Please wait...
Pizza on the grill is good, especially if it's a wood fired grill. A little smoke plus the *dry* heat from the fire brings a lot of great flavor and texture.
You can certainly be excused from using high protein flour if your stomach can't handle the gluten. Pizza from medium-protein flour is still better than no pizza at all. (The usual disclaimers apply, of course; no pizza at all is still better than Grotto's in delaware or any St. Louis style pizza; and Chicago style simply isn't pizza.)
The refrigerated dough is decent ... my problem is that I usually don't have the patience to let it sit out and relax enough to toss a nice thin pie with it. Make-your-own is fun though, you can really go with premium ingredients like homemade sauce and top-shelf cheese.
I have a Smoke probe from Thermoworks and I'm willing to fiddle with
knobs for the 8 whole minutes it takes to grill one directly on the
grates, plus the box of oak chips over the burner really adds that
wood-fired flavor.
Right. That's where a pellet grill really shines. I set the target temperature and let the computer do the work. Damn thing's got an ESP32 in it. :)
and with all this talk of pizza.... ( no not my normal 4" thick dual layer.. this was traditional )
and ya, i preheat the pan before it goes in the oven.. not sure who else does that?
It looked pretty good though. And yes, if you do pizza in cast iron you definitely want the bottom preheated, otherwise it gets soggy. If you cook in the oven on a pizza stone, you preheat it for the same reason.
How do you drop a circle of dough on a grill and not have it drop down and catch fire? I'm interested in this idea - my first job was as a Pizza delivery/Cook - and we did hand tossed, Italian style pizza, where I'd take 8 pounds of dough, roll it into a ball, and throw it up until I had a 27" (yeah, not a typo) Pizza. It was like throwing a bedsheet into the air. |
So we've been looking at those little propane pizza ovens. My friend has one, and I'm the official "tosser". I can still throw them up spinning, catch them, on one hand, spin them around until they're an almost perfect circle and drop them on a board for toppings and into the oven. It is like riding a bike.
But in my mind, if I drop them onto a BBQ grill, the edges are going to droop down and it'll be a mess.
Id be using cast iron.
Sun Apr 26 2026 06:11:17 UTC from ParanoidDelusionsHow do you drop a circle of dough on a grill and not have it drop down and catch fire? I'm interested in this idea - my first job was as a Pizza delivery/Cook - and we did hand tossed, Italian style pizza, where I'd take 8 pounds of dough, roll it into a ball, and throw it up until I had a 27" (yeah, not a typo) Pizza. It was like throwing a bedsheet into the air. |
So we've been looking at those little propane pizza ovens. My friend has one, and I'm the official "tosser". I can still throw them up spinning, catch them, on one hand, spin them around until they're an almost perfect circle and drop them on a board for toppings and into the oven. It is like riding a bike.
But in my mind, if I drop them onto a BBQ grill, the edges are going to droop down and it'll be a mess.
How do you drop a circle of dough on a grill and not have it
drop down and catch fire?
The short answer is: you don't. If you're making a very thin and initially soft pizza dough, you can't land it directly on grill grates. You can use one of those pans with holes in it, or you can start on a pan and then transfer it to the grates once it has cooked for a bit.
Or, of course, you can make a thicker style pie and put that directly down.
But if you're capable of tossing a real pizza you probably have no interest in that. I certainly wouldn't.
Those little propane grills look pretty cool and I may have to get one someday.
You can do the whole pizzeria style thing where you build the pie right on the peal and then slide it into the oven with a shuffling motion. I like that.
Return to it months later. It is full of vegetables that self reproduced with no assited watering or anything.
I am eating and canning so much off-season food it is absurd.
Ok. Got it. I do have one of those pans. Not sure it would fit on my grill. But I might give this a shot and see how it turns out. Yeah - you got me - I enjoy a nice Chicago style deep dish - but I wouldn't know where to start to cook one - and I certainly lean towards a New York style foldable thin crust as my preference.
Yes, the propane ovens - that is what we do... shimmy them off the board into the oven and turn them a quarter turn every 5 minutes until done. My buddy started off using flour to get them to slide into the oven - but now uses cornmeal - which to me - is the right way to go. It doesn't burn or scorch on the bottom the same way, and rolls the pie into the oven better.
Mon Apr 27 2026 21:52:22 UTC from IGnatius T FoobarThe short answer is: you don't. If you're making a very thin and initially soft pizza dough, you can't land it directly on grill grates. You can use one of those pans with holes in it, or you can start on a pan and then transfer it to the grates once it has cooked for a bit.
Or, of course, you can make a thicker style pie and put that directly down.
But if you're capable of tossing a real pizza you probably have no interest in that. I certainly wouldn't.
Those little propane grills look pretty cool and I may have to get one someday.
You can do the whole pizzeria style thing where you build the pie right on the peal and then slide it into the oven with a shuffling motion. I like that.
Cornmeal, absolutely. That's the way a true pizzeria does it. Build the pizza directly on the peel, cornmeal underneath it, and then a few jiggles before heading to the oven, to make sure it's loose enough to slide in.
I have to admit I will often use a thin cutting board because I don't own a true pizza peel. Mea maxima culpa.
any St. Louis style pizza; and Chicago style simply isn't pizza.)
The refrigerated dough is decent ... my problem is that I usually
don't have the patience to let it sit out and relax enough to toss a
nice thin pie with it. Make-your-own is fun though, you can really go
with premium ingredients like homemade sauce and top-shelf cheese.
(a) a PEDANTIC NITPICK: isn't Chicago deep-dish actually awfully similar to Sicilian-style thick crust?!?
(b) any thoughts on the whole "sauce is just crushed tomatoes and sea salt" thang?
2026-04-27 17:52 from IGnatius T FoobarHow do you drop a circle of dough on a grill and not have it
drop down and catch fire?
The short answer is: you don't. If you're making a very thin and
initially soft pizza dough, you can't land it directly on grill grates.
You can use one of those pans with holes in it, or you can start on a
pan and then transfer it to the grates once it has cooked for a bit.
Maybe you're using much more hydrated or thinner dough than I am, but I think I've been going pretty thin, like a 1/4". It's easy. Just slide it off the peel directly onto the Weber grates. It does *not* fall down through (I use the Weber grates with the wide side up, which might help a bit.)
I use both paste and crushed tomatoes in mine. But with out some real spice, id say its spaghetti sauce instead of pizza.
(b) any thoughts on the whole "sauce is just crushed tomatoes and sea salt" thang?
So much going on here... we used to lift an edge of the pizza, at the Pizzeria I worked at - and blow under it, to lift it as we shimmied it off the pizza board into the oven.
When you cook on a grill, I assume you're using coals? No flame... just glowing hot coals?
Take a picture the next time you do it and post it here - so I can see what it looks like.
I'm not sure on the Chicago vs. Sicilian thing. I've never been to Sicily - or been exposed to a Sicilian pizza, that I was aware of, anyhow.
I've mostly been to the Tuscany area - and Rome.
The rules for Sicilian style pizza are the same as for Napolitan style pizza: it is best in New York, not in the Italian regions it's named after.
There are definitely some similarities between Sicilian style pizza and "deep dish" pizza, but I'm not sure I'd equate them. Especially considering everyone makes Sicilian a different thickness. I've had it anywhere from 3/4" to 2" or more. (Ricci's in Harrison used to make one that was so thick and dense that one slice was a meal ... but the Ricci family is long gone from there now.)
Also I think Chicago puts the sauce, cheese, and toppings on in reverse order? I don't quite remember, it's been a while.
I use both paste and crushed tomatoes in mine. But with out some
real spice, id say its spaghetti sauce instead of pizza.
Lately I've been doing either a can of crushed tomatoes + salt, or add a couple more ingredients (paste, pinch of red pepper, garlic) and simmer to make a simple marinara. My thinking is, the sauce goes on the pie, then you sprinkle some seasoning, oregano, and red pepper in the sauce, then cheese.
When you cook on a grill, I assume you're using coals? No
flame... just glowing hot coals?
Propane grill with the metal smoke-box of wood chips over one burner. One handful of hickory chips, burns about 15 minutes. Pizza goes on the grill when the Smoke probe read about 500 or the smoke starts coming out. TWO handfuls of wood chips will impart a much stronger hickory-smoked-bacon flavor; I've settled on just one handful, or use oak.