Homemade Pizza

[begreen]

A friend just got a new gas grille and he made a couple of pizzas on Sunday with it. They we're slightly charred on the bottom, but came out quite good. I was inspired to try this at home using our Weber gas grill for pizza. We have been cooking pizza in our oven, but it does not get hot enough without me worrying about frying the electronics, so the crust is not perfect. The gas grill can easily get up to 550 and the stone would be hotter over direct heat. I will use the IR thermometer to determine how hot it gets.

Has anyone had good success with this method? Any tips?

 

[begreen]

PS: He also showed me Weber's Big Book of Grilling. It's chock full of interesting recipes. I just ordered a copy.

PPS: This year the flavor bars completely rotted out on our grille and so did the little shield tabs on the burner connector. I have to say that working with Weber's customer service has been great. There was mix-up on my order and they bent over backward to make it right and then checked up later to make sure I was happy. Great communication and service on their part.

 

[ABMax24]

I've never tried pizza on the BBQ, our gas oven goes up to 550F reliably and have just used that for pizza.

I think on a BBQ you'd want to try and limit radiant heat to the bottom of the pizza stone, I'd run the burners furthest away from the stone on max and keep the burners under the stone on low. I believe this is what would have caused the charred crust you experienced.

For recipes the Napoleon website also has quite a few good ones.

 

[Prof]

We tend to like thin crust pizzas. Given that, we have been using the grill to cook pizzas on tortillas for a couple years now--they are actually our go-to for guests because we can do so many variations in minimal time. I also have a friend who does a more involved method with a sour dough crust. He lined the top of his grill with fire brick and gets the brick up to about 500F before cooking. He makes some amazing pizzas on the grill too!

 

[moresnow]

Huge Weber fan here! However my weber's are all charcoal kettle grills. 2 at home, one at the cabin. My LP grill days were over years ago. No more fixy grill. Over and over. Nope. My opinion only. No offense to those still using them.

I am actually going to try a pizza on our GMG pellet grill one of these days. Supposedly excellent as well. Can only imagine. Everything else has been.

In the mean time we have been using our Hamilton Beach XL convection oven out on our picnic table. I have a problem baking in the house with the A/C turned on..... Unbelievable results with the XL. We use pre-made crust. Olive oil both sides before loading ingredient's. Cook directly on the grill grate with the drip pan below. Best pizza's we've ever made hands down. Last night we used mini Naan bread for crust. Basically personal pan sized pizza's. Came out perfect. Light crispy/crunchy edge's with fully cooked light fluffy center. We just can't get these results in the oven indoors. Not even close.
Smelling our pizza cook while we lounged in the pool with a cold spirit was perfect last night. Made my work stressed wife very happy
My 2 cents!
We also only use our own homeade pizza sauce from our gardening.

 

[SpaceBus]

I bought a tiny terra cotta wood burning oven online last year for $75 and it makes awesome pizzas when you get the hang of it. Admittedly it only makes personal sized pizzas, but they are very good. I've also made strombolis, calzones, tortillas, and naan bread in the terra cotta oven as well. Instead of laying the pizzas on the bottom of the oven I use a large round cast iron flat griddle that fits perfectly inside the wood oven. My electric oven also doesn't do a great job with the pizza either, the wood burning oven works very well, but it's hard to brown things with it.

 

[Highbeam]

We need some pics in this thread! Here’s the pan take and bake pizza we like to cook on my Englander pellet grill. I’ve been low carb all year so no pizza but it’s good. Oh and no stone. We prefer the perforated aluminum pans.

 

[semipro]

I've been thinking about trying the method below. The dough/crust is cooked directly on the grill first and then toppings are added and its put back on the grill to finish.

 

[festerw]

Somebody say pizza? We do ours usually with premade crusts since it's easy for weeknights.

Grill temp of 225, stone temp hits 650ish. Usually 2-3 minutes, turn 180 and repeat.

Hard to beat 3 pizzas in about 30 minutes included heating time.

 

[SpaceBus]

I've been thinking about trying the method below. The dough/crust is cooked directly on the grill first and then toppings are added and its put back on the grill to finish.

I've "pre-baked" a crust before, but usually just for five or so minutes if using an indoor oven.

 

[wjohn]

My dad does this on a charcoal grill. As I recall it took some experimentation and he wound up with something along the lines of that America's Test Kitchen video. He puts it directly on the grill and I think adds the toppings a little later. I'll have to ask. Whatever he does, it's excellent.

I will second tortilla crust pizzas. I haven't tried them on the grill, but they're so quick to do in a pinch, and I'd rather have them than takeout (and they're much cheaper).

 

[EbS-P]

So I have done it a couple different ways. For me it’s always a struggle to get the top cooked without burning the bottom. finding the right thickness of stone/ bricks to moderate the flame heat is the key. I think a double layer of pizza stones with a small air gap is perfect.

This is cheap grill top pizza oven I use on a wok burner. It’s just faster that way. I have a small heat shield that keeps flames off the bottom of the oven. It’s not super amazing but it works. a dedicated wood oven is my future I think.

 

[begreen]

I've never tried pizza on the BBQ, our gas oven goes up to 550F reliably and have just used that for pizza.

Our fancy convection oven can do it, but the electronics sit above the oven. We used the self-clean feature once which gets super hot and lost some digits in the display so now we keep it to no higher than 425º. This is our winter solution. It makes a decent pizza, mostly because of quality ingredients and homemade tomato sauce, but the crust is not perfect. This is the recipe we have been using, though we use cornmeal under the pizza to prevent sticking to the stone.

