Spaceship pizza

[Lovey]

G'day all,
I finally had a go at cooking some pizza's on the kamado tonight, not a great success .

I made my usual pizza dough and let it rest for about 6 hours. I got the kamado to about 250 C as per the Mav probe on the same level as the pizza stone. The dome thermometer on the kamado was reading anywhere from 20 to 60 degrees under, depending on the position of the Mav probe.

I made a variety tonight, lamb and potato for the princess, lamb and potato calzone for the little princess, ham and cheese for the little man and potato and rosemary for me.

The tops were done to a tee, however the bottoms were one disappointment after another, no crispness or colour at all. Each one took about 6-7 minutes to achieve the required colour on the top.

The setup I had was a deflector, then an elevator with the pizza stone on the elevator. I also tried with the stone on top of the grill, but no joy with either.

I'm going to have an educated guess that my setup wasn't ideal, and I should omit the deflector next time. Should I use the elevator or have the stone directly on the grill?

There's no photos, as I was too embarrassed to take any as I usually take a lot of pride in my pizzas.
Thanks for looking.

[Davo]

Hmmmm, Steve, I'm sorry it didn't work out the way you wanted however I could think of 2 possibilities here:

1/ You didn't heat up the stone long enough to do the job, those stones can take up to 45 minutes to be at the required temp for dough. Dough still has a fair bit of moisture in it and the stone's job is to absorb the moisture and crisp up the dough, also having a lot of wet toppings on it can have an effect as well.

2/ I'm also thinking you didn't have the Komado hot enough to get the stone up to temp...I'm thinking maybe another 100C extra will do the job.

Anyway mate....it's all trial and error....ask me..I'm the expert on error

Cheers

Davo

[Lovey]

Thanks Davo,
I've joined you in the ranks of 'error' tonight, well and truly .
The stone was pre-heating for at least an hour, probably more. I thought the temps were ok, but I've been wrong before.

When I do pizzas in the gasser the setup I have is:
The stone is set about 5cm above the grill with no diffuser, apart from the flame tamers. I turn all 4 burners on low and the temp on the hood gauge shows about 230. The stones are left in to pre-heat from when I first fire it up, probably about 15mins . They take about 10 minutes and and they come out superbly, evenly cooked top and bottom.

The next time I'll give it a go without the deflector and using the elevator to keep the stone up from the flames.
Thanks again.

[Davo]

Yeah..you'd think that if you had it there over an hour it should've been ready enough eh.

Yes next time leave out the deflector and see how you go.

I usually have my Q320 on about 250-300C when doing pizzas but i must admit to being lazy and buy pre-made bases.

[the dane]

I use the heat deflector stone on the top of the grill with the pizza stone on top of that again, when my wife makes her own pizza base. It it's a pre made base no need for the deflector stone.

[the dane]

Stone on stone

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[12x7]

If you use a set-up like The Dane has used it helps provide the thermal mass to the base to maintain the temp when you put a cold pizza base on. This is important if you are cooking several pizzas.

This helps cook the base while the airflow cooks the toppings.

Around 350C is fine to cook a pizza.

Hotter temps are still ok. Just watch out as it is good for hair removal on your arms.

It takes a bit of practice getting the base temp and upper temp right. Some people experience the opposite problem. Burnt base and uncooked toppings. It just takes experimenting.

What sort of Kamado are you using? Akorn, Dragon, KJ, BGE?

[Lovey]

G'day all and thanks for the feedback.
My deflector is a big paella pan Dane, so it wouldn't have the thermal break that your stone would. I could look at stacking 2 pizza stones, which should achieve the same result that you have.
12x7, I've got a BBQG Dragon, the kids christened it the spaceship as I suppose it looks a bit like a rocket (If you're thinking as a 6 year old ).
After doing a bit more reading, it looks like I probably didn't have enough heat in there, sorry Davo I thought that 250 would be fine .
Thanks again all.

[12x7]

I could look at stacking 2 pizza stones, which should achieve the same result that you have.

You will probably end up cracking the bottom one as they don't normally last too long with so much direct heat.

Try getting an Akorn deflector from Bunnings. It might look more expensive than a pizza stone. But after a few cracking the smoking stone is a bargain, plus does a great job as a deflector as the chargriller deflector is nice and thick and well made.

https://www.bunnings.com.au/char-grille ... e_p3180628

[the dane]

Ahh, i remember those days breaking my wifes pizza stones![emoji10]. I see Coles have $8 large and extra large Pizza and chip trays! The perforated type. Never seen them this big before. Was thinking the big one with foil? Even chip tray is square then tapers off, but would be no good for the akorn. But a full oven size tray

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