Baking steel
A slab of solid steel that stands in for a pizza stone in a home oven
Half an inch of solid steel, left on an oven rack through the preheat. Steel drives heat into wet dough far faster than ceramic does, so the base sets and chars before the top dries out. That is how home oven pizza usually fails. Bread works well on it too. Across two burners it becomes a griddle. The trade-offs: 15 pounds, and a preheat nearer 45 minutes than 10.
People on record
Sorted by strength of stance
Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- J. Kenji López-AltRecommends
Chef and food writer · The Food Lab
Points home bakers at a slab of steel instead of a pizza stone. Higher thermal capacity and better conduction, he says, mean faster bakes, puffier crusts and better-charred bottoms out of an ordinary oven. Copies have piled up over fifteen years and he still tells people to buy the original.
Source: kenjilopezalt.com: 12 Gifts for Pizza Lovers
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