cschaaf Posted February 24, 2016 Report Share Posted February 24, 2016 I'm hoping to do my burn in this weekend and thought it would be a good opportunity to cook some pizzas. What is your setup for pizza cooks? I have a baking stone on the way, but I don't think it will be here in time. I was thinking about putting the deflector on top of the top grate (with the top grate on top of the main grate). Would it work like that? Or, do I need to top that deflector with some spacers and use my pizza stone on top of those? Setup A (top to bottom): Pizza Deflector Top Grate Main Grate or Setup B (top to bottom): Pizza Pizza Stone Spacers Deflector Top Grate Main Grate Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacKenzie Posted February 24, 2016 Report Share Posted February 24, 2016 I have never done this because I did order the baking stone with my KK but if I hadn't I think I would put heat deflector on the fire basket and then get heat soak the KK to around 500F and put my pizza on a pizza screen as high up in the dome as possible. Warning I have not tried this it is what I would do if I didn't have the baking stone. Just my 2 cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckreef Posted February 24, 2016 Report Share Posted February 24, 2016 I would go no deflector. Heat soak the KK to desired temp for 1 hour with the temp stabiluzed. Then add the pizza stone on the upper grate and heat soak for 30 minutes (assuming a normal pizza stone). Temp will drop when you put the pizza stone on. Don't touch just let it come back up to temp. Cook the pizzas. Charles - Prometheus 16.5", Cassiopeia 19" TT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckreef Posted February 24, 2016 Report Share Posted February 24, 2016 P. S. Using the deflector on the main grate is generally a bad idea - trust me on this one. I'll post my KK disaster details one day. Charles - Prometheus 16.5", Cassiopeia 19" TT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinyfish Posted February 25, 2016 Report Share Posted February 25, 2016 You heard it from the pizza masters above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckreef Posted February 25, 2016 Report Share Posted February 25, 2016 Let me clarify my statement. You said you were doing this during the burn in. I really don't think you want a deflector in place for the burn in. You also said regular store bought stone. Without the deflector in the bottom position you need to be careful about burning the bottom of the pizza on a regular pizza stone. If this wasn't the burn in you would want the deflector in the bottom position using a regular pizza stone. If you were talking about the KK baking stone I would go no deflector regardless of burn in or not. Charles - Prometheus 16.5", Cassiopeia 19" TT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bosco Posted February 25, 2016 Report Share Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) For my pizza cooks on the KK I would just put the upper grate on and use the deflector as a baking stone until your new one comes. It's not like the standard ceramic. I have had great success with my pizza. I also leave the stone in to heat soak it. I don't take the temp past 550 So setup A is how I do it. Edited February 25, 2016 by bosco Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacKenzie Posted February 25, 2016 Report Share Posted February 25, 2016 I want to clarify also, I would not do a pizza cook during the burn in. My suggestion was purely for doing a pizza cook on it's own. As ck mentioned you do need to be careful with store bought pizza stones they have been known to break when used on a grill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cschaaf Posted February 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2016 Got it, thanks! I'll plan something else for the post burn in cook. I have the KJ pizza stone which is pretty good, but to be safe, I'll just wait till my baking stone gets here. It's likely the family would have veto'd the pizzas anyway They don't let me cook them as often as I'd like to. lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bosco Posted February 25, 2016 Report Share Posted February 25, 2016 I accidentally used my deflector for my first pizza cook thinking it was the baking stone lol. Still came out great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
churchi Posted February 26, 2016 Report Share Posted February 26, 2016 How do you guys get your fire started for a pizza cook? Light it well in multiple places? How many coals do you think need to be lit for 550F cooking? I did my first pizza on my 32 this week and it took quite a while to heat soak the KK. I had the whole basket lit and a huge fire going. Not sure if this was the only way to do it, but seemed to take quite a while to get up to temp and at 550F there is a massive fire inside the belly. Would this be normal? Or would you just slowly bring up the temp over an hour or so? i just lit 3-4 places in the basket, opened the top vent wide open and the bottom vent wide open and let it rip. I think my issue was i didnt have all big huge pieces of lump/charcoal, it was smaller pieces, so maybe i didnt get the air flow going properly which is why it took time to hat up. My setup was: full basket --> no heat deflector --> main grill --> then the grill that sits on top of the main grill --> KK pizza stone It was really good fun cooking pizzas, something ill be doing again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinyfish Posted February 26, 2016 Report Share Posted February 26, 2016 I accidentally used my deflector for my first pizza cook thinking it was the baking stone lol. Still came out great I did that too and the pizza came out great too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckreef Posted February 26, 2016 Report Share Posted February 26, 2016 (edited) How do you guys get your fire started for a pizza cook? Light it well in multiple places? How many coals do you think need to be lit for 550F cooking? I did my first pizza on my 32 this week and it took quite a while to heat soak the KK. I had the whole basket lit and a huge fire going. Not sure if this was the only way to do it, but seemed to take quite a while to get up to temp and at 550F there is a massive fire inside the belly. Would this be normal? Or would you just slowly bring up the temp over an hour or so? i just lit 3-4 places in the basket, opened the top vent wide open and the bottom vent wide open and let it rip. I think my issue was i didnt have all big huge pieces of lump/charcoal, it was smaller pieces, so maybe i didnt get the air flow going properly which is why it took time to hat up. My setup was: full basket --> no heat deflector --> main grill --> then the grill that sits on top of the main grill --> KK pizza stone It was really good fun cooking pizzas, something ill be doing again. Lump size won't make a Noticeable difference, I use RO a lot which has mostly smalls. Light it in 2 spots should do. Top vent at 3 turns, bottom vent wide open. (With a wide open top vent you'll get rageing coals quickly but a lot of the heat is blowing out the top vent.) At around 450* close the top vent to 2 turns. At 550* close top vent to 1 1/2 turns and start closing down the bottom vent until it settles at 550*. Let it heat soak for a while after that. 3 turns is the most I ever open my top vent. Charles - Prometheus 16.5", Cassiopeia 19" TT Edited February 26, 2016 by ckreef 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
churchi Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 Cheers thanks Charles, i think thats what i was doing wrong, had the top vent open for most of the cook checked the basked a few days later and damn, heaps of the coal had gone. Burnt through quite a bit. All good learning all the time. Ill have to try the steps above. It totally makes sense that the fire just keeps burning but your not heating up the actual KK much if all the good hot heat is blowing straight out the top. Thanks for the tips. Ill post up my next cook trying this method. cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
