled from posts here about 10 years ago.

[TXCraig1]

Pizza looks good.

[kyk65]

Thanks for the reference TXCraig1. This is my first cook on the dome but I have cooked several dozen pizzas on a koda12. Not sure how to get the floor preheated to at least 750F without causing a high oven temp. If I preheat to 825F (oven temp) and don't add any more wood for 5~15 minutes, the floor temp also drops below 750F. Anything below 750F floor temp the bottom doesn't cook within 4~5 minutes. The only thing I can think of is to add a ton of wood to get hot coals going and then to remove half of the coals before launching?

[TXCraig1]

What material is the floor made of?

[kyk65]

According to Gozney "1.2” thick cordierite stone floor"

[TXCraig1]

I'm really surprised you need 750F to get at 4-5min bake. When I was using my BBQ mod, I typically ran 750-775F on Fibrament and got 2:00-2:15 bakes. Cordierite is almost 5X more conductive than Fibrament, so if anything it would be even faster.

[mosabrina]

Do you need to saturate the floor by heating for a while? There's a guy who bakes 3-4 min pizzas in another brand of oven and he does a full preheat of 35+ minutes and then lets the temp drop.

[kyk65]

Do you need to saturate the floor by heating for a while? There's a guy who bakes 3-4 min pizzas in another brand of oven and he does a full preheat of 35+ minutes and then lets the temp drop.

I had this guy preheating for a good 1.5 hours before the bakes

[johnnyoak]

Just posted about a similar issue I'm facing with the Dome before coming across this thread. Following.

[ira]

I've not timed my bakes, but I'd guess between 1.5 and 3 minutes with my feeling being it's closer to the lower end..

[kyk65]

I tried using a fulll size log about 5 inches thick and 12 inches long along with some small kindling to get it started. It worked pretty well. I was worried it was gonna provide too much btu's considering dome's small stature. It will flame out the front a little but nothing to worry about. It tends burn from the top and slowly burn its way down, so I kept the log in the middle for most of the preheat. Got it up to 900F and let the flames die down to about 800F. By then floor temp was around 750F. Baked about 3 to 4 minutes. Worked out great!

https://streamable.com/k984ez