Pizza Bust

ooh, yeah, sorry about that pizza stone. But, I like that you jumped right into this pizza-in-the-woodstove thing. You're an inspiration.

I like that pizza oven, too. Might have to include something like that when I landscape the yard.

I can't believe I didn't see this thread before dinner. I think I may have to order some pizza for dessert.

How about TWO stones separated by fire bricks on three sides? An oven insert, if you will. I suppose one could even use furnace cement to keep things from falling apart during a critical peeling moment! Get both stones up to temperature, then slide the pizza onto the bottom stone. Upper stone could even have coals placed on top to enhance the heating from the top.

Might have to give it a try myself.

BeGreen said:

We tried cooking pizza for the first time tonight in the wood stove. I let the coals burn down to a level bed, spread them out and put the pizza stone on them. Air control on low. I measured the stone with the IR thermometer 10 minutes later at 446F. Hmmm. Twenty minutes later, ready to put the first pizza on. I set a stopwatch and measured the stone temp - 856F. Getting worried, but folks here say it works great, so here it goes. At 2 minutes, cheese is starting to melt, crust is puffing up. Looking good. Just after 3 min. I notice the crust starting to darken. I took this picture at 3m36s then removed the pizza. Result, beautiful on top, inedible burnt crust on bottom. The second try was at 3 minutes exactly, but it burnt too. So how are folks avoiding getting the stone too hot? (ours has a new crack too now, not too happy.)

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Having the stone sit directly on the coals will over heat the stone as you found out. I have had success by pushing the coals to one side of the fire box and place the pizza stone on the bottom of the stove. You do not need to have a lot of coals, the radiant heat from the top and side of the stove will do most of the work.

good luck

i love cooking pizza on my grill outdoors... it keeps the house cool in the summer

BeGreen said:

Tom, I think you are right on. But I am having a hard time visualizing a pizza stone in an F3 . Have you done this in a bigger stove?

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Correct, the f3 is not deep enough. I have done it in my brother-in-laws buck stove. It is more square. Still it is a tight fit.

homebrewz said:

BeGreen said:

Agreed, this will take something to remove contact between the coals and the stone. Cornmeal is the trick to getting the pizza to slide easily off the peel. That part went very smoothly.

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Woo! Pizza Thread!

I use semolina flour.. its a little harder than corn meal.

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We use semolina also, works great. Alot of pizzas cooked here.

Jeff-t and others Pizza dough Neapolitan recipe: 20.25 oz all purpose flour,.11 oz yeast, .4 oz salt, 14 oz ice cold water.
Combine and mix then knead for 10 minutes. Some dough should stick to the bottom if mixer. I use a Kitchen aid for all of the mixing and kneading. Flour the work surface divide into four balls and wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper. Refrigerate 1-3 days, remove 1 1/2 hours before baking and flatten to 1/2 inch cover. I heat the stone for 30 minutes and use semolina on the peel, What I found really helps is to run a knife under the pizza right before sliding it onto the stone

mcollect said:

Jeff-t and others Pizza dough Neapolitan recipe: 20.25 oz all purpose flour,.11 oz yeast, .4 oz salt, 14 oz ice cold water.
Combine and mix then knead for 10 minutes. Some dough should stick to the bottom if mixer. I use a Kitchen aid for all of the mixing and kneading. Flour the work surface divide into four balls and wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper. Refrigerate 1-3 days, remove 1 1/2 hours before baking and flatten to 1/2 inch cover. I heat the stone for 30 minutes and use semolina on the peel, What I found really helps is to run a knife under the pizza right before sliding it onto the stone

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What kind of yeast do you use? I was always told to use 95°ish water to activate/rehydrate. I buy a one pound package of Red Star. I'll try the cold water next time.

BeGreen said:

Trouble with our trial is that the bottom was cooking long before the top. If I pulled it out when the bottom was perfect, the cheese would have just been starting to melt.

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My wife was working at a NY-style pizza joint when we met, so she throws a mean pie. Living out in the country, we didn't have easy access to good pizza unless she made it, but then the artisan pizza place opened up down at the marina on Saratoga Lake and we go there often. We can walk there and catch a good buzz along with the pizza and not have to worry about driving home. But it is very pricey, so it's a treat rather than a staple for us.