Thin-Crust Pizza

This simple (yet delicious) ultra-thin-crust pizza features a simple topping of tomato sauce, garlic, and cheese.

www.kingarthurbaking.com

And this is the recipe that my friend used on his grill. They have sourdough starter which we do not have yet.

Sourdough Pizza Crust

A chewy, flavorful crust, using sourdough starter, perfect with any type of topping.

www.kingarthurbaking.com

 

[begreen]

I've been thinking about trying the method below. The dough/crust is cooked directly on the grill first and then toppings are added and its put back on the grill to finish.

I was reading about that method for thin crust pizza that was written by an expert.

 

[EbS-P]

I will second tortilla crust pizzas. I haven't tried them on the grill, but they're so quick to do in a pinch, and I'd rather have them than takeout (and they're much cheaper).

Naan bread works great too if you want a little more bread. But really if you have a bread machine and a by weight dough recipe it’s pretty fast.

my parents have the family‘s antique dough box. I think a 50# flour recipe would be a fun time for everyone. It freezes in balls quite well.

Evan

 

[begreen]

my parents have the family‘s antique dough box. I think a 50# flour recipe would be a fun time for everyone. It freezes in balls quite well.

I just saw one of these for sale locally. They look like they would be good for making bread for a whole community.

 

[EbS-P]

I just saw one of these for sale locally. They look like they would be good for making bread for a whole community.

So the story goes bread was made weekly for the family. My grandfather was born 1908 and had 3 other siblings. I would like to have seen all the loaf pans they had. They had a farm near Downingtown Pa. they still used horses when he was a boy.

Pizza night in our house is up 1.2kg of flour.

 

[clancey]

Yea those people in those days made it sound so simple and easy to do for they had quite a system of how to do it --making it seem so easy..You go to visit--they say--hey I put a bun on for you..or something like that--I remember as a child or lets have a crawler or something and it appears in what seems like a second... I do like that thin crust pizza one and might try that down the road...they can take that green thing off of it...lol clancey

 

[bert670]

Been doing it for a while, and always making slight changes to get it better. So far my preferred method is roll out the pizza dough, toss some corn meal on the hot pizza stone (grill at about ~500 f), toss the dough on for a few min, just enough to cook the down side. Then I flip it over and add my ingredients to the the partially cooked side. Comes out great. Highly recommend a caramelized fig, bleu cheese and prosciutto pie, finished with a little balsamic glaze.

 

[begreen]

We tend to like thin crust pizzas. Given that, we have been using the grill to cook pizzas on tortillas for a couple years now--they are actually our go-to for guests because we can do so many variations in minimal time. I also have a friend who does a more involved method with a sour dough crust. He lined the top of his grill with fire brick and gets the brick up to about 500F before cooking. He makes some amazing pizzas on the grill too!

Hmmm, our grill has a curved lid. This has me thinking about somehow lining it with kaowool, but it would need to be sealed with a sheet of metal to hold it in place, make it cleanable, and avoid the risk of any fibers dropping.

 

[EbS-P]

Hmmm, our grill has a curved lid. This has me thinking about somehow lining it with kaowool, but it would need to be sealed with a sheet of metal to hold it in place, make it cleanable, and avoid the risk of any fibers dropping.

Can you insulat the outside of the lid. I’ve done this when smoking in my grill.

 

[begreen]

So I have done it a couple different ways. For me it’s always a struggle to get the top cooked without burning the bottom. finding the right thickness of stone/ bricks to moderate the flame heat is the key. I think a double layer of pizza stones with a small air gap is perfect.

This is cheap grill top pizza oven I use on a wok burner. It’s just faster that way. I have a small heat shield that keeps flames off the bottom of the oven. It’s not super amazing but it works. a dedicated wood oven is my future I think.
View attachment 281091

Who makes that little unit? I have a crab pot burner that would work for it.

I also was looking at this little pellet-fired pizza oven. $199 on Amazon.

 

[EbS-P]

Looks like an ooni. Not priced like one. One review said it took 15 minutes between pizzas to get back up to temp. I was already to spend 400$ Until I realized I would be baking for well over an hour.

Pizza Ovens | Ooni Pizza Ovens

From wood-fired flavor to gas-powered reliability, Ooni's range of portable outdoor pizza ovens means great pizza in your backyard or beyond.

ooni.com

 

[begreen]

Looks like an ooni. Not priced like one. One review said it took 15 minutes between pizzas to get back up to temp. I was already to spend 400$ Until I realized I would be baking for well over an hour.

Pizza Ovens | Ooni Pizza Ovens

From wood-fired flavor to gas-powered reliability, Ooni's range of portable outdoor pizza ovens means great pizza in your backyard or beyond.

ooni.com

Yes, I looked the OONI too. I saw that at the HPBA show. It gets high marks. I noticed a big difference in reported heat up times for several models. One reviewer summed it up. Leave the door closed. If one does that it seems to retain the heat pretty well.

I'm currently looking at this one too, gas-fired. I like that it can be used indoors or out.

Portable Table Top Pizza Oven — Mont Alpi

www.montalpionline.com

 

[begreen]

Can you insulat the outside of the lid. I’ve done this when smoking in my grill.

Hmm, that's a thought.