
A home pizza grilling setup is ideal for warm summer nights in the backyard spent entertaining your family and friends. With a Kamado Joe pizza setup, you’ll have all the equipment you need to deliver a professional-grade meal that will impress your guests.
Learning how to grill a pizza is a fun cooking experience that allows you to get creative with your toppings. A pizza oven is an ideal addition to your backyard or balcony to create a secondary entertaining space. All you need to get started is a Kamado Joe grill. With a few additional accessories, you’ll be popping out perfect pizzas in no time.
1. What You Need For a Full Pizza Setup
Before you can get to grilling with your Kamado Joe pizza setup, you’ll need to ensure you have all the necessary equipment on hand to create your pizza successfully. You can purchase these products from many brands, but the following items are available from Kamado Joe and will make grilling a pizza an exciting, easy, and rewarding experience.
18-24” grill
You can work with any grill that is within this size range. Charcoal, gas, and electrical grills are all suitable choices.
Rocking pizza cutter
A rocking pizza cutter is a professional-grade utensil that makes pizza cutting simple. It won’t disturb your toppings while you’re slicing and allows you to make large, swift cuts to serve many people quickly.
Ash tool (for charcoal grillers)
If you have a wood or charcoal grill, using an ash tool will allow you to move coals or wood around as needed during grilling while keeping your hands and arms a safe distance from the heat.
Grill cover
A grill is a big investment, so whichever one you choose, you’ll want to keep it protected. In between uses, shelter you grill from the elements with a heavy-duty grill cover.
Pizza stone
There are countless pizza stone options, but the best choice depends on your preference. You can opt for a wooden pizza peel if you want to slide your pizza directly onto the grill for cooking or select a ceramic pizza stone. For deep dish pizzas, consider the Kamado Joe Deep Dish Pizza Stone.
Once you’ve got your Kamado Joe pizza setup organized, you can get down to grilling.
2. Basics Steps For Grilling Pizza
Making a pizza on the grill is simple, quick, and creates a shareable experience with family or friends because everyone can choose their unique toppings. The pizza grilling process can be broken down into a few easy steps.
Step 1 – Make the pizza dough
The first step in any pizza process is the dough. If you’re uncomfortable making it from scratch you can buy pre-made dough. If you want to save time when you have company over, you can also prepare your dough ahead of time and take it out of the fridge when you’re ready to start grilling.
Step 2 – Prepare the grill
How you prepare the grill will differ slightly depending on what kind of fuel source your grill uses. Regardless, once the grill is fired up, it will need time to preheat.
Step 3 – Heat your pizza stone
While the grill is preheating, pop the pizza stone on the grate and close the hood. For best results, let the pizza stone heat up with the grill.
Step 4 – Check the grill temperature
Before you place your dough and toppings on the pizza stone, check that the grill has reached the desired 500°F. If the temperature is too low, the pizza won’t cook fast enough, and if it’s too high, your crust will burn. Consider investing in a Kamado Joe grill thermometer to get an accurate temperature reading.
Step 5 – Place your pizza on the hot stone
When you’ve achieved the desired temperature, you can put your pizza on the grill to cook.
Step 6 – Let it cook
Close the hood of the grill and let your pizza cook for roughly 7-12 minutes. Leave it in longer if the crust is not yet golden brown or the cheese isn’t bubbling.
Step 7 – Transfer your pizza to a board or serving plate
Using a pizza peel or spatula, carefully transfer your pizza off the hot stone and onto a serving board, plate, or peel.
Step 8 – Let it cool
Once it’s off the grill, it’s best to let your pizza sit for about 3 minutes before cutting into it. This allows the cheese and toppings to set and prevents your fingers (and mouth) from getting burned.
Step 9 – Slice and serve
Get your Kamado Joe rocking pizza cutter or other pizza cutter out and start slicing. With four swift movements, you can create eight perfect pizza slices with the toppings intact. Now it’s time to dish them up for your friends and family to enjoy!
Watch this Pizza 101 video from Kamado Joe.
3. Pizza on a Gas Grill
Cooking on each type of grill has its unique benefits. A gas grill provides even heating when grilling a pizza, eliminating the problem of part of the pizza cooking more quickly than others. With a gas stove, you’ll want to use a pizza stone and place it on the grill as it heats up to heat the stone adequately.
Once the stone heats up, you can put your pizza dough and toppings on it. For best results, brush your crust with a hint of olive oil before you close the hood of the grill and let the pizza cook.
4. Pizza on a Charcoal Grill
Grilling pizza on a charcoal grill has a slightly different setup. When you have a chimney of hot coals ready, arrange them around the grill’s perimeter before placing the grate on top. Distributing the hot coals this way helps replicate the same even heating you get from using a gas grill. Then you can proceed with placing the pizza stone inside to preheat.
Jim Bob
THE TAKEAWAY
Equipping your home and yard with a Kamado Joe pizza setup can provide lots of opportunities for fun get-togethers. Nothing beats quality time spent chatting around the patio table, and there’s nothing that brings people together like good food, hot off the grill.
Do you know that there are add-ons that you can use to innovate your Kamado? Read our article about Kamado Grill Table Plans.
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