The oven I showed is out in the open, so you can see them prepare and cook the pizza right in front of you. It has an internal air temp of about 800º, but it also has the hot bottom and a radiant top. That means there is conduction from the bottom, convection inside the cavity, and radiant heat on the ceiling to melt the cheese and brown the upper edges of the crust - a baker's Holy Trinity. They use an IR gun to check for hot spots on the bottom and work the pizza constantly with the paddle. Not only was the oven a small fortune, the whole process in much more labor intensive, and that is reflected in the price they have to charge.

The oven has special tiles made from a certain kind of clay that comes from France, I forget what they said it was called. These tiles are supposed to keep a very even heat, and are used in some of the finest baking ovens in the world. The dome is so well insulated that you can touch it with your hand and it will barely feel warm. Even in the heat of summer you can't feel the heat. Only by standing right next to the opening would you even know there was heat in it. And at $15,000+ for the complete install, I don't think any of us are going to get that kind of quality in our stoves.

But, of course, we can try.

thechimneysweep said:

BG,

Try a Big Green Egg Plate Setter. They're made of BGE ceramic and they're thicker than most bread/pizza stones I've seen, so they're less likely to burn the bottom while the toppings are still cooking. Plus, they have built-in legs to pick them up off the coals a bit. Size Medium will fit in your T6. Amazon has them at http://www.amazon.com/Big-Green-Egg-Plate-Setter/dp/B001ETN20Q

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Why is Amazon's photo example dirty? Not exactly a strong selling point. :-/

I think the best way to describe the initial poster's poor results is that you need to bake a pizza, not fry it. Relying only on the bottom-up heat of a pizza stone results in something like what happens when you use a thin bottomed sauce pan over hight heat. It scorches your food. My experience has been that you want a hot stone AND high air temps to cook the pizza from above and below at the same time. Putting a cold stone into a hot oven defeats the purpose of using the stone, and probably results in a flabby crust. If you have a convection oven feature, us it to superheat and circulate the air in your oven. Put the stone in when you turn the oven on and crank it up as high as it will go. Let it heat for as long as your utility bills will allow you to!

As for dough, I have good results with this:

5 cups flour (all purpose is good, substitute some whole wheat if you like....a cup maybe of that)
1/2 cup of corn meal
1/4 cup of olive oil
4 teaspons kosher salt
2 packs of rapid rise yeast
4 cups of cold water

In a stand mixer, put dry ingredients together and turn it on. While it is running, put in the oil, and then the water. Take it out when it starts to stick together and knead the fool out of it until you can strech the dough to see the "widow pane" (i.e., stretches so that you can see light through it.) Put it in a ziplock bag, seal it, and let it double in size, or put it in the fridge overnight. An hour our so before you want to cook it, cut into four equal portions and let it come rise again. Makes four medium sized pies.

Incidentally, you can freeze this dough for long periods, and I've found that it actually improves the texture of it when baked after you do that.

Warm in RI said:

Didn't read every line of every post because cooking isn't my thing, but I showed the wife the first couple of posts and her input was as follows. In her experience with cooking stones, the stone needs to heat up with the pizza, rather that tossing the raw ingredients on a thermo-nuclear hot stone. She is anxious to try cooking something in our stove now. Anyway, sorry if this was already posted. The pizza did look good anyway. Good luck

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I disagree with that strongly. I worked in a pizza joint for 6 years as a kid and you actually avoid spots that were recently occupied by another pizza on the shelf as it was a "cool spot" and the pizza wouldn't cook right. I now cook with a pizza stone and give it plenty of time to heat up, though in the OP's case it was just too hot.

I cooked 10 pizzas on my B'day almost a year ago from scratch and broke my electric oven. We went without for several months... just didn't get around to it.

Battenkiller said:

BeGreen said:

Trouble with our trial is that the bottom was cooking long before the top. If I pulled it out when the bottom was perfect, the cheese would have just been starting to melt.

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My wife was working at a NY-style pizza joint when we met, so she throws a mean pie. Living out in the country, we didn't have easy access to good pizza unless she made it, but then the artisan pizza place opened up down at the marina on Saratoga Lake and we go there often. We can walk there and catch a good buzz along with the pizza and not have to worry about driving home. But it is very pricey, so it's a treat rather than a staple for us.

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Had pizza there a couple of weeks ago and it was fantastic! Can't walk there but it's a quick drive. We'll be sure to get back often.

Adios Pantalones said:

Warm in RI said:

Didn't read every line of every post because cooking isn't my thing, but I showed the wife the first couple of posts and her input was as follows. In her experience with cooking stones, the stone needs to heat up with the pizza, rather that tossing the raw ingredients on a thermo-nuclear hot stone. She is anxious to try cooking something in our stove now. Anyway, sorry if this was already posted. The pizza did look good anyway. Good luck

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I disagree with that strongly. I worked in a pizza joint for 6 years as a kid and you actually avoid spots that were recently occupied by another pizza on the shelf as it was a "cool spot" and the pizza wouldn't cook right. I now cook with a pizza stone and give it plenty of time to heat up, though in the OP's case it was just too hot.

I cooked 10 pizzas on my B'day almost a year ago from scratch and broke my electric oven. We went without for several months... just didn't get around to it.

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Ok, thanks Adios. I'll relay the info to her. She' just got her baking stone last year. She hasn't tried pizza yet but has burned her fair share of things preheating the stone I guess, and has had better results letting the stone heat with the food. Guess pizza is a different animal.

Al

Warm- absolutely- because pizza is thin, it cooks through quickly and the bottom needs extra heat to crisp in a short time. Bread takes longer, so a hot stone would have more time to burn the bottom. There are traditional breads cooked in ovens like this- sometimes directly on the stone and sometimes in pans. I've never baked bread on a stone, but I'll have to think it through now when I build the oven. I'd love to do flatbreads on it though!

Adios Pantalones said:

Warm- absolutely- because pizza is thin, it cooks through quickly and the bottom needs extra heat to crisp in a short time. Bread takes longer, so a hot stone would have more time to burn the bottom. There are traditional breads cooked in ovens like this- sometimes directly on the stone and sometimes in pans. I've never baked bread on a stone, but I'll have to think it through now when I build the oven. I'd love to do flatbreads on it though!

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She just texted me, asking for responses to her suggestion...lol. I'll relay the info to her when she gets home from work. She'll be all over it. Your explanation makes sense. Her thing at the moment is cookies, rolls and biscuits. I have a feeling we'll be trying pizza soon......

Thanks Adios.


Al

While I have nothing to add, I just wanted to say this is a great thread.

u maka me huuungry! looks like pizza it is tonight!

Nice thread! Love the pizza ovens! My FIL has been talking about building one for years now. He has some cobblestones that are going to be used for it as well as some old recycled bricks. He'd be inspired by this thread. I'll have to tell him about it.

We (Super Cedar) start more pizza ovens per year than wood stoves. Thought I wood add that! We are also seeing a increase in demand for the hardwoods to fuel them.
Thomas

This situation is very similar to the first time I tried to cook pizzas on my Big Green Egg. for those not familiar with a BGE, it's a ceramic charcoal grill that looks, well, like a big green egg. The walls are about an inch thick and the thing gets ripping hot. The problem with making pizzas is that your stone can not be exposed to the direct heat of the coals. The first time I made pizza on the Egg, i just put the stone on the metal grill grate and let it rip. Exactly as you experienced, the cheese melted well and the crust puffed up, but it was burnt to heck on the bottom. I checked the BGE instruction manual and it calls for a "plate setter" to be put in, which is essentially a ceramic baffle which prevents the direct heat of the coals from hitting the pizza stone. My next effort included the plate setter and it came out perfectly. You can regulate termperatures perfectly on the Egg which may be quite tricky with a woodstove.

Sorry if I missed it, with the coals burned down do you cook the pizza with the stove door open or closed?

richg said:

This situation is very similar to the first time I tried to cook pizzas on my Big Green Egg. for those not familiar with a BGE, it's a ceramic charcoal grill that looks, well, like a big green egg. The walls are about an inch thick and the thing gets ripping hot. The problem with making pizzas is that your stone can not be exposed to the direct heat of the coals. The first time I made pizza on the Egg, i just put the stone on the metal grill grate and let it rip. Exactly as you experienced, the cheese melted well and the crust puffed up, but it was burnt to heck on the bottom. I checked the BGE instruction manual and it calls for a "plate setter" to be put in, which is essentially a ceramic baffle which prevents the direct heat of the coals from hitting the pizza stone. My next effort included the plate setter and it came out perfectly. You can regulate termperatures perfectly on the Egg which may be quite tricky with a woodstove.

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richg -

Does the BGE recommend pre-heating of this plate setter BEFORE putting it inside the egg?