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Pizza on the egg


detlef
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I mentioned in the other thread how excited my wife and I are to make pizzas on the egg. Our pizza stone fits it very nicely, with just over an inch or so space around the edges of the stone.

 

We love making pizzas at home despite the fact that our oven only gets to 550. I can't wait to make them in something that can get up to 800.

 

That said, a friend has told me that he has trouble getting his egg that hot because the stone cuts down too much on air circulation. Anyone have experience with this? Suggestions?

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I mentioned in the other thread how excited my wife and I are to make pizzas on the egg. Our pizza stone fits it very nicely, with just over an inch or so space around the edges of the stone.

 

We love making pizzas at home despite the fact that our oven only gets to 550. I can't wait to make them in something that can get up to 800.

 

That said, a friend has told me that he has trouble getting his egg that hot because the stone cuts down too much on air circulation. Anyone have experience with this? Suggestions?

 

a flaw in the EGG? can't wait ta here an explaination for this, i cook pizzas with propane all the time :wacko:

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a flaw in the EGG? can't wait ta here an explaination for this, i cook pizzas with propane all the time :wacko:

Well, let's be clear, this "flaw" is only seen as such when one takes into account the lofty standards one has for the egg. And let's be clear part II, I've only even heard rumors that this "flaw" even exists.

 

I have no fears that I can get the egg as hot as my oven (or as hot as one could get a standard gas BBQ), even with a stone in it. My fear is that I can't get it the 300 degrees hotter than I'm hoping for in order to turn out the Neopolitan delights I've always dreamed of creating.

 

Do not question the egg.

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I mentioned in the other thread how excited my wife and I are to make pizzas on the egg. Our pizza stone fits it very nicely, with just over an inch or so space around the edges of the stone.

 

We love making pizzas at home despite the fact that our oven only gets to 550. I can't wait to make them in something that can get up to 800.

 

That said, a friend has told me that he has trouble getting his egg that hot because the stone cuts down too much on air circulation. Anyone have experience with this? Suggestions?

 

I think you will be fine with an inch of room. Just open the draft door fully and take the air vent off. It'll be hot enough for ya :wacko:

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I typically do pizzas on The Egg at about 600 degrees. Once you start getting The Egg that hot, it can be more of a challenge to keep it from getting hotter than allowing it to fly to 800 degrees.

 

I agree with Nick that if you open the bottom vent up all the way along with the vent on top, you should have no problem getting it up into your temp range. This process will be made easier if you clear out The Egg and fill it with the large chunks of charcoal on the bottom and work up from there. The only time I've ever had trouble getting The Egg up in the 600-800 degree range was when I ignored this process and a bunch of smaller bits of charcoal screwed up the air flow (I was able to get around this by grabbing my wife's blow dryer and blowing it in the bottom vent--The Egg went nuclear hot when I did that.)

 

In making a pizza, mine were initially too smoky in flavor. So much so that the smoke overwhelmed the flavors of my toppings. Thus, when I attended Eggfest in 2006 in Atlanta, I went with the primary goal of improving my ability. The secret (which seems obvious to me now), is to leave the top vent open throughout the cooking process and make any temp changes by only adjusting the bottom vent. I also use little to no wood when making pizza on The Egg, only the lump charcoal.

 

Be careful when you open The Egg up at that temp as the sudden rush of air can cause a major flashback. It is little reward to hear you son exclaim, "That was cool!" while your arm is suddenly devoid of hair and you feel like you have been engulfed in a fireball. Remember to 'burp' your Egg.

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I'm actually in the camp that prefers cooking pizza at around 550-600. I set my pizza stone atop my place setter, with corn meal atop the pizza stone. I've tried cooking pizza a hotter temps, but the bottom of the crust ends up really burned. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. But at 550-600, I can still get the crust pretty crispy, and the pizza takes only about 10 minutes to cook. I don't use any wood, and I don't get too fancy -- canned pizza sauce, shredded mozzarella and the usual toppings. Still tastes pretty good.

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I'm actually in the camp that prefers cooking pizza at around 550-600. I set my pizza stone atop my place setter, with corn meal atop the pizza stone. I've tried cooking pizza a hotter temps, but the bottom of the crust ends up really burned. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. But at 550-600, I can still get the crust pretty crispy, and the pizza takes only about 10 minutes to cook. I don't use any wood, and I don't get too fancy -- canned pizza sauce], shredded mozzarella and the usual toppings. Still tastes pretty good.

 

There's the problem right there.

