Charcoal Kettle Grill pizza temperature and bake time
For a Neapolitan pizza at 60% hydration, start at 350°C air temperature, 350°C on the baking surface, and about 116 sec–2m 44s. Adjust the Oven Lab for your dough.
Charcoal Kettle Grill is a Kamado oven, reaching up to 350°C, outdoor, powered by charcoal, 57cm inner diameter, weighing 15kg, fitting 1 pizzas, and heating up in 30 minutes. The round charcoal kettle, with a stone on the grate and the lid closed. Live fire gives you flavour and a temperature well above any indoor oven, and banking the coals to one side gives you a hot zone and a cool zone to move between. Be aware it is listed under kamado in this catalogue but shares none of a kamado's thermal mass: the walls are thin steel, so the stone gives up its heat to each pizza and needs a few minutes to come back before the next one. Pros: charcoal heat and smoke that no electric oven can imitate, cheap, and most households in grilling countries already have one, banked coals give a genuine hot zone and cool zone. Users of this oven often complain about thin steel holds almost no heat, so the deck sags between pizzas, temperature is managed with vents and instinct, not a dial, you get roughly one hour of usable heat per load of charcoal, specs here are typical values, not your specific grill.
- Give the deck the full 30 min. Air temperature lies. The stone is slower.
- Bake on a stone, not the grate. Direct charcoal will torch the base.
- Plan about 8 min between pies so the floor charges again.