Gagg Pizza, Strike 2

A couple of weeks ago, I shared about our first use of the special Gaggenau pizza stone and element.  We weren't overly thrilled with the result... Nicely to overly brown tops, but underdone crust.  

I thought that using a 550 degree setting was too high, so planned to try a lower setting next time.  I thought would require longer baking time, and maybe give the bottoms long enough to cook through before the tops got too brown.

So this week, I tried heating the stone to 550 degrees, but when I put in the pizzas, I turned the oven down to 450.

I apologize for the less-than-stellar phone photos!
One of the kids had my camera elsewhere that evening.

At 9 minutes, the top on the first one looked nice, but I checked the underside and it was still white.  I cooked that one for 3 more minutes, and it was doughy.

The next ones I cooked for 15 minutes.  The tops got VERY brown, but the crusts never got golden brown.



























I am disappointed.  I'm not sure where to go from here.

I wish I could turn the fan off in this mode, and only bake the pizzas with the use of the element under the stone.  I could do as I've done before and use the mode that uses only the lower oven element and no fan.  But that defeats the purpose of having the special element that tucks in just under the stone, so I want to look into this further.  

I think I'll contact the distributor and see if they have further advice, and I'll update you as there is more news.