What temperature pizza?

[OldMayfield]

What's the consensus for the right temperature to cook pizza on a Traeger?

I did a little research. It seems a lot of us use 400 F. However the recipes in the Traeger app generally call for 450 F. One receipe suggests to try 500 F without any further guidance, e.g., timing.

I generally cook a homemade pie using either homemade or store-bought dough on a pizza stone. I've tried 450 F and 500 F, both with success, usually checking the pie visually (melted cheese, browning crust, etc.) to determine doneness rather than a specific time or using a thermometer.

How about you all?

 

[traeger860]

I cook mine as hot as possible. Grew up in Connecticut on New Haven-style apizza. Coal fired. "Burnt" or "charred" but still chewy.

Frank Pepes (The GOAT):

 

[RayClem]

I have not tried making a pizza from scratch in decades. Frozen pizzas are too inexpensive and too convenient.
I set my controller to 450F which produces a cook temperature of 400F on my Ironwood. I take my pizza from the freezer and place it on a perforated metal pizza pan and place it on the top rack.

Most of my pizzas are the thicker, self-rising variety. With a frozen pizza, I am afraid that trying to cook it at a hotter temperature might brown the crust before the inside is properly cooked. If you are cooking a thin pizza then a higher temperature might work as well or even better.

 

[ThorPan]

We make our pizzas using the Pro 575.

Ask 10 people, and you'll get 10 answers, so here's ours:

Wifey used to get some fancy, thin crust pizza dough in the refrigerated section of Kroger or Walmart, but it hasn't been available lately, so she's been getting the Kroger brand thin crust dough that's rolled up and refrigerated instead. It is NOT cooked; it's the raw dough. I think that it's a 12" or 14" crust. Freezing it for 10 minutes before unrolling really makes a difference!

If your crust comes with a piece of parchment paper on the bottom, LEAVE it there! If not, find some and put it under the dough; just make sure to trim it up some so it doesn't hang over the stone too far and catches fire.

We typically make our pizzas using sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, bacon, and sometimes green olives. Of course we use a pizza blend for the cheese. Find a pizza sauce you like, and add all the other good stuff that you want.

That was all just basic information, so you have a general idea of the size of the pizza, so you can adjust your cooking times accordingly depending on how high you piled your toppings.

Set grill to 475°

After temp is reached, put your pizza stone on the middle of the bottom grate. Heat for 30 minutes.

Immediately before putting your pizza on the stone, set temp to 425°.

Put the pizza on the stone. Don't forget that piece of parchment paper (your results may vary with the paper). We use it it keep the pizza from sticking to the stone. Cornmeal would probably work just as well, but we always make a mess using that.

Close the lid and cook 4 minutes, then Rotate pizza 180°

Cook 4 more minutes or until the bottom of the crust and top of the pizza look perfect to you.

Pull it!!

We take it inside and slide it off the stone onto a pizza pan, remove the paper, slice, and eat.

 

[CMTiger]

We make our pizzas using the Pro 575.

Ask 10 people, and you'll get 10 answers, so here's ours:

Wifey used to get some fancy, thin crust pizza dough in the refrigerated section of Kroger or Walmart, but it hasn't been available lately, so she's been getting the Kroger brand thin crust dough that's rolled up and refrigerated instead. It is NOT cooked; it's the raw dough. I think that it's a 12" or 14" crust. Freezing it for 10 minutes before unrolling really makes a difference!

If your crust comes with a piece of parchment paper on the bottom, LEAVE it there! If not, find some and put it under the dough.

We typically make our pizzas using sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, bacon, and sometimes green olives. Of course we use a pizza blend for the cheese. Find a pizza sauce you like, and add all the other good stuff that you want.

That was all just basic information, so you have a general idea of the size of the pizza, so you can adjust your cooking times accordingly depending on how high you piled your toppings.

Set grill to 475°

After temp is reached, put your pizza stone on the middle of the bottom grate. Heat for 30 minutes.

Immediately before putting your pizza on the stone, set temp to 425°.

Put the pizza on the stone. Don't forget that piece of parchment paper (your results may vary with the paper).

Close the lid and cook 4 minutes, then Rotate pizza 180°

Cook 4 more minutes or until the bottom of the crust and top of the pizza look perfect to you.

Pull it, slice it, eat it!!

Why do you leave the parchment paper?

 

[ThorPan]

Why do you leave the parchment paper?

It keeps the pizza from sticking to the stone so we can easily slide it off once it's cooked.

 

[traeger860]

Depending on what your pizza stone is made from, sometimes it’s recommended to heat the stone along with the grill or oven. Putting a cold or room temp stone into an already higher temp setting can crack it.

 

[ThorPan]

Depending on what your pizza stone is made from, sometimes it’s recommended to heat the stone along with the grill or oven. Putting a cold or room temp stone into an already higher temp setting can crack it.

That's very true!

Unfortunately, it makes it really hard to clean off the grate with the stone sitting there, not to mention, there could be a lot of smoke and burning off from the last cook that we'd prefer not get on our stone or the rack/handles that hold it.

 

[Shedd]

Although I cook pizza on my Webber gas grill (much quicker and better) I use a large deep pan turned upside down on my grate with my pizza stone on top of it. I put it on then let it heat with the grill. Once it’s close to 600 degrees I sprinkle a little yellow corn meal on the stone then the pizza. It cooks fast and great taste. Never had an issue with it sticking to the stone. I cook pizzas almost weekly, I make my own dough most of the time but sometimes (especially if the grandkids are over and last minute) I buy the Costco brand 4 pepperoni pizzas in a box. They do great straight from frozen and I don’t use any corn meal.

 

[Shedd]

My setup

 

[CMTiger]

My setup

Why the pan?

 

[Shedd]

I know it seems ridiculous but it makes a difference in cooking more evenly. I didn’t believe it until a friend of mine brother showed me. I’ve done it for years. It works on my egg as well as my gasser. The Traeger can’t compete in temperature and lacks the ability to quickly recover the heat loss when opening the lid. I only gave it one try, cannot compare to my Webber gas.

 

[Torstenlaw]

I use a pizza stone and put corn meal on it before the dough. It's key to heat the stone in advance, this way the dough cooks at the bottom too.