I'm in the early stages of an outdoor kitchen design and have been trying to at least home in on what equipment I'll want at the end of the day. I always figured I'd want a smoker and a propane grill and a pizza oven, however once I stumbled across the KK a year or so ago, I've rethought that. I'd hate to go through the time and expense of building a pizza oven if the KK can make brick oven style pizza. I've seen the numerous tasty pictures of pizza on this forum, so clearly good pizzas come out of the KK. However I know a typical brick pizza oven will run at a dome temp of 750-800 ("pizza hot") to make that "real" 2-3 minute cook pizza. I've read Dennis's post regarding dome temps vs lower grate temps as well as at least one other post here that discussed making pizza at brick oven temps in the KK and had a question. It appears Dennis's temp test was done with just open grates. If the KK were used to do a pizza cook once a week, where I was taking the dome to ~775 or so, but with the pizza stone in there, does anyone think that would facilitate the bottom of the grill getting even hotter than in Dennis's tests? I'm an electrical engineer, so a bit out of my element with thermodynamics, but it seems that getting a ~775 dome temp with a direct unblocked path from the fire to the thermometer would be different than getting a ~775 dome temp with the pizza stone in the grill with the direct radiant energy of the fire blocked from the thermometer. In essence, I'm wondering if it would be safe to regularly use the KK at brick oven pizza temps. I've also considered the fact that with the elevated pizza stone in the KK, the pizza would be closer to the dome surface than in a brick oven, so maybe that puts the effective "pizza hot" dome temperature lower than ~775. Anyway, any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks!!