Pizza Oven on the Grill: How to Get a Crispy Crust

Baking pizza on the grill is one of the most fun things you can do with really high heat. This article started out as my test of Weber’s pizza oven back in 2013. After a few attempts I began to understand what actually makes the biggest difference: plenty of heat, a pizza stone that’s heated all the way through, and control over where the heat comes from.

The principles still hold, whether you use a pizza oven attachment on a kettle grill or some other setup with a pizza stone.

How Hot Should It Be When You Bake Pizza on the Grill?

For this kind of thin pizza you want a much higher temperature than for ordinary grilling. In my original test I aimed for over 572°F.

The exact temperature depends on the dough, the stone, and the pizza oven. The hotter the stone and the heat from above, the faster the bake. What matters is that the bottom and the top finish at about the same time.

Back then I used a full chimney starter of charcoal briquettes plus extra fuel to build proper heat. Today I’d focus above all on fuel placement: follow the instructions for your grill and pizza oven attachment, and keep intense glowing coals away from plastic parts and other heat-sensitive components.

I learned that the hard way when the plastic rollers on the lid holder of my grill actually melted. The gear is there to be used, but it doesn’t need to be sacrificed for no reason.

Heat the Pizza Stone Properly

The most common mistake is that the grill feels hot but the stone is still too cold. Then you end up with a finished topping and a pale, soft bottom.

In my test I let the pizza oven run for about 30 minutes before the first pizza. Think of that as a starting point, not a universal rule. A thick stone or a steel plate may need a different time.

If you have an infrared thermometer, it’s handy for checking the surface temperature of the stone without guessing.

How to Get the Pizza Onto the Stone

When I wrote the original article, I was still fairly unused to handling pizza dough. The solution back then was to roll the dough out on parchment paper and flip it onto the stone.

That works as a beginner’s trick, but once you’ve got a bit of practice, a pizza peel with a lightly floured surface is better. Then you don’t have paper between the dough and the stone, and you can work more like in a real pizza oven.

Don’t build the pizza on the peel too far ahead of time. Moisture from the sauce and toppings can make the dough start to stick. Shape the dough, top it fairly quickly, and slide the pizza in.

Rotate the Pizza While It Bakes

In a grill-based pizza oven, the strongest heat often comes from one side. That’s why the pizza needs to be rotated.

In my old setup the pizzas took about 5 minutes and I turned them about 180 degrees halfway through. Treat that time as a result from that particular grill too, not as a timer to follow blindly.

Watch the pizza. When the side closest to the heat source gets more color, rotate it. At higher temperatures the whole pizza can be done a lot faster.

Three Pizzas From the Original Test

We baked several variations to see how the oven worked:

• The classic: tomato sauce, cheese, ham, mushrooms, and onion.
• Serrano: tomato sauce, onion, serrano ham, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, feta, and cheese.
• Salsiccia: tomato sauce, salsiccia, feta, sun-dried tomatoes, onion, and cheese.

The one with serrano ham turned out absolutely superb.

Simple Pizza Dough for the Grill

This is the dough we used in the original test. The recipe originally comes from Leila Lindholm’s baking and worked well when I was still new to pizza dough.

Ingredients

• 1¾ oz fresh yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp flaky salt
• 3½ tbsp olive oil
• 1 ¼ cups lukewarm water
• about 3 cups special wheat flour

Directions

1. Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and mix with the sugar, salt, and olive oil.
2. Work in the flour a little at a time until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Save a little flour for shaping.
3. Cover the bowl and let the dough rise for about 30 minutes.
4. Divide the dough into four pieces.
5. Shape or roll out the pizzas and top them right before they go into the oven.

This is a quick yeast dough, not an attempt to imitate a long-fermented Neapolitan dough. The advantage is that you can decide on pizza the same day and still get a good result on the grill.

Simple Tomato Sauce for Pizza

Ingredients

• 1 yellow onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 can strained tomatoes
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• ½ tsp dried basil
• salt
• black pepper to taste
• 1 pinch sugar
• optional: a little hot sauce

Directions

1. Finely chop the onion and garlic.
2. Gently sauté them in the olive oil without burning the garlic.
3. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, basil, salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.
4. Let the sauce simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes.
5. Let it cool before using it on the pizza.

In the original recipe I used a drop of Blair’s Megadeath Sauce. That particular sauce isn’t important for the recipe. If you want heat, simply use the hot sauce you like.

How Much Topping Should You Use?

It’s easy to pile on too much. The problem is that a heavy, wet topping cools the dough and can leave the middle soft before the bottom and the crust have had time to bake properly.

I’d rather hold back and let a few good ingredients do the job. Tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella in particular can add a lot of liquid.

My Top Tips for Pizza on the Grill

1. Preheat the stone properly.
2. Build high, stable heat without exposing the delicate parts of the grill to more heat than they’re made for.
3. Top lightly. Too much moisture makes the pizza harder to bake.
4. Work quickly once the pizza is on the peel.
5. Rotate the pizza if the heat is stronger from one side.
6. Watch the pizza, not just the clock.

If you want to understand how to build different heat zones on the grill, you can read our guide to grilling methods. And if you need the basic gear around the grill, we have an updated guide to grill accessories that are actually worth having.

The most important thing I took away from those first attempts still holds true: pizza on the grill turns out really good when the stone is heated all the way through and you learn to read the heat. The rest comes with a few pizzas under your belt.