How to cook pizza on your BBQ - Pictures! Pizza Stone Baking Discuss How to cook pizza on your BBQ - Pictures! in the Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart forums; Matt, Do you have an IR thermometer? It really helps to know the temp of the stone. I don't know ...

[BarbaraC]

Matt,
Do you have an IR thermometer? It really helps to know the temp of the stone. I don't know if it would help, but the double stone technique by Villa roma may help you. Check out the other thread.

[Aimless Ryan]

I've been experimenting with this for quite some time now & believe it or not, I'm finding that my stone gets to hot. Within a minute or so of being on the stone, the bottom of the pizza is burnt while top is still very light. After shaping my pizzas I remove any excess flour but am finding that once it hits the stone it burns immediately. Your pizzas look fantastic. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

A lot of it depends on the grill you use.

I have two gas grills available to choose from, and I get very different results depending on which grill I use. With the grill I use most frequently, I don't even fire it up until I've already stretched my dough because the stone gets really hot really fast. (Sounds like your grill.) Additionally, this grill provides very little top heat, so it's always an adventure. You really have to know what you're doing to make pizza in this grill.

The other grill is less of an adventure. It doesn't get nearly as hot, and it requires less skill to produce an edible pizza. It does make a very good pizza (compared to the electric oven in the house), but not necessarily a memorable pizza. Honestly, I can't remember exactly how it behaves because I haven't used it in a couple years.

I almost always peel my pizzas onto the stone, but with the first grill I described (the hot one), I occasionally use a screen. I really don't like using screens, but this method gives the top of the pizza a chance to cook.

I think the most important factor in learning how to make great pizza in different ovens is experience. Just like with anything else--bowling, football, musical instruments, math, etc.--you need to practice to improve (or to gain knowledge). Obsession helps, too.

Ryan

[Thom]

I know this is an old thread but I've been cooking pizza's on my grill for almost a year now. Over that time I have used 3 different grills. I had a similar experience as Ryan with my hot grill. I found that putting the pizza stone on a layer of 1" fire brick helps.

Thom

[Aimless Ryan]

A gas grill trick I've learned within the last year: Cover the bottom of the stone with aluminum foil. Foil reflects heat and keeps the stone from getting too hot. With this trick, there's no need to use a screen; you can peel the skin directly onto the stone, just like you would in an oven. I've had amazing results since I started doing this.

[stoveup]

I'm glad Thom revived this thread. My experience on the grill (aka BBQ outside the U.S.A.) has been like Matthew's - stone too hot, instantly burns bottom of pizza to a crisp while the top hasn't even gotten warm. Heating the stone to a lower temp saves the burning, but the top takes forever to cook because the grill loses all of its heat while it's open for loading the pizza. Even turning all of the burners to high as soon as the pizza is in doesn't work. And the pizza sucks .

I don't have an infrared unit on my grill. I wonder if I can retrofit one, but mount it in the top so it will be directly over the pizza...hmmmm

[Karangi Dude]

Hi Guys,

I had great success with my BBQ instead of the stone I used 4 fire brick splits from my wood heater (they work a lot better than the pizza stone).
I place them on the grill in the middle (I only use the single grill I take the rest out, that way they don't block the heat from rising and circulating around the oven) and light all 4 burners and put the lid down until the bricks are hot about 30mins, I then turn down the 2 burners under the bricks to about halfway but leave the outside burners on full and leave it about 10mins while I prep the pizza.
The cooking time is about 3 to 4mins the results well see for yourself

[Thom]

Hi Doug,

Those are some nice looking pizza's. :-) 3-4 min is really fast. What grill do you have? BTU's?

Thom

[stoveup]

Nice Pizzas, Doug. It's no surprise that you have already tried this and worked out a solution.

It seems like there is a fairly delicate temperature balance between the temperature of the stone/bricks and the heat output of the grill itself while the pizza is cooking. That balance is likely to vary widely from one grill/stone setup to another and simply has to be worked out by experimenting with various techniques and timing.

Your solution works beautifully and provides excellent guidance. Thanks for sharing it.

Bob

[Karangi Dude]

Thanks Bob and Thom,

Thom sorry I can't find out what btu's the burners are but the brand of BBQ is an Australian made Beefeater 4 burner.

Bob yes there is a balance between the bricks and the output of the burners, the thing I notice is that you must get the bricks hot first then use the 2 outside burners to create as much heat as possible to circulate over the top of the pizza.
I played around cooking pizza in my kitchen oven and BBQ for a couple of years before I built my WFO. I started with 6 house bricks in the BBQ but they took ages to heat up (a lot of gas wasted) the results not to bad but the top of the pizza was taking to long to cook, next my Wife bought me a pizza stone so I tried that in the kitchen oven but not enough heat IMO next the pizza stone in the BBQ but I found that it was to hard to get the balance of the heat of the stone they are not vary forgiving to me there is not enough mass. I also tried clay tiles, pavers and a solid piece of cast iron to no avail.
Then one spring I was cleaning out the wood heater and noticed the fire brick splits around the edge of the heater and thought I will give them a try, a quick clean and started the tests to find out the best result. I used them for 6 months until we needed to use the heater again by that time I had built the WFO. What I came up with was the best I could do with a BBQ for pizza and I think the results are pretty good, so much so my wife said why build a pizza oven and I said I was building a WFO not pizza oven as you can cook many many things in WFO not just pizza.
Bob the couple of years playing around with the BBQ and Kitchen Oven making pizza gave me lots of experience in making dough and how to handle the pizza making side of it (not just the cooking) so by the time I had my WFO finished I was already up to speed with the pizza making side of things all I had to do was learn my WFO's temperatures