Grilled Pizza at Home: Two Methods for Gas, Charcoal and Kamado Grills

A grill can bake a pizza in two quite different ways. Laid straight on the grates, the dough cooks like a flatbread: the bars mark and crisp one side, you flip it, and the toppings go on the cooked side. Set on a pizza stone under a closed lid, the grill works more like an oven, and the pizza goes in already topped. This guide covers both on gas, charcoal and kamado grills, using King Arthur Baking’s published recipe and the grill makers’ own instructions.

Modernist Pizza treats grilled pizza as a cooking method rather than a regional style. The authors find it at Al Forno in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the restaurant 1893 in Buenos Aires, and say the idea appears to have been rediscovered independently again and again. Because a grill’s heat is intense and comes from one side, they add, it works well only with a thin crust.

Which method to use

The grates give grill marks and a crisp, thin crust, with no equipment beyond a peel or parchment. The stone gives something closer to an oven-baked pizza, but you need a stone approved for your grill.

The grill’s manual comes first

Grill makers’ manuals govern safety, and they differ by model, so read yours before you heat a stone or slide dough onto the bars. Weber’s manuals are a fair example of what to look for:

• Outdoors only. Weber’s Spirit II gas grill manual says to use the grill only outdoors in a well-ventilated area: never in a garage, building, breezeway, tent or other enclosed area, or under overhead combustible construction.
• Clearance. The same manual asks for at least 24 inches (61 cm) from combustible materials on every side. Weber’s Master-Touch charcoal kettle guide asks for five feet (1.5 m). Use your grill’s figure.
• Stay with it. Never leave the grill unattended while it preheats or cooks, and open a gas grill’s lid when you light it.
• Don’t modify it or block its airflow. The Spirit II manual says not to modify the grill, and Weber warns against lining a gas grill’s cookbox or a kettle’s bowl with foil. The Master-Touch guide also says not to use the kettle in high winds.
• Grease fires. Weber’s instruction for a gas grill is to turn off all the burners and leave the lid closed until the fire is out.
• Accessories. Use a stone or other accessory your grill’s maker approves for your model, and follow its instructions. Weber’s Glazed Baking Stone, for example, must not go on a side burner, and on gas grills the sear burner stays off while the stone is in.

Don’t put a charcoal chimney inside a gas grill; the Spirit II manual prohibits charcoal in the grill. Improvised stands, such as bricks under the stone, aren’t in any maker’s instructions this guide found either. Use only the accessories and arrangements approved for your model.

Method 1: directly on the grates

King Arthur Baking publishes a complete recipe for pizza grilled on the grates, from dough to the finished pizza. Weber publishes a shorter method for the grilling alone.

King Arthur’s dough

King Arthur’s Grilled Pizza recipe makes two 10-inch pizzas:

The yeast weight is calculated from King Arthur’s ingredient weight chart, which lists 2 teaspoons of instant yeast as 6 g. The water is 74% of the flour weight, also calculated. You’ll also want semolina or cornmeal for the peel, and the recipe offers an optional basting oil of 67 g olive oil with 2 minced garlic cloves.

The method is short. Mix everything into a shaggy, sticky dough and let it rest 30 minutes. Then give it 8 to 12 bowl folds, turning the bowl between stretches, until the dough resists stretching. Rest it, covered, for 30 minutes to 3 hours at room temperature, divide it in half, shape two rough balls, and rest them 20 minutes to an hour before stretching.

Any dough you can stretch thin will grill. If you’d rather use your usual pizza dough, keep the round thin, in line with Modernist Pizza’s point about one-sided heat.

Grilling it

These are King Arthur’s steps, in short:

1. Set up two heat zones. On a gas grill, King Arthur preheats to about 350°F (177°C), then sets some burners to medium-low and others to medium-high. On charcoal, bank the coals to one side.
2. Clean the grates. Brush them clean, then wipe them with an oiled, folded paper towel held in tongs.
3. Shape on a dusted peel. Stretch each dough ball into a 10-inch round on a peel dusted with semolina or cornmeal. Without a peel, shape it on parchment, turn it over onto the grill and peel the paper off.
4. Grill the first side. Brush the top with oil, slide the round onto the cooler zone and close the lid. After about 4 minutes the underside should be golden.
5. Flip and top it off the heat. Turn it over on the peel so the cooked side faces up. Add the mozzarella first, then small dollops of thick tomato sauce, leaving some cheese showing.
6. Finish with the lid closed. Return it to the cooler zone for about 4 minutes more, until the bottom is golden and the cheese has melted. Move it toward the hotter zone if it needs more color.

King Arthur says the cheese-then-sauce order helps prevent a soggy crust, and recommends reducing the sauce on the stovetop until it’s thick enough to dollop. Its other advice: use cooked, low-moisture toppings sparingly, watch the pizza closely because grills vary widely, and keep the first pizza warm on the grill’s upper rack or in a low oven while the second one cooks.

