I've been making homemade pizza for nearly 9 years and have learned some tricks of the trade if you want a good pie with a crisp crust: Use your grill. This is great in the summer time as well since you don't need to heat up the house. If you want recipes for my crust and sauce, click here. You will also need a pizza stone and pizza paddle (or something that will suffice in it's place.)
Fire up your grill with your pizza stone on the grates. You will want to heat it for about 10 minutes - if there's a temperature gauge on it you'll want it to about 450 deg. My recipe is enough to make two "hand tossed" 12" pizzas. So once the dough is done, divide it in half. Roll out the first ball into a 14" circular shape on a well-floured surface.
If you're fortunate enough to have a wooden pizza paddle (about $10 at Bed Bath & Beyond), sprinkle it with bread crumbs. Gently transfer your 14" dough to the paddle. With your thumbs under the crust, start twisting them one over the other to get the look below (it's really hard to explain this process. Do the best you can.) This will leave you with a 12" pizza. You do not want your pizza crust to be larger than your stone or you will wind up with burnt crust.
Add your sauce and toppings.
Our toppings included Italian sausage and orange peppers.
Place your stone in the center (not on the side like you see pictured below). Don't do what my husband is doing here and try to use a spatula to slide the pizza onto the pizza stone. You'll accomplish this better if you make use of your wrist and those bread crumbs you put on the paddle. The crumbs will help the pizza slide right off, but your aim needs to be good to get it to land on the pizza stone "just so". I'm an expert since I worked in a pizza place like 30 years ago. It's like riding a bike. Then turn the inner burners down to low, keep the outer burners on medium. You're trying to maintain a temperature between 400-450 degrees.
Cook it for about 7-12 minutes - depends on the temperature inside your grill.
Serve it up with the beverage of your choice. Your crust should be crisp on the outside with a fluffy edge - perfect for dunking in garlic-flavored butter (melt some butter and sprinkle in some garlic salt.) Enjoy!
