Anyone ever made Weber Grill Pizza on a Stone? Pizza Stone Baking Discuss Anyone ever made Weber Grill Pizza on a Stone? in the Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart forums; I'm eagerly awaiting someone to chime in on the granite, too.......

[Groves]

I'm eagerly awaiting someone to chime in on the granite, too....

[larrya1049]

I cook my pizza's on a stone in my Webber gas grill now and have been doing it that way for years. The pizza turns out much better than in our oven. I got the pizza stone as a gift. I think that you could buy some fire bricks and lay them on the grate and cook the pizza on there. They are cheap at around 1.20 each. I think granite would crack.

Regards
Larry

[Alfio's]

Big fan of firebrick splits. Cheap, versatile. I'd try granite if someone gave me a slab, but agree that it might crack especially if not heated to temp very slowly.

[Stan]

I've used granite in a Weber. I've cracked granite in a Weber. It heats up well, but the grill just goes too fast.

Stan

[heliman]

I was wondering about this very topic recently - and was in fact asked by someone if it would work. My thinking is that the BBQ is indeed capable to get the stone up to a reasonable cooking tempertature, but the minute the hood is opened all the heat escapes and the cooking chamber would need to heat up again to do a proper job of cooking the pizza.

This is pretty much the same as for an electric oven though I try to keep the door opening process to a minimum. The pizza is checked for slidability, corners are placed on the loading board so it only takes a quick flick to position it on the stone.

From what I gather, uniform heat is a key ingredient that goes in to making a good pizza. It would seem that the delay in getting the heat back up on a BBQ would mean a longer cooking time with a risk of overcooking/drying out the base.

I see some pretty good results posted here so it looks like a good pizza bake is definitely possible. I would be keen to hear how BBQ pizzaiolas address the hood heat loss issue though.

Rossco

[TheFreemason]

I'm seeing all this stuff on the Little Black Egg, which looks really good.

How comparable is this to the Weber?

Secondly, I'm just going to try the Forno Bravo dough recipe and I'm wondering if anyone is modifying their dough recipe based on the heat levels they are exposing it to a grill.

[Stan]

I recently saw a pizza stone somewhere that was designed for Weber grills. It was a circle that had a flat side cut onto it for air circulation above the pizza. It was a fairly thick pizza stone; it was probably something like cordierite. Buying a cordierite kiln shelf and cutting a flat side into it with a masonry saw might not be a bad way to experiment.

As to the Egg, I've heard lots of people melt their gaskets when trying to get it up to a sustainable pizza temp.

As for dough, I've never used a higher hydration than when cooking in a WFO. Frankly, I'd be amazed if you could get any kind of grill near the sustained heat of a WFO. Cooking with fire next to the pizza is a different world than cooking with the fire under the pizza.

Stan

[heliman]

It appears that the egg man is using a gas version of the Webber. Mine uses heat beads to drive it. Probably not as reliable as gas though for maintaining the heat.

[md.guthrie]

I use a forno stone in my big green egg and it works great. I can maintain 600 degrees and the pizza takes 3 to 4 minutes depending on the toppings....It's not a wfo but will do until I build my oven....My key to success ids the stone. The regular stones would crack if the temperature exceeded 500 degrees......

[Nabber86]

I have had a Big Green Egg for many years, plus a Weber Smokey Mountain, and a really big wood burning off-set smoker. Any of them can do a decent pizza in the following order (from best to worse):

1- Big Green Egg (almost as good as a wood-fired pizza oven)
2 - Weber Smokey Mountain (without the water pan)
3 - Off-set smoker

No matter what apparatus you use, the real trick is to loose the expensive yuppy "pizza stone" and use thin fire bricks (the ones that are about 1.5 inches thick) to line the cooking surface. It's all about getting the proper thermal mass to cook the crust.