How to Make a Smoked Pizza

Learn everything you need to know about how to make a perfectly smoked pizza on your grill or smoker!

Smoked pizza has a great flavor and the hot grill or smoker works like a wood fired oven for an incredible crust as well.

Whether you've got a gas or charcoal grill, a Traeger or Pit Boss pellet grill, or even a Masterbuilt propane smoker, we've got you covered!

Making a smoked pizza on your grill or smoker is actually not that much different from making a pizza in your oven indoors.

And you get all the benefits of high heat and wood smoke like you might get with a true wood fired pizza, without the need for a dedicated pizza oven!

After years of trying many mediocre homemade pizza recipes, we've also finally found our favorite recipe for homemade pizza crust that we've incorporated into our smoked pizza recipe below so you won't be disappointed!

If you aren't in the mood to make a smoked pizza from scratch, check out our guide to making a frozen pizza on pellet grill.  While its written primarily for pellet grill users, you can adapt it to almost any type of grill or smoker.

Let's get started!

 

What You'll Need to Make a Smoked Pizza

In order to make the perfect smoked pizza at home, you're going to need a few things.

Most of these items, like the pizza stone and pizza peel will make your indoor baked pizzas come out way better too, so they aren't one trick ponies!

 

A Grill or Smoker

First you need a grill or smoker.

Almost any kind will do except some electric smoker models that do not get hot enough to really cook a smoked pizza.

While low and slow temperatures work great for large cuts of meat like pork ribs and brisket, we need HIGH heat to get a perfect pizza crust.

So make sure your grill or smoker can get up to at least 450°F, if not higher.  350-400°F will do but is not ideal.

We'll go into more detail below about how to set up various kinds of grills and smokers to make smoked pizza below.

 

A Pizza Stone or Pizza Steel

The true secret to a GREAT homemade pizza, whether its baked indoors or smoked outside, is a pizza stone.

A large ceramic pizza stone like this one from Unicook absorbs, concentrates, and evenly distributes heat to the crust to quickly get the bottom crust crispy before the cheese and toppings overcook.

Some people also swear by using a pizza steel, which acts in the same way, but is lighter and easier to move around because it is made of steel rather than ceramic.

If you don't own one and still want to get started you can always use a simple vented pizza tray, but if you really want to take your homemade pizza game to the next level, make sure to check out a good pizza stone soon!

 

A Pizza Peel and Parchment Paper

One of the biggest hassles we've found with making your own homemade pizza, whether its a smoked pizza or a baked one, is transferring it to and from the pizza stone.

There's nothing worse than spending all that time making your dough and assembling your pizza, just to have it rip apart, get stuck, or fall on the floor while transferring it in and out of the oven or grill.

Some people recommend using a lot of flour or cornmeal to help the raw pizza slide slide onto the pizza stone, but we've found nothing works better than some parchment paper dusted with a little flour.

Just like with our smoked chocolate chip cookies, the parchment paper won't burn on the grill and will keep the smoked pizza from sticking and making a mess!

And if you also use a pizza peel, you can easily slide the pizza, on the parchment, directly on to the pizza stone, and pull it back onto the pizza peel effortlessly without messing up your pizza when it's done.

We'll show you exactly how use these tools down below.

 

Best Woods for Smoking Pizza

We aren't usually fans of hickory or mesquite for longer smokes because the strong flavors can overpower the food on these longer cooks

Howere, because we are smoking our pizza for such a short time, we actually prefer the stronger flavors to get some unique smoky flavor infused into the smoked pizzas before they finish cooking.

We liked using this Hickory Blend of pellets from Pit Boss and it paired well with both the cheese and the hearty meats we topped our smoked pizzas with.

Hickory also works great on other shorter smokes like tilapia, chicken, and even lobster.

 

Prepare the Smoked Pizza Dough

Ok, now let's go through how to make the dough for our smoked pizza.

If you've never made homemade pizza dough before it can seem like a long process at first, but the more often you do it the faster it becomes.

You can also use a pre-made pizza dough mix or even a pre-baked pizza crust like this one, however it's never going to be as good as a fresh made homemade dough.

 

Gather the Ingredients

Understand that the homemade dough for your smoked pizza will need to rise overnight, so start making your dough the day before you want to smoke your pizzas.

This part will only take a couple of minutes the day beforehand, but you do need to let it sit overnight afterwards.

We start with a pizza crust recipe from King Arthur Flour to make our smoked pizza.

This will yield about (2) 12-inch pizzas, so double it if necessary for more people.

• 2 Cups All Purpose Flour (or use Bread Flour for a more chewy crust)
• ⅛ teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
• ½ teaspoon Sugar (granulated)
• 1 and ¼ teaspoon Salt
• ¾ Cup Warm Water

 

Mix the Dough and Let Rise

The best way to mix everything is with a good stand mixer like our Kitchenaid.

Mix the dry ingredients above together and then add the warm water.  Stir until combined.

Cover with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise on the counter at room temperature for about 24 hours ideally.

 

Stretch, Fold, and Proof the Dough

The next day you will also need to alot about an hour before smoking the pizzas to let the dough proof.

We usually just preheat our smoker and pizza stone during this time anyways.

Your dough should have risen overnight as the yeast activated.

Transfer the dough onto a well floured cutting board.

In our recipe, there is enough dough for about (2) 12 inch pizzas, so take a dough scraper or a large carving knife and divide the dough into two equal portions.

Set one of the portions aside.

Dust the top of the other one with flour.  Don't be shy with the extra flour throughout this stage to keep the dough from sticking to the cutting board.

Stretch the one portion of dough out as best you can into a long triangle or rectangle. (You are NOT shaping your pizza crust yet, so just stretch it out).

