Infrared thermometer on a pizza stone

[james]

Has anyone ever put an Infrared gun on a pizza stone in a conventional oven?

I am going to give it a try, and wondered what to expect. My plan is to test a couple of different stones after they have been in the oven for various time periods and cooking conditions. It should be interesting to see what happens.

Let me know if there is anything specific you think I should test.

James

[BarbaraC]

Re: Infrared thermometer on a pizza stone

I have, it has been a while. I will test mine next firing.

[james]

Re: Infrared thermometer on a pizza stone

Hi Barbara,

In the end, I did my test, and the results are here. Still, I have never done a gas grill or a Weber kettle with charcoal. That would be good to see.

The big questions are how hot, and how fast do you get there.
James

http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza-ston...rformance.html

[BarbaraC]

Re: Infrared thermometer on a pizza stone

O.K. When I test the BBQ, I will keep full documentation for you, including the outdoor temp, because it makes a difference when you BBQ in how fast your fire comes up and how hot it is.

I have an IR thermometer so I will do the data scientifically for you.

The stone I have is a William Sonoma rectangle bread stone which is a good size and thick. I used it in my gas oven before I remodeled my kitchen and I was happy with it. Now I have a new use, I was going to give it away but I will use it for BBQ pizza.

[Johnny L]

Re: Infrared thermometer on a pizza stone

I had the 15 x 20" stone from Forno Bravo at the bottom of my oven and a
16" round stone on the top rack today. After an hour the stone temp was measured at 586.5 degrees.
I try to let my little Hotpoint oven heat up for at least an hour so that there is some reserve heat when cooking multiple pizzas.
Today I used the Caputo recipe that came with the flour and I divided it into three dough balls to rest in the fridge overnight.
My cooking time at this temperature was approx. 6 minutes.
By using certain recipes, times and heats as a guideline it helps when I make minor changes to see the effects.
Note- when I first cracked the oven door my Infrared thermometer was at 600 degrees. It only took seconds for the heat to fall off.
I couldn't see this with any other measuring device that I know of.

[james]

Re: Infrared thermometer on a pizza stone

Hi John,
Do you think your pizzas are good? Getting better?

I have one thought on the heat in your stones. Can you check the temperature at the top and the bottom of the stone? My question is whether it is heated all the way through after an hour. I would guess that it is; but it would be interesting to check.

When you bake multiple pizzas, do you just keep going -- with each pizza taking a little longer than the one before, or you try to give the stone a few minutes to reheat?
James

[Johnny L]

Re: Infrared thermometer on a pizza stone

Hi James,

The pizzas have been good and are gettting better. Partially because of the great ingredients that I have been using.

Last Sunday my stone peaked out at 586 degrees after about an hour and there was a 15 minute rest time between pizza #2 & #3. I used your Caputo flour recipe and my dough weight was between 11-12 oz for a 12-14" pizza. The only additional topping was mushrooms.

Someone (with experience) told me to use Wisconsin Mozz cheese because of the browning I was getting on top of my pizzas. I used Grande whole milk, low moisture Mozz cheese Sunday with great results.

The stone is at the bottom of the oven because my dough and toppings are cooking at about the same time. I understand that if your toppings are cooking slower than your dough, you need to raise your stone in the oven. Since I'm at the bottom of the oven, it would be difficult to measure the heat from the bottom of the stone.

I will record the rest times and heat after each rest and share my findings with you.

John