wrandyr

You will likely have to do some experimenting to get things dialed in, which should be a pleasurable task in itself. I started out with a round cordierite stone (not the KK stone), aiming for 700°F, which was what worked on my previous rig. 700° was too hot, so I went to 600°F. The tops were burning before the bottom crust was done, so I switched to a 1/4" steel. The bottoms burned before the tops were done. Then I tried with the stone on top of the steel-success! 600° for about 5 minutes. I don't even have to turn them. I have a 21"KK, so YMMV. There are lots of more experienced experts here who will have more tips, and there is for sure more than one path to pizza nirvana.

What is not clear to me is how far the sensor would reach into the KK. Chris was surprised by the thickness I measured on mine. I wouldn't think having it just barely peeking through the hole would be ideal.

It is not clear to me if the GGG temperature sensor probe is long enough to work with a KK. Chris indicated that they would be posting dimensional drawings a while ago, but it hasn't happened.

I keep my FireBoaord turned on even when I'm controlling manually. I like to have a log of what I did and what happened as a result, so I can learn a little bit along the way, without having to actually pay much attention in the moment.

I have discovered that putting a pan of water in the KK will drop the temp pretty quickly, at least if it hasn't been heat-soaked for too long.

I don't know about Meater, but the Combustion probes don't have any problems for me.

I just got my 3rd and 4th avocados in 45 years. (Don't grow your tree from the seed.)

Kinda like a basket splitter just for the middle.

This is true, but that does not mean it is useless information. It indicates the temperature the food is actually "feeling" due to it's own evaporative cooling. This opens up an entirely new way of managing a cook. Although not that practical in a KK, you can start with a high "oven" temperature, than dial it back as the cooling cloud around the food dissipates to avoid overshooting the desired internal food temperature.

I have two of the Combustion thermometers. If you lean towards the geeky, they are lots of fun. Users on reddit have reported reliability issues, but it's not clear what percentage of the user base they represent. I did have one go bad and they replaced it right away.

We did pizza last night and I clipped a temperature probe right under the steel. It settled in to an average of about 740°F while the dome was at 600°F, and ran that way for a solid 2 hours before I shut it down. I didn't think to measure the stone. It's hard to estimate how much longer it would have gone by looking at the remaining fuel this morning, but I think the may have been another half hour if I needed it. Another data point.

21", cordierite stone, 600°F. I start the fire, get it to ballpark temperature, which takes an about an hour, add more fuel, the grates, steel, and stone, then let it heat soak another hour or so. The steel and stone are on the upper (as opposed to main) grate with the short handles down, so the stone is slightly above the lip of the KK. I find I can hold the temperature longer with this setup than any other I have tried so far, although I haven't done it enough times to know for how long. I think we are doing pretty much the same thing in principal.

That's very interesting. I found that a stone by itself doesn't get hot enough (top burnt/crust under done), and a baking steel gets too hot (crust burns before the top is done), but if I put the stone right on top of the steel, it's about right. I then manage the fire for the dome temp I want, which has been around 600°F lately. Quite astute.

Why do we believe anything? I'm not going to touch that. . . Probably because it works pretty well. It's hot enough to move things along, but not so hot that the outside gets burned before the inside gets done. There are a couple of thoughts here. The first that comes to mind is that older ovens don't have settings in that fine of increments. My 1950s era gas stove only has marks in 25° steps. One of the things I learned in my brief stint in the world of metrology is that a specification isn't to meaningful without a tolerance, and a measurement isn't too meaningful if you don't know the uncertainty of your measuring instrument. We assume or tools are sufficiently accurate, and mostly they are, but I rather suspect that ∓25° is plenty good enough for most food in an oven. So some of us probably are cooking at 361°, 342°, or 373° and we can't tell the difference. The same goes for time. Also, I think round numbers are just easier to publish and remember, and most recipes come from a time when the available tools were much simpler than what we have access to today.

I have trouble leaving well enough alone, so I stole some doll eyes from my wife's craft supplies and glued them to the buttons. The clear silicone adhesive I tried first failed, but the light grey construction adhesive seems to be holding up ok. It makes the button more visible, too.