gas grill as pizza oven???

So on a recent "burnout" with all four burners on high I noticed the hood thermometer was fully pegged at over 700 degrees. It got me thinking...what's the best way to harness that hight heat to cook pizzas on the grill? (probably gets even hotter if the sear burner and rotisserie burner were on). I've seen a few mods that raise a pizza stone up to even out the distance between the grill grates and the top of the grill lid. I've also seen some setups that use fire bricks to build a mini brick oven inside the grill. We have a pizza stone burried somewhere in the kitchen...and the idea of being able to crank out fresh pizzas in a few minutes is very intriguing.

Just wondering what everyone here has tried? What's worked? What hasn't?

We do pizza in the Genesis and the Summit all the time. Sometimes dough goes straight on the grates, others I use heavy large cast iron pans. Works well for Chicago style deep dish. But don't go using high heat that way.

I guess I was thinking more along the "high heat" lines to do italian "brick oven" style pizza that cooks up in only a few minutes. I really like the idea behind the "kettle pizza" accessory for the weber kettles, just wondering if there's anything similar or a way to apply the same idea to a gas grill

Last summer we made a few pizzas in the gas grill using a pizza stone sitting right on the grate. All burners were cranked including the rotisserie and if I remember correctly they were ready in just over five minutes. The trick was to rotate them a couple times during cooking so they didn't get too dark on one side from the rotisserie burner... They were phenomenal to say the least! Definitely something we'll have to do again this year.

It's also a good idea to make sure the bottom of your grill is fairly clean before doing this, as the intense heat can ignite all that grease. I don't think that's the kind of "high heat" you're looking for

BrianBishop said:

Last summer we made a few pizzas in the gas grill using a pizza stone sitting right on the grate. All burners were cranked including the rotisserie and if I remember correctly they were ready in just over five minutes. The trick was to rotate them a couple times during cooking so they didn't get too dark on one side from the rotisserie burner... They were phenomenal to say the least! Definitely something we'll have to do again this year.

It's also a good idea to make sure the bottom of your grill is fairly clean before doing this, as the intense heat can ignite all that grease. I don't think that's the kind of "high heat" you're looking for

Click to expand...

OK I think I know what I'm trying for dinner tomorrow night.....makes sense with the roto burner being on....without the burner from above you have a big heat difference between the main burners below and the radiated heat from the lid above....but once that roto infrared burner is on you can even that difference out a bit.

My Summit is the primary grill I use for pizza making at our house not so much because of the high heat as much as the increased amount of consistency and control that it offers over charcoal. I have tried the high heat, but it really gave me problems with burning the crusts. The best solution I have found is that I place two firebricks on the grate between the 2nd and 3rd burners and put the pizza stone on top of the fire bricks. I then fire up all four burners and run them on high for at least 20-30 minutes. I test to see if it is hot enough by flicking small amounts of water on the pizza stone with my fingers. Once it bubbles, I am ready to go. Normally my grill is bumping the 650 plus range.

Right when I am ready to put the pizza on, I turn the middle two burners off. It seems that the combination of cutting off the middle two burners and placing the raw pizza in the grill drop the temperature to about the 500 degree mark. I really try to keep it as close to 500 as possible which means I sometimes have to feather the two outside burners down some to keep the temp where I want it.

At four minutes I open the grill and turn the pizza half a turn and close it back up. Four minutes after that I check the bottom for doneness and most times make turn it 1/4 turn or so. It is normally very close to being finished at this point. I gauge how long I will let it go at that point by how it looks at the second check.

The aproach I normally take is a little different, but pizza is one thing we do a lot of on the grill. This isn't really along the same lines as brick oven, but it turns out amazing pizzas every time. I get the grill up as high as it will go by preheating for about 20 minutes. I roll out my dough with a rolling pin and get it very thin, spray one side with olive oil and throw it directly on the grates. I let it go for about 30-45 seconds, pull it off, flip it over, and load my toppings on the grilled side. While loading the toppings on I reduce the heat to low and leave the lid open to dissipate the heat. I then thow it back on the grill for 3-4 minutes on low with the lid closed and let it cook the other side of the dough. It turns out amazing pizzas every time. It does work best with room temperature cheese though. We usually use a ball of mozzarella that we rip into smaller pieces.

A word of caution, I killed two pizza stones on the grill. I assume it was from the high heat, but they both cracked and became useless.

I will keep watching this thread though for more great ideas on ways to try pizza on the grill!

Lots of good suggestions here, but for myself I like Don Fry's comments best. Most important is that you experiment with YOUR grill and YOUR method for preparing pizza to find the methods you like best. I use my custom Genesis EP-330 a lot for making pizza. I have woodstove gasket installed around the front and sides to manage heat and smoke flow out the back which retains its fully open 3/4" exhaust slot. I use wood chunks for almost all cooks (ever hear of wood-fired pizza?). I also made a second tier grate with parts from Lowe's. The removable second tier is 7 inches above the main grate which allows about 5 inches under that lined hood above the second level.

I've made several pizzas on the grates (both the lower and the upper -- temps are about the same but the lower grate gets more DIRECT heat and requires watching carefully). But I generally prefer using at least one pizza stone. (I've never had a problem with a pizza stone cracking in the past 3 years, but you need at least a 5/8" thick stone and you should always heat the stone along with the cold grill -- IOW, don't put a cold stone on a hot grill.)

How I cook the pizza depends on what I'm making. Any frozen (whether store bought or homemade) goes on a hot, pre-heated stone. If my dough is fresh, I typically heat it with the stone (sometimes adding ingredients to a partially cooked dough slab). I use a peel to rotate as needed. Rather than heating with the stone, I may pre-bake the crust right on the grate and then assemble the pizza.

Since I have two stones, I can vary my options. I'll mount one stone between the grates (raised on two fire bricks). Then I can either cook two pizzas at once, or I can use the combined stone tiers as a more pizza oven-like environment by using the lower stone for the pizza. I quit using stones directly on the lower grate. Mostly it just gets too hot and burns the pizza crust. It's also an easy way to crack a pizza stone with that heat directly applied to the thin stone. I'd suggest always keeping the stone at least 6 inches above your flame tamers -- the lower grate is just too close.

Rich

Jay, here is how I do mine. Genesis EP-330 with the three main burners cranked high.
We are getting ready to do one up as I type

So I finally got around to giving this a shot....albeit with canned sauce and a store bought (fresh) dough. Put the stone right on the grate, turned everything on high to pre-heat, including the rotisserie burner, then dialed the middle two burners back to low and left everything else on high.....took about 2min 30 sec for a small, personal size pizza. Torched the bottom of one of them when I left the main burners on high, but once I dialed those back everything seemed to work well.

I have a picture someplace...just have to figure out a better way to host 'em for easier posting on the board!

Ok I think this will work.....it's not rotated but this was the 2nd attempt.....