Grilled pizza break

It can't be all woodwork all the time. Sometimes there's grill work, sometimes there's pizza. At the best of times, there can be all three. Today felt like it should be one of those times.

I've gotten a pretty good handle on a papa john's copy dough, and it even makes for a decent base on making your own frozen pizzas. I should post on that too sometime. But today I was more interested in seeing if it would hold up as well on the grill. Sometimes it's just too hot to have your oven running at 515 degrees for any amount of time. Today is one of those times, but I'm a little dubious about pizza on the grill. Lunch for myself is a lot less risky to try out stuff vs dinner for everyone.

This dough is pretty sturdy:

1 packet fast-rising yeast (2 1/4 tps)
2 Tbs sugar
2 cups warm water
Mix and proof 5 minutes. Then add:
1/2 tsp garlic salt
2 1/2 cups bread flour
2 Tbs oil
Mix until dough pulls away from sides of mixer.

I made it as soon as I got home from dropping the kids off at camp, which gave it about 4 hours to rise while I got a run in and then worked on the media stand. I took a break around the 3-hour mark to punch it down and let it rise again for that last hour. It made for what I would consider a great looking dough if I was using the pizza stone.

Prep work can be important when you're on the grill, so I got everything ready while the charcoal lit. This dough is pretty hearty so I was sure it could handle three ingredients without any issue.

There was also oil, sauce, and cheese ready to go.

Once things were lit, on to the grill it went. This was mistake number one. I should have moved the coals for more indirect heat. But it cooked up well before I flipped it and put the toppings on.

Raw dough on, only 3 or 4 minutes I think.

Notice the browns already on the outer crust after flipping it

No time for pictures when you're working with high heats, but things looked really good at this point. Unfortunately, the direct heat ended up charring the bottom almost to the point of being inedible. I'm not a huge fan of wood-fired crust anyway, and this was a deep black char across the bottom of the crust. Too bad.

But it was still a decent lunch, and I learned some lessons in case we ever want pizza but it's too hot to turn the oven on. I'd try it again at least. God I love these Fridays off.