got a weber bbq on black friday for pizza making - need a stone that will withstand shit hot! whats good?
Any of the right diameter will do.
will it not get too hot for conventional ones
No. A BBQ is unlikely to ever get above 250-350C. Pizza stones are good to well over this temp (600C plus). We just got a £10-15 one from Amazon or a random outlet. I used it a lot this year. Ours is a gas BBQ (Fuego pedestal thing with a lid like a weber). One thing I am considering doing is fitting a baffle plate to the lid so that more heat is directed onto the top of the pizza. Get yourself some decent strong flour, some yeast and polenta and have a ball! Home made pizza is the best!
i use caputo fiore glut flour as my wife is coeliac
Big ceramic floor tile here, cut into an octagon shape, and some stainless brackets inside to have the stone sitting level with the opening on the pizza ring - again a home made stainless affair.
I picked a normal oven one from a charity shop for a fiver, works a treat.
Get yourself a paddle too!
Any that will fit is in the answer, as has ben said. A good tip on any barbecue being used as a pizza oven, gas or charcoal, is to put a couple of layers of foil between the stone and the heat source (if it's underneath the stone). Otherwise the stone gets heated directly and becomes mega hot. You wanted it heated from above, from the heat circulating around inside the oven. If that makes sense?
Another tip is to lookup local stonemasons and see if they have any off cuts. I got mine for free that way, big slab of granite that's lasted years. Works a treat in the kitchen oven too.
I’ve just finished cooking about 15 pizzas for our anual basqueMTB team meeting on my gas BBQ. I have the Broilking stone and it’s great. It really crisps up the base and feels good and heavy. It was €36, not sure if that is cheap or expensive.
Will something like this get much better results than just a stone, on top of a charcoal BBQ?
The 'official' Weber pizza stone came free with our BBQ. Works just fine, and sits neatly in the slot, but it seems to be impossible to clean (so I don't really bother).
A pizza steel is better than a pizza stone. More expensive but the tests I've seen give better results.
Rene - as in just a plate of steel, or something like in my post above?
Any opinions on using a charcoal BBQ for pizza, rather than a gas BBQ? Most reviews I see seem to use gas.
Charcoal BBQ is fine for pizza, and the stone doesn't need to be anything special.
The scout troop I lead had a great evening the other month cooking pizzas on a range of BBQs (a Weber kettle, a 'normal' charcoal BBQ and a folding travel BBQ), using 'stones' made of foil-wrapped cardboard, and a version of the oven Duane linked too made from a copier-paper box wrapped in foil.
It can be hard to get the heat needed on a Charcoal BBQ, also, avoid direct heat, arrange the coal in a horseshoe around the edge of the BBQ then keep the stone central.
Any stone does the job, as for cleaning it, a bit of a scrape is all that is needed. It gets hot enough to kill anything that could be considered a problem on it!
I’ve got no experience of charcoal but with the gas it’s cool because you can change the amount of direct heat, which crisps the base, and indirect which seems to do the toppings more. I’m sure you can do the same by moving the coals about as suggested above.