Pizza Stone

[tommy]

so i'm tempted to buy a pizza stone.  i'm pretty sure that i can make better pizza than any restaurant.  however, i'm thinking i need a stone.

do these things actually work?  is it worth the expense?  any pointers?  bueller?

[Liza]

Hi Tommy,

Nice Stewie!

We keep our pizza stone in the oven all the time and find that it helps distribute the heat evenly for all things. We got the basic Williams-Sonoma version (wedding gift!), so I can't compare and contrast but I say if you've got the conviction, get the stone. The tool I find very important for pizza and other doughs, is a baker's peel to get the dough onto the stone. We got a pretty cheap one at Broadway Panhandler.

Liza

[Rail Paul]

pampered chef also has a good stone, $14 or so. Works very well with homemade bread, too

[Jinmyo]

It's definitely worth the pittance it costs. Just crank the oven up to 475 F or higher. If you don't have a wooden peel, just slide the pizza or flatbread or whatever from a cutting board with a quick snap. 7 to 10 minutes. Again, if no peel use a large offset spatula.

Now tommy's eating gooood pizza.

[edit:]

Oh. What would and wouldn't be on a tommy's pizza? Thin crust?

[Varmint]

You can use baking tiles as well as pizza bricks.  We have two pizza bricks, and I really wouldn't think of making a pizza without them.  You'll want to get the largest one you can find, as you don't want your pizza size limited by the stone.  Their primary purpose is to ensure that the pizza dough gets cooked thoroughly, from the direct heat the stone provides.  Make sure that you preheat your oven for at least half an hour.  You can have the oven over 500 degrees, as pizzas really bake best in a hot oven.

To help get the pizza off the peel, I use semolina under the dough to act as mini-ball bearings.  Others use regular flour or corn meal.

Cleaning the stones is really not that big of a deal.  They're going to get stained, but the hot oven chars anything that slides off the pizza onto the stone.  I've never used any water on my stones, as that could cause them to crack (the stones are porous, and water in them can expand when heated).  I just scrape off the charred bits, and the stone is ready to go.

If you don't have a pizza peel, get one or two.  If you live in a decent sized city, look for restaurant supply stores that sell used goods.  Pizza businesses go out of business fairly often, so the stores often have used peels and baking tiles.  I have a wood one and a metal peel that I bought for a total of $7.50 from a restaurant supply store in Milwaukee a decade ago.

Have fun!

[Jinmyo]

Yes. If you're going to spring for a stone you'd might as well get a peel or two.  

[Malawry]

I have a Tutto Italiano super-cheep stone I bought at Lechter's many moons ago. My only issue with it is that it's not that big...if I want to make enough pizza to feed more than three, I have to make multiple pizzas. I occasionally scrub it down with water and salt but usually just do the scraping thing. The stone makes a big big difference to the quality of my pizzas. You can't get that deliciously chewy crust right without it. If you really blaze your stones you can get a good blister on the crust too.

I don't own a peel. I use cornmeal on my big wooden cutting board and never have trouble sliding it cleanly onto the hot stone. It is a little easier to manage with a peel, and I'd invest in one if I made pizza more often than once in a blue moon.

[tommy]

you people are brilliant.  i knew that all i had to do was throw a question out and check the next day and viola!  hell, i've never even heard of the term "peel" before, but apparently you folks are all over it!

i shall buy a stone.  and a peel.

as far as toppings, Jinmyo, i really don't know because i've never made one.  however, i will say that i like the following on restaurant pizzas:  fresh basil, fresh tomato, artichokes.  not a big fan of the meats actually.  and yes, thin crispy crust.  now i'm hungry!!  thanks again.

[Steve Klc]

I have an inexpensive rectangular stone 16.5" by 14.5" by 1/2" that has handled everything thrown at it with aplomb, has never been washed, just scraped.

Liza's suggestion of keeping it in the oven all the time is astute--it helps everything bake better--by either evening the heat out or concentrating it, depending on what you need.  The more you move the stone, the more likely it will be to break.  Just leave it in.

I do 500 degrees, corn meal, wooden peel as others.  I also buy all my dough from a local Italian joint so I don't have to make it myself.  Just defrost a ball and you're good to go.  

May I also recommend the new $2.95 grater "kit" from IKEA--perfect for frequent pizza makers--it's oval shaped, comes with two flat metal grating lids that fit snugly on top of an oval "Rubbermaid" like container.  This system allows you to grate good mozzarella ergonomically and efiiciently, collect it in the container and it even comes with a snug plastic lid--so you can keep the whole kit in the fridge airtight. Best yet--there are non-stick tabs on the base of the container so it doesn't even slide on your countertop when you grate.  The metal grating lids wash up fine in the dishwasher.

This product gets my nod for "Best new culinary product of the month."

[tommy]

ok, so i got myself a stone yesterday.  and a peel (i don't know what i would have done without a peel.  i mean, how do you get the pizza off of the stone?)

anyway, the first pizza turned out decent enough, with room for lots of improvement.  i bought the dough at a local pizza joint for 1.50.  very reasonable i thought.

the biggest issue was getting the ball of dough into a pizza shape.  it really wanted to snap back, and i ended up with a hole or two in the middle (which is definitely not a good thing), and a fat crust.  i was using my hands and not a rolling pin.  would anyone recommend a pin?  or perhaps my technique just needs some practice?

i can definitely see good things coming out of (off of?) this purchase.  today's pizza was topped with canned san marzano (sp?) tomatoes, fresh muzz, grated parmesean, fresh basil, garlic, hot peppers, and some olive oil.  the flavor was right where it needed to be.  looking forward to my first crispy crust though.

[Jinmyo]

Good for you, tommy.

I'm not so hot with dough. I roll it into the basic shape, let it rest, then pick it up and let it hang over my fingers, hands, forearms and work it around. Slap it down on the peel with a bit of semolina, finish shaping it there.

Betcha Steve Klc will be helpful.

[Katherine]

If you roll it out some, and it won't stretch because it's too tough, it needs to rest and rise until doubled.

[Fat Guy]

As mentioned already, if you're having trouble with stubborn dough, the simplest thing to do is let it rest a few times during the shaping process. Pull it out as far as it will go without fighting you, then leave it for 10 minutes. Repeat this a few times and it should get out to full size without tearing. As your technique develops you may be able to get a full size pie with no breakage. I think a pin can be damaging to the texture of the dough, so I'd skip that.

There are a few mistakes that beginners make with pizza. One of them is failing to get the oven hot enough. You have to put it up as high as you can get it and pre-heat it forever. Another mistake is putting too much stuff on the pizza, which causes sogginess and also makes it hard to determine what you've done wrong if the finished product is unsatisfactory. Start gradually. Ideally, you'll start just with dough. Drizzle just a little olive oil on it and maybe some coarse salt. See how it comes out. Once you've got the crust thing down, add a thin layer of one topping (like cheese) to see how it behaves. If you're going to use tomatoes or sauce, make sure you get as much moisture as possible out before cooking.

I was just at Trader Joe's (I should post more about that) and saw that they're selling dough for 79-cents a pound. It's also very simple to make using the metal blade on your food processor. Making it yourself will help educate you regarding pizza-making and will help you to identify good and bad dough. You may later choose, as Steve Klc has, to buy it somewhere.

[Steve Klc]

No pin.  I don't disagree with much that has been written here already--and don't feel that there is any one inviolate way to do this, but I don't roll out my dough at all. drop your ball in flour and smack it down on the countertop.  making a noise is key.  I'm sure there is a reason, scientifically speaking, having to do with deflating the air bubbles trapped in a crystalline network of gluten, but it really doesn't matter.  just throw it down hard and you'll feel better. I throw it down hard on marble or stainless, not the peel yet.

I just use my hands and finger tips to flatten the ball of dough, line up your 8 firm fingertips and begin pressing into the center of the raised ball of dough to flatten it and rotate it a bit as you press down.  It's a lot easier to see someone do this than it is to describe it.  Keep the edges fat and fluffy.  Let your fingertips define evenly the size of the edge and the thickness of the crust you want.  Let rest under a towel for awhile.

Then I pick up the dough by the thick edges like Jinmyo and let it hang--let gravity work for you as you hear alot in pastrymaking--pulling apart a bit to stretch and rolling it around once--hung vertically.  Then I, too, roll it around my fists and gently stretch apart.  This is again one of those "feel" things--just do it a few times with a pizza parlor's dough (so you can eliminate the fact that your own dough is at fault) and you'll see what the proper feel is not to pull holes in it.

Then I put the stretched dough on the peel which has been sprinkled with cornmeal and build the pie there.

Steven is right on with oven temps--I seriously do 500 degrees for at least 30 mins before it goes in.

I had an uncle who was a cook and actually took a job in a famous pizzeria just to learn how to do the dough and I remember what he showed me, even though that was 15 years before I ever went to cooking school.  "The Italian Baker" is a great reference, especially because it talks about making the doughs in different machines, like the food processor, the Kitchenaid, whatever.  When I made my own pizza dough, I did the Cuisinart method from this book without a problem.

My stone is on the floor of my oven and I like a blackened crust--if you don't, put the stone higher up in the oven rather than lower the temperature setting.  And this applies to thin crust pizzas, not deep dish which isn't pizza.  Deep dish pizza is like white chocolate to thin-crust pizza as dark chocolate.

[Jinmyo]

In case it hasn't been made clear enough by everyone:

Oven: HOT HOT HOT. Can it go hotter? No? Sure? Then preheat for an hour.

Basically, the toppings need to cook through and brown befoire the crust becomes a big round dumb old cracker.

[tommy]

In case it hasn't been made clear enough by everyone:

Oven: HOT HOT HOT. Can it go hotter? No? Sure? Then preheat for an hour.

Basically, the toppings need to cook through and brown befoire the crust becomes a big round dumb old cracker.

then hot it is.  i certainly wouldn't want a big round dumb old cracker.

thanks again to everyone.  full report to follow.

[tommy]

i found out that the pizza stone does one helluva job on frozen pizzas too.  wow!

[Jinmyo]

tommy, you bet. Are you just leaving it in the oven? (Except to clean it?) It really does make a difference. I think ovens should come with a pizza stone.

[tommy]

oh she's staying in there alright.  i think you're right about ovens coming with one.  i'd gladly take a decent stone over the stupid pan you usually get (and never use).

[oraklet]

Pizza stones are a nice way to get around the drawbacks of modern ovens. The very old ones don't seem to need one. I've been baking bread and pizzas for years at my parents-in-law's cabin in Sweden in a very old oven that heats the whole place at the same time - and the result is excellent, almost every time.

Now, apart from the stone, key factors in making a pizza are:

Make your own dough, with very little yeast, from 5/6 pizza flour and 1/6 pasta flour plus water and salt. Make sure it is rather sticky, let it grow slowly (at least 8 hours) in a bowl in a cool place. It should be covered with a damp cloth and a lid. When it has increased to double size, pour a thin layer of pasta flour on your working table, turn the dough carefully (in one piece) onto the flour, cover it with more flour and work it into the desired shape, starting from the center. The oven should be HOT!

Apart from this, of course it should not be covered with too much filling.

If you prefer to make small breads, cut the dough into smaller pieces. If you're not careful, some of the air will be squeezed out, and you will then have to let them rest for a few hours. Covered again, of course.

This is as close to the classical method of bread-baking as you can get in our modern world. There is one drawback, though: Once you have mastered it, you will HATE most other kinds of bread, just like my family do, and you will have to bake and bake and bake and....

[Bilmo]

My pizza stone works great, but...

I'm currently living in an apartment with a very small kitchen with a weak exhaust fan.  Between the previous leakage on the stone, and the semolina or cornmeal used to transfer the pie, the smoke and fumes are just too too much.  Decent kitchen exhaust is pretty important.

[oraklet]

Oh, I forgot to mention that bread should be baked at temperatures somewhere between pie and pizza - the smaller the bread, the higher the temperature. Also, that you can add some rye flour or not-refined wheat flour for a more rustical taste, which will be the way most italian bread tasted 100 years ago. And hot-air ovens are good for making that crusty bite!

Anyway, no two ovens are alike, so you will have to make some experiments, before you really succeed.

[tommy]

obviously i think people care about my pizza.  that's probably not the case, but here goes!

i made my second pizza today.  this one was *much* better than the first.  i took a lot of advice from all of the posts, and came up with a very good pizza.  thin crispy crust.  toppings that weren't overly watery.  and a fine looking pie if i don't