Take one of the corners and stretch and fold it in towards the middle.

Repeat with the other corners, adding flour when necessary if the dough is sticky.

Pull all the corners towards the middle and then turn it over and work the seems into the bottom of the dough.

Lastly shape the stretched dough into a ball.

Repeat for the other portion of dough you set aside.

Drizzle some olive oil in a large bowl and wipe it around the sides to keep the dough from sticking and place the dough balls, seam side down, in the bowl.

Drizzle some more olive oil on the tops of the dough balls and cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap.

Allow the dough to proof (meaning rise) by letting it sit on the counter at room temperature for an hour.

During this time get your grill or smoker preheated and set up for HIGH heat, likely around 450°F on a pellet grill.

Put your pizza stone or pizza steel in now too to get it nice and hot before you smoke your pizzas.

 

Form the Pizza Crust

Gather all your pizza topping ingredients while the dough is proofing.

Just like with our smoked enchiladas and smoked queso dip, we recommend always using freshly grated cheese from a block using a good rotary cheese grater rather than buying pre-shredded cheese.

Pre-shredded cheese is fine for topping salads or maybe some chilli, but the cellulose they cake it in to keep it from sticking inhibits the melting process and the cheese's ability to absorb smoke. 

Two major things we are going for!

And if you want extra smoky flavor for your pizza, trying using some smoked cheese, it's actually really easy to make ahead of time and shred up when you're ready to make a smoked pizza!

Ok, once the dough is finished proofing it's time to make the pizza crust.

Spread out a piece of parchment paper large enough to hold your entire pizza.  Sprinkle a generous amount of flour onto the parchment paper.

Then transfer one of the oiled dough balls onto the floured parchment paper and sprinkle some flour on the dough as well.

Noticing a theme here?  Use plenty of flour to keep the dough from sticking to your hands and the paper and keep everything manageable.

Starting at the center, push gently with your fingertips out towards the edges in all directions to begin forming your dough ball into a round pizza crust.

You can rotate the entire piece of parchment paper as you work your way out to all the edges.

Be gentle so as to keep the pizza crust a fairly even thickness as you stretch it out to about 12 inches in diameter.

Now that the pizza is the size you want it, you can trim off the excess parchment paper around the pizza crust.

After this, you have a pizza crust ready top and go in the smoker!

Top your pizza with sauce, freshly shredded cheese, and whatever toppings you want, this part is totally up to you!

 

Best Times and Temperatures for Smoking a Pizza

Generally speaking, its best to smoke your pizza at as high a temperature as you can manage in your grill or smoker.

At least 350-400°F, but preferably 450°-550°F if you can.

Otherwise your crust will have a hard time getting crispy and the pizza may be kind of flimsy.

Make sure to also allow that 30-60 minutes for yout pizza stone or pizza steel to preheat in the smoker or grill too.

We like using this inexpensive infrared thermometer to know when our pizza stone has risen enough in temperature.

We also use it to measure our cast iron temperature when searing steaks and to help find hot and cool spots on new grills.

The Pit Boss pellet grill we used was set to 450°F and the pizza stone was reading well above 500°F by the time we put our pizzas on.

Just one more great thing about using a pizza stone!

At 450-550°F, your 12 inch pizza will likely take anywhere from 7 to 12 minutes.  This will depend a little on how thin you got your crust, how many toppings you added, whether you are using a pizza stone or steel (steel cooks faster), and obviously how hot and consistent your grill or smoker temperature is.

Point being: Watch your smoked pizza closely because a lot can change in a couple of minutes when smoking at those high temperatures!

 

How to Smoke the Pizza

If your smoker has a water pan, DON'T fill it.

You want a nice dry environment to get that crust crispy.

Set your smoker up for INDIRECT heating and let it heat up with the pizza stone or steel for about 30-60 minutes to 450-550°F.

Once its up to temperature, put your smoking wood chunks on the hot coals or load the wood chips in the chip tray if using a propane smoker.

If you are using a gas grill, check out our Ultimate Guide to Smoking on a Gas Grill HERE.

If you are unfamiliar with using smoker boxes or smoker tubes on a gas grill, you can read everything you need to know about How to Use Smoker Boxes here, and see a selection of our Favorite Pellet Tube Smokers here.

Once your grill or smoker is ready and making smoke, transfer the entire pizza, parchment and all, onto your pizza peel and then onto the pizza stone.

The pizza will cook right on the parchment paper.

Make sure to use a good pair of high heat grilling gloves so you don't burn your fingers on the pizza stone!

Close the lid but check often and watch the pizza closely for the 7-12 minutes it will smoke.

You are looking for a golden color to the edges of the crust and for the cheese to bubble and begin to slightly brown as well.

After about 7-12 minutes when the smoked pizza looks done, carefully remove the pizza by pinching a corner of the parchment paper and pulling the whole pizza back on to the pizza peel.

Make sure to wear those high heat grilling gloves when doing this!

Then slide the smoked pizza off the parchment paper onto a cutting board to cool before slicing.

 

Serving Smoked Pizza

Let the smoked pizza cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing it.

This will keep the hot cheese from sliding around and making a mess and allow the sauce to thicken up a little and not run all over the place.

Take note of how the crispy or chewy the crust is to make adjustments for your next pizza.

Maybe you need a slightly higher temperature or a minute more or less the smoker next time.

The point is that making smoked pizza, or any homemade pizza really, is like everything else in BBQ, an artform you can always be striving to improve upon.

You can finish your smoked pizza with some fresh minced basil for extra color or dive right in and eat it as-is!

Enjoy!

📖 Recipe