KP temps for New York style

[eyevandy]

I have the KP with the Baking Steel top. I'm trying a New York style first since that seems more forgiving but I have no idea what temp to shoot for, everything I'm seeing is for neapolitan which just seems like, get it as hot as you can.

My first try was two pies. One hardly cooked at all on top (not enough fire going in the back was my guess), the other one stuck and all I could do was shove it on to the charcoal.

I'm still clueless about how to tell what my upper temp is, as in, are my pizzas going to cook on top? I'm taking the IR temp of the stone, does the KP thermometer next to the door tell me the rest?

[Nate]

650 should be a good temp. You can see a little vid in my post here of bubbling cheese. http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/pizza-forum/the-final-piece-to-my-kp-puzzle/
The temp was 650ish.

[MikeRocksTheRed]

If you run into issues where your top isn't cooked enough but the crust is done, assuming you have a metal peel, you can put the pizza on the peel then hold it as high as you can in the grill.  This is called "doming".  Usually as long as my gauge on my KP is above 550 I don't seem to have problems but prefer to be closer to 650.  Having some wood in the back of the grill so that you have flames licking up the back seems to be the key to the top cooking fast enough.

[Troy]

If you run into issues where your top isn't cooked enough but the crust is done, assuming you have a metal peel, you can put the pizza on the peel then hold it as high as you can in the grill.  This is called "doming".  Usually as long as my gauge on my KP is above 550 I don't seem to have problems but prefer to be closer to 650.  Having some wood in the back of the grill so that you have flames licking up the back seems to be the key to the top cooking fast enough.

THIS

Temps are on. anywhere between 550 and 650 seems to be perfect for a new york style.
@Jason and I cranked out 7 pies today just to run some experiments.

[eyevandy]

So how do you set up your fuel to hit a lower target like that? Also do you guys put any charcoal under the stone?

[MikeRocksTheRed]

So how do you set up your fuel to hit a lower target like that? Also do you guys put any charcoal under the stone?

Here is a quick drawing of my setup I did a few months ago.  I actually use a little less under the stone these days.  So move the random coals in the pic to the area bewteen the baskets and you have my current setup that I use.  This is for a pretty hot setup though, so not exactly the answer to your question.  Although after a few pies my temps usually start falling a bit and require more wood to kick it back up.  Not adding more wood would probably give you a lower temp, but I'm not sure the top would cook good if you don't have flames licking up the back of the kettle.  So probably following my instructions in the link below...I usually use a full lit chimeny of KBB, then at least another 3/4 of an unlit chimney, let that get going then add wood chunks.  If you used a little under half of an unlit chimney that would probably be pefect for lower temps, then you can still add wood chunks to get some nice flames going.
http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/pizza-forum/pizza-help!/msg206114/#msg206114