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So, we had decent but not amazing results. I really wanted to get the temp up as high as I could because of the Neopolitan style of pizza we're trying to make. First off, it didn't dawn on me at first that I'd have to raise the stone up to the level of the opening so I could get the peel in and out. Also, maybe I didn't have enough wood, but I couldn't get it to sustain anything over 650. Also, by the third pie, it was barely 500.

 

The second of 3 pies was the best and I wouldn't call the outing a failure, but I'm glad it was just the two of us.

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So, we had decent but not amazing results. I really wanted to get the temp up as high as I could because of the Neopolitan style of pizza we're trying to make. First off, it didn't dawn on me at first that I'd have to raise the stone up to the level of the opening so I could get the peel in and out. Also, maybe I didn't have enough wood, but I couldn't get it to sustain anything over 650. Also, by the third pie, it was barely 500.

 

The second of 3 pies was the best and I wouldn't call the outing a failure, but I'm glad it was just the two of us.

 

I put my platesetter in upside down and my stone on top of the legs. This puts the stone just above the opening so it is easy to remove the pizzas with a peel.

 

Regarding your difficulty getting The Egg to stay at anything over 650 degrees--did you do this?

 

I still put in lump by hand, making sure to use big pieces first and graduate to smaller ones as I go up, but I do this very quickly and then blast the top of the pile with my MAPP torch. Just think “good air flow” and you’ll be fine. Whatever you do, don’t just dump the bag of charcoal into the Egg if you’re wanting high temps – all the small pieces and dust will make for a dense pile of lump that will take a long time to get going strong.
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I put my platesetter in upside down and my stone on top of the legs. This puts the stone just above the opening so it is easy to remove the pizzas with a peel.

 

Regarding your difficulty getting The Egg to stay at anything over 650 degrees--did you do this?

Sort of. However, I could have cleaned it out a bit better before I started. I did rake the leftover coals back and forth over the grate to get as much ash to fall through as I could. But I should have just removed them entirely. Because they were so small, they just settled back down to the bottom once I built my tee-pee of larger wood.

 

That said, I actually had the thing up to about 700 before I put the stone on.

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Sort of. However, I could have cleaned it out a bit better before I started. I did rake the leftover coals back and forth over the grate to get as much ash to fall through as I could. But I should have just removed them entirely. Because they were so small, they just settled back down to the bottom once I built my tee-pee of larger wood.

 

That said, I actually had the thing up to about 700 before I put the stone on.

 

I've read that you want the stone in for the whole process as if it hits heat that high out of nowhere, it can crack. I don't know but I always have my stone in from the beginning.

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I've read that you want the stone in for the whole process as if it hits heat that high out of nowhere, it can crack. I don't know but I always have my stone in from the beginning.

I read that but too late. My thought behind not having it in there was to build up as much heat as possible.

 

To be honest, I think I was just short on wood. Because I had more trouble with pie 3 than pies 1 or 2. Well, that and I need to just clean the whole thing out and not have any crumbs around before I start.

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I read that but too late. My thought behind not having it in there was to build up as much heat as possible.

 

To be honest, I think I was just short on wood. Because I had more trouble with pie 3 than pies 1 or 2. Well, that and I need to just clean the whole thing out and not have any crumbs around before I start.

 

I've also had trouble getting it above 600. I didn't know to apply unta's method to high heat. Coincidentally, that's the same method I use when I want to smoke at low temps -- clean the whole thing out, put the huge pieces at the bottom and fill in the spaces with medium-sized pieces, like Tetris. Another thing someone told me is that if you want high temps, put your firestarter at the bottom of the pile; for lower temps, start the fire at the top. (I guess that might be common sense, but I'd never heard it before.)

 

Cleaning that thing out is a pain in the ass, though. I do it only like twice a year.

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I've never had any problems getting the temp up. I did steaks on The Egg this past weekend and I had The Egg up to about 800 degrees (it may have been higher, but my thermometer only goes to 750 degrees and the needle was noticeably past that mark).

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I've never had any problems getting the temp up. I did steaks on The Egg this past weekend and I had The Egg up to about 800 degrees (it may have been higher, but my thermometer only goes to 750 degrees and the needle was noticeably past that mark).

 

How often do you clean yours? I constantly have a pile of smaller, ashy pieces left over atop the grate that I mix around to get the ash to fall through, then I dump new coals on top. Mine is not a model of maximum air flow, which is I believe why my temps don't get up past 650. I also clean out the ash from the bottom only about once every 20 cooks or so.

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