How To Cook Pizza On A Kamado Grill

Kamado Grill, also known as Kamado Joe, is a versatile grill and it would not take long for you to consider pizza so here is how you can cook pizza on a Kamado grill.

This grill is an amazing grill that allows small airflow but enough to heat up the grill with a nice even temperature. The thick ceramic insulation is very helpful in retaining heat inside it.

With that being said, the grill can go up to very high temperatures which is exactly what you need to cook pizza in.

Cooking a Neapolitan-style pizza requires so much heat so that it can come out crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside with little time required.

Kamado grills are shaped like a very big egg and they surely work best in that shape. The roundness of the interior of the oven allows heat to diffuse and flow in a way that the food cooks evenly.

Therefore, your pizza will be cooked through the heat from the top of the grill and the heat from your fuel at the bottom of the Kamado Grill.

This kind of grill mostly comes with a heat deflector that distributes the heat evenly inside the grill. 

So that means that even if the grill uses an inconsistent source of heat such as charcoal and wood, the heat would still be pretty even inside.

 

Cook pizza on a Kamado Grill

Step 1. Make sure that the grill is clean

Because the grill needs airflow to function properly, you need to have a smooth interior as you can have. This will let the air circulate in the grill smoothly.

Make sure that the ashes from the past cooking sessions are removed so that the air can travel well and also to prevent it from getting into your pizza.

Basically, you need to make sure that all parts of your grill are clean so that you can avoid unexpected and unnecessary damages on both the grill and the pizza.

 

Step 2. Preheat the grill

Kamado grills use charcoal as fuel and they work best with it. They do heat up very easily but only if you choose the fresh charcoal instead of the ones exposed from air and moisture.

Since charcoal is not as consistent as gas fuel, Kamado grills require a good amount of time to heat up so you need to be patient so that you can attain the best results.

It will usually take over an hour for the grill to reach the temperature that is needed to make a Neapolitan style pizza.

Once the grill heats up though, it will certainly stay up there for a long time so do not worry about the heat escaping the grill.

However, make sure that you keep the grill covered so that you can still keep the maximum heat retention of the grill.

 

 

Step 3. Use a pizza stone 

Using a pizza stone is always better than just leaving it to other kinds of baking surfaces. The porous nature of the stones makes them great at absorbing moisture so you get a crispy finish in your pizza crust.

There are proper baking stones that can handle the high temperature that a Kamado grill gives out so make sure that you buy those to prevent breaking and damage.

There is also a trick in using a pizza stone with a Kamado grill. You need two firebricks and start by placing them both on top of the grates of the grill.

Place them sideways on the grate. Then place the pizza stone on top of the firebricks and then close the door for all of them to heat up with the grill.

This trick will give more room for the airflow to get to the top of the grill compared to just placing the pizza stone on top of the grates, thus radiating the heat from the fuel to the roof of the grill.

This means that your pizza will be cooked from the top which will perfectly melt the cheese and cook the toppings.

Plus, the firebricks are great in retaining heat so even if you have opened the cover of the grill, the heat will come back easily once you close it down again because of the radiating heat from the firebricks.

 

Step 4. Get started with the pizza

The first thing you need to do is to make sure that your pizza dough fits in the pizza stone. Make sure that you have chosen the best dough that you can get.

You can also use store-bought pizza doughs and that will do as well. It would not really matter since the grill is the highlight and it will produce quality pizzas but you can never be too sure.

So anyway, get your pizza dough and then need and shape it to your desired size. The best way to make the perfect pizza dough is to go as thin as you can get.

The result will surely be a crispy crust. If you have decided to go thin with the dough, make sure that your toppings are thin as well.

Do not overuse sauce and cheese. Just put the right amount for the pizza and you can make more pizza in case you have extra that you want to use.

Too much sauce and cheese on a thin crust will only make it soggy and oven harder to cook. Remember that you are cooking with radiating heat and not on direct fire.

Kamado grills can usually reach up to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. There are doughs that require less temperature for them to be cooked in so make sure that you follow those.

Going back to the toppings of your pizza, they should all be sliced thinly so they can be cooked simultaneously with the rest of the ingredients in the pizza.

