First pizza attempt - pretty happy.

[Pcuezze]

Not a perfect pizza, but pretty good first attempt I think!  I cooked 4 pizzas at 525-550.  That was a little to hot.  I’d probably go down to 450 next time to avoid the gum line and get more top bake.  
 

This was a New York style dough (fwiw, I owned an independent pizzeria for nearly a decade so I have some experience) made with All Trumps High Gluten flour, yeast, water, Salt and olive oil.  It was cold fermented for 24 hours and proofed for another 2 hours at room temp.  
 

problem #1 was my failure to clean the deflector plate after the past 10 smokes.  The high temperature fire I made for pizza caused a 30 minute burn off that stunk up my porch and overshot my temperature by a lot.  Once it settled down, It worked out great.  
 

problem #2 was the size of my dough ball.  I used enough for an 18” pizza and stretched it to only 16”.  So it was to thick to begin with.  When i dropped my first pie on the grill I realized my steel was only 14.5” ....ugh.  So the pizza is substantially thicker than it should have been.  This caused a gum line.

 

On a positive side, the crust was nice and crispy and the smoke was just subtle enough.  
 

I’lol be doing this more often as I was really pleased with the first effort. 
 

thanks as usual to all the advice on this forum!

 

Patrick C

[keeperovdeflame]

Well Sir, even with the issues you mention, that is a really  nice looking pie. Good Job weather it is your 1st or your 101'st pie.  With it's thickness it's almost a bruschetta, probably chewy good. I have a number of dedicated pizza stones. I use two  stone separated by an air space, in my set up and rotate the dirty stone to the bottom position face down when I cook pizza. That way, I always have a nice white clean stone for the next cook. I use 14" stones and make 12" pies. Here is a pic of my set up, It's basically the set up John uses, and it works really well.  I use some kiln blocks I bought on Amazon to create the air space. 

[fbov]

Kamados are marvelously flexible, and you've found a set-up that works quite well. My only suggestion is to raise the pie for more top browning. A good heat soak at your desired temp will get the dome ceramic nice and hot. You can then adjust the top-to-bottom cooking time by moving the pie up (if the bottom's dark) or down (if the top's too dark). 

 

I like 3-4 minutes at a 750-800F cook temp with the pizza stone on top of the KJ extension rack. No problem with lower temps and doughs to match, but I'd still go higher... that pepperoni just wants a tan!

 

Have fun,

Frank

Edited December 21, 2019 by fbov