Newbie Q: using a designated pizza stone inside a pizza oven...

[ogopogodude]

Hello, .. here is a newbie topic (from a guy who has only made one pizza so far in his newly made oven): ... after making the fire, & pushing all the hot embers, coals, still-on-fire wood logs, to the back or preferably to the side of the oven dome .. can one use a pizza stone (mine is round, as in picture) to put pizza on top, .. ?
This is kinda a "cleanliness" question related to not getting crap on the underside of the pizza... In my mind, I was thinking of placing the stone on it's side (because it fits nicely thru the oven door) and propping it up on the inside of the dome, .. doing my fire, .. then after a 1/2 hour to and hour, .. gently manipulating the pizza stone down onto its flat surface .. then putting the pizza on top ..
This way, the stone is all heated up so there won't be possibility of heat cracking the stone etc (as opposed to putting the cold .. or better said .. room temperature stone into the already heated up pizza oven dome.

[ogopogodude]

In the picture, .. ignore the metal aluminum 'carrier' pan, as well as the hockey stick that I cut off the blade (so I can duct tape this hockey stick to the short peel and make a crude long shafted peel)....

[JRPizza]

Most if not all of the WFO owners I have seen just bake directly on the floor, as do I. The floor can be adequately cleaned using a blow tube or performing a "peel slap". For me, the hassle of manipulating a hot pizza stone in a hot oven then being constrained to that small area to cook on would not be worth the trouble

[david s]

I had the same idea when I built my first oven. But I placed the pizza stone in the oven and built the fire over it. The thing cracked right down the middle so never got to see how it would work. A blow pipe removes all of the ash so cooking directly on the floor is the way to go. Wood ash is tasteless anyhow.

[Dyerema]

Ogo. I baked up my first 15 pizzas on the oven floor and it went real well. I think the pizza stone would be ok, but also unnecessary. The floor can be cleaned, likely better than I did, but all 20 guests who ate by pizza were extremely happy. The stone is just one more moving part that you likely don’t need. That is my newbie to newbie comment. Cheers

[Les]

EVERY pizzeria (that I've seen) that uses wood, coal or gas, cook on the brick. I just use a brush to sweep the dust to the back - no complaints. In regard to cleanliness, nothing cleans like fire. ;-)

[ogopogodude]

Yeah .. I kinda figured I would get answers like this, ... as a pizza stone would be a bit of a dorky thing to use. I think that I will just have it around (at first) if one of my young adult kids get the jeebies about putting a pizza directly on the firebrick floor... I bought this pizza stone years ago even before I knew what an outdoor pizza oven was... and I had intentions of using it in my double oven in my kitchen. It is just an inch too big in diameter so I never did use it .... (the oven door simply wouldn't close all the way because of this ...)