Make sure that you also put enough ingredients that are healthy. You can choose to make it the toppings seasonal and put whatever is abundant in your place that can be used as pizza toppings.

 

Step 5. Cook

Once your Kamado grill has heated up to the desired temperature and you have prepared your pizza on the side, start cooking.

Carefully lift the cover of the oven and then use a pizza peel to slide the pizza into the grill. You might want to sprinkle some flour on your pizza peel so that the pizza does not stick.

Then move the pizza peel with a jolting back and forth motion so that the pizza drops on the pizza stone. 

You can leave a third of the pizza on the pizza peel so you can adjust it to fit on the pizza stone and it sits in the right position.

If you are cooking on temperatures under 500 degrees Fahrenheit, the cooking time would usually take around 20 minutes for the pizza to be fully cooked.

If you cook at a higher temperature it will take less time. Either way, make sure that you keep an eye on your pizza to see if there are burns or other issues.

Make sure to keep the cover on and then when the pizza is finally cooked, use the same pizza peel to get the pizza out of the grill and then slice it and then enjoy!

 

What to look for in a Kamado Grill?

Airflow

This is the most important feature of the Kamado grill since it relies on the heat from the bottom of the grill and for the airflow to bring it upwards and then around the grill again.

Make sure that you find the right airflow basket that is used at the bottom of the grill. The best ones are those who allow enough air inside the grill while catching dirt from the charcoal.

 

Deflector

This feature, along with the airflow allows the grill to heat up the interior so that the heat inside is well balanced and perfect for baking.

The heat at the bottom of the grill is so hot but that could not be the case for the upper parts. Therefore, you need to find a Kamado grill with a great deflector so that the heat can be passed on.

Deflectors basically focus the heat from the bottom on the side and top of the grill so that whatever the heat on the bottom is, it will be matched by the top part of the grill.

The ceramic insulation also helps in this and can make the heating process plus heat retaining capability a whole lot better.

 

Stands and Racks

As mentioned above, the pizza stones should not be directly placed on top of the grates of the Kamado grill.

Not only will it block most of the heat that is directed to the top of the grill but you also risk destroying the stone itself by putting it in contact with direct heat.

Stands allow you to give more space for you to sit the pizza stone on and give the grill more airflow so that it heats up evenly. 

The more space there is between the pizza stone and the grill grates, the more airflow, therefore it will take less time for the grill to heat up.

With the racks on the grill, you also get more room to place other recipes or more pizzas at one time since you have more cooking capacity.

 

Pizza stones

Kamado manufactures its own pizza stone so you can look that up. Their pizza stones are designed to retain heat that comes from the grill.

They are very durable and can stand even the highest temperature that the grill gives off. Pizza stones are important since they retain heat for the bottom of the pizza to cook evenly and quickly. 

Pizza stones absorb the moisture from the pizza so they create a nice, crispy finish which is more enjoyable than a soggy pizza.

There are other companies that manufacture pizza stones that can handle even 932 degrees Fahrenheit of heat which is the regular temperature for cooking Neapolitan-style pizzas.

You can also choose your pizza stone via the material that is used to build them. Cordierite baking stones and Thermarite stones are two of the most durable materials for pizza stones.

 

Conclusion

Cooking pizza in a traditional wood-fired brick oven is very fun yet very high maintenance. So there have been developed ways to cook Neapolitan-style pizzas without the use of an actual brick oven.

The Kamado Grill is one way to cook such pizza and it only takes some practice to get used to it before you can make that perfect pizza.

It has so many features that most grills do not have and the power that it produces is impressive especially when you think of it as something that uses charcoal as fuel.

Most ovens and grills can get to that temperature but they use a more consistent fuel in the form of gas in order to attain that.

Kamado grills are really perfect in baking pizzas because it does not rely solely on direct heat. It uses amazing insulation and airflow to cook the pizzas evenly from top to bottom.

There are also companies that are making grills and ovens to replicate the power of a brick oven and some have been successful so you can check them out as well.

The Kamado Grill is a really amazing grill that can cook many recipes and has powerful airflow so you can bake and not only cook directly with flames.

Make sure to follow the guide above and in no time, you will be an expert in cooking pizzas using your Kamado Grill.

If you like the post then do not forget to share it on social media!