Detroit Style Pizza on Your BBQ Grill

What is Detroit Style Pizza?

This Motor City classic is a rectangular deep-dish pizza originating in Detroit and made famous by Buddy’s, Loui’s and Cloverleaf restaurants. The Detroit deep-dish pizza typically consists of a thick Sicilian style pizza crust topped with nutty Wisconsin brick cheese, that is cooked in a heavy, steel, rectangular pan with a caramelized cheese crust and red sauce on the top.

How To Make Detroit Style Pizza Sauce

The pizza sauce for Detroit red top pizza is typically zesty in flavor, consisting of Italian tomatoes and a number of herbs and seasonings. For our Detroit Pizza sauce you will need canned crushed tomatoes, basil, oregano, garlic, crushed red pepper, butter, onion powder, and salt.

Combine the sauce ingredients in a small pan and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 5 minutes, until the butter is melted. Remove from the heat and set aside. The sauce can be made several days ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator, but you will want to rewarm it before use.

How to make a Detroit Style Pizza Dough

Any quality Motor City Pizza starts with a great crust. Detroit style pizza crust is thick and airy with a crispy bottom from being cooked in the pan. The dough is similar to that of a focaccia or Sicilian style pizza.

To make Detroit pizza dough you will need a total of 210 grams of water for the dough. About 1/4 cup of the water should be warm (about 95-110 degrees) and the remaining water should be cold.

Mix the yeast in the warm water until foamy. Add the flour to a stand mixer of food processor with a dough hook. While mixing, add the warm water with the yeast and then most of the cold water. Use the remaining cold water to rinse the bowl with the yeast and add to the mixing bowl.

Mix for about a minute then stop and scrape the sides of the bowl to incorporate all of the dough. Mix for 2 minutes then add the salt to the dough. Continue to knead the dough in the mixer for 10 minutes. You may also hand knead the Detroit style pizza dough, however, at 70% hydration the dough will be sticky so you may need to lightly flour the dough ball and your hands to work with the it. After kneading the dough cover with a damp, warm towel and allow the dough to rest for thirty minutes.

Refrigerating the Pizza Dough

At this point you can cover and refrigerate the dough for up to 4 days. During this cold fermentation process the dough will develop a fuller flavor similar to sourdough. If you elect to cold ferment your Detroit style pizza dough, remove the dough from the refrigerator for about 2 hours, to allow it to warm to room temperature, before proceeding with the recipe.

Pizza Pan for Making Detroit Style Pizza on Your Grill or Smoker

Detroit style pizza is made in heavy steel pans. Traditionally the pizzas were made in machine part pans, that the Motor City had a lot of. For making Detroit Red Top on our BBQ grill, we like our pizzas pans from Lloyd’s Pans. They are made from hard anodized aluminum making them durable and easy to maintain. You can also use more traditional steel pans, though those will require more upkeep to keep them in working order.

What type of cheese is used for a Detroit Red Top Pizza?

Just as the use of industrial pans has become synonymous with pizza in Detroit, the use of brick cheese is another staple of Detroit Style Pizza.

What is Brick Cheese?

Brick cheese is a Wisconsin semi soft cheese with some similarities to cheddar. Brick cheese, however, has a higher fat content helping it spread evenly across the pizza and along the crust during cooking. This provides that iconic crispy cheese edge that has helped make Detroit Style Pizza famous. It also adds a great buttery flavor to the pizza.

Substitutes for Brick cheese

If you are unable to find brick cheese in your area you can substitute equal amounts of whole milk mozzarella, provolone, and white cheddar. Typically, we use only the white cheddar at the edge of the pizza at it most closely mimics the caramelized cheese crust that you want in a Detroit pizza.

How to make Detroit Style Pizza on Your BBQ Grill or Smoker

To prepare the pizza, first grease the Detroit style pizza pan with the 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of oil.

Spread the dough in the pan trying to reach all of the edges and corners (it may not quite reach at this point). Cover the pan and rest the dough of 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes respread the dough to the edges and degas the dough by gently pressing it. Re-cover the dough and allow to rest for 1 hour.

While the dough is rising, prepare your smoker, grill, or oven for indirect heat and preheat to 500 degrees.

Par bake the pizza dough

Par bake the dough in the pan for 4-6 minutes. This step is not completely necessary, however, we find it beneficial to help maintain the crispy and airy texture of the pizza dough. This is especially true if you are using whole milk mozzarella instead of brick cheese, as the higher water content can cause a soggy dough.

Top your pizza

Remove from the smoker and top with your pizza with your desired toppings and the cheese. Reserve about 1/2 cup of the cheese if you want a less charred cheese edge or place the 1/2 cup of cheese around the edge of the pizza at this point if you prefer a darker caramelized cheese edge on your grilled Detroit Style Pizza.

Bake the pizza for 5 minutes then rotate the pan 180 degrees and place the remaining cheese along the border of the pizza.

Bake for 5-7 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbly and the cheese crust is slightly charred.

Top your Detroit Red Top

Finally, it is time to sauce your pizza. Similar to Chicago deep dish pizza, the sauce goes on top. This has given the pizzas made in Detroit the nickname Detroit Red top. Placing the sauce on top helps keep the crust airy and crispy. All that is left to decide is if you are team racing stripe or team dollop.

Serving your Detroit Style Pizza

Remove the pizza to a cutting board and cut into rectangles or use a spatula to cut the pizza in the pizza pan. We do not recommend using a knife in the pan as it can damage the pan. You may need to use a spatula to loosen the cheese from the edge of the steel pizza pan.

Serve the pizza warm with some of your favorite sides and appetizers and desserts like Cast Iron Spinach Artichoke Dip, Italian Style Parmesan Wings, or Grilled Peaches with Amaretto Whipped Cream. Enjoy with a cold Blood Orange Bellini.

All of you pizza addicts be sure to check out some of the best pizza recipes from around the globe:

• Pequod’s Inspired Cast Iron Pizza
• Pizza Oven Sausage and Pepperoni Stromboli
• Traditional Turkish Pide: Turkish Flatbread Pizza
• Best Sicilian Style Pizza
• Skullzone (Halloween Pizza Stuffed Skulls)

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