Fired up my newly purchased pizza kettle over the weekend. My technique:
Filled 2 briquet baskets half full of lump and put them at the back of the grill. Filled a chimney starter 3/4 of kingsford and fired it up. Once ready, I poured the lit charcoal over the lump, and placed 3 fist-sized chunks of applewood on top.
I put the bottom grate on with the pizza stone, and then put the pizza kettle kit on. To keep the top heat close to the pizza, on top of the kettle kit, I place another grill rack covered with foil and then fire brick like so:
Put the lid on and watched the temp climb well past the 750 degree max reading on the pizza kettle.
I cooked 4 pizzas, each taking about 4-5 minutes. I could have easily done 2-3 more with the same heat. It was pretty cool to see how quickly they cooked - just like a real pizza oven. The only casualty in the process was my pizza stone which clearly was not meant for such high temps:
The stone broke pretty early in the cook, but I still managed to use it for all 4 pizzas by moving the broken pieces next to each other using some very long tongs.
I am considering either a lodge 14" cast iron pizza pan, or a red sky grilling stone (rated to 2300 degrees) as my next upgrade. Any experience with either?
Winz