Weber’s version uses one zone. Preheat the grill for direct medium to medium-high heat for 10 to 15 minutes and brush the grates clean. Roll the dough out on parchment or foil, oil the top, turn it over onto the grill and peel off the paper. When the underside is crisp and toasted, after about 3 minutes, move the crust to a work surface grilled side up, add the toppings, and put it back on the grill for about 3 to 5 minutes, until the bottom is crisp and the cheese has melted.

Method 2: on a stone, lid closed

Here the grill becomes a small oven. The pizza is topped before it goes in, so build it on a dusted peel and launch it as you would in a kitchen oven; launching and rotating pizza covers the technique.

Gas grill

Weber’s instructions for its Glazed Baking Stone, which sits in the Weber Crafted frame in place of a cooking grate, are a published method for a gas grill:

• Preheat the grill with the stone in place. Its pizza notes say about 10 to 15 minutes; its general steps say 15 to 20.
• Keep the sear burner off while the stone is in, and never use the stone on a side burner.
• Bake fresh pizza over direct high heat, about 500°F (260°C), for 8 to 10 minutes, depending on the dough and its thickness, until the cheese has melted and the crust is golden brown.
• Wear heat-resistant gloves to handle the hot stone, never put it in water while it’s hot, and never set it down on glass or anything combustible.

That bake is in the same range as a home-oven New York-style pizza, which the Pizza Planner bakes at 500 to 550°F for 8 to 12 minutes, so a dough written for a home oven at that heat is a sensible match. Weber’s general advice is to keep the lid down as much as possible, so close it between pizzas too.

If you’d rather use a baking steel than a stone, check your grill’s manual first. The maker instructions in this guide are for stones.

Charcoal kettle

Weber’s Master-Touch guide doesn’t include a pizza-stone method, so use a stone the kettle’s maker approves and follow its instructions. Two points from the guide still apply. It asks for about 1 inch (2.5 cm) of clearance between the food and the closed lid, and a stone raises the pizza, so check the fit before you light the fire. And a charcoal fire needs air: keep the lid closed as much as possible, with the vents open.

Kamado

Big Green Egg’s pizza guide sets the Egg up for indirect heat. Once the Egg is at temperature, the convEGGtor goes in legs down, then the stainless steel grid, then the Baking Stone. The guide suggests aiming for 600°F (316°C) even if a recipe calls for a little less, because opening the dome makes the temperature swing, and it says to close the dome and let the heat come back up.

Big Green Egg also tells owners to “burp” the Egg every time they open it: lift the dome a few centimeters, slowly, bounce it slightly for a few seconds, and only then open it fully. That lets oxygen in gradually and avoids a flare-up. With another brand of kamado, follow its maker’s setup.

Big Green Egg’s guide doesn’t give a bake time, so bake to cues: the cheese melted, the rim browned, and the underside golden and crisp when you lift an edge.

Why the lid matters

Modernist Pizza explains that a pizza in an oven is baked by heat from the hot surfaces around it, not by the flame itself, and notes that gas grills are designed on the same principle, with metal grates or plates over the burners to radiate heat. On a grill with the lid open, the top of the pizza gets very little of that heat.

Closing the lid changes that. In Weber’s description, heat rises, reflects off the lid and the grill’s inside surfaces, and circulates around the food. Its gas grill manual adds that with the lid closed the cooking grates run hotter and flare-ups are fewer. That’s why both methods finish with the lid down, and why the topped side of a grates pizza needs that closed-lid finish to melt its cheese.

When it goes wrong

Grill or pizza oven?

The stone methods above bake at about 500 to 600°F. A dedicated outdoor pizza oven runs much hotter: the Planner bakes Neapolitan-style pizza in one with the stone surface at 750 to 850°F. If you’re weighing a grill against buying an oven, the oven guide compares outdoor ovens, and pizza stone vs. pizza steel covers the baking surfaces themselves.

Sources

• Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, Modernist Pizza (2021), volume 1, printed page 97 (grilled pizza as a cooking method, Al Forno, 1893 and the thin-crust point) and pages 354–356 (pizza baked by hot surfaces rather than flame; gas grills’ radiating plates).
• King Arthur Baking: Grilled Pizza recipe (dough, two-zone setup, timings and topping order) and ingredient weight chart (instant yeast weight). Checked October 14, 2026.
• Weber: Kevin Kolman, “9 Steps To Grilling A Pizza” (February 22, 2018); Weber Crafted Glazed Baking Stone instructions (preheat, sear burner, fresh pizza at 500°F, care); Spirit II LP owner’s manual, E-210/S-210/E-310/S-310 (2023: location, 24-inch clearance, no charcoal or lava rock and no modification on page 3, foil, grease fires, lid); Master-Touch Premium 22-inch owner’s guide (2023: five-foot clearance, high winds, foil, lid clearance, how a closed lid cooks). Checked October 14, 2026.
• Big Green Egg: “How To Use the Egg for Pizza” (setup and 600°F) and “How to burp your EGG”. Checked October 14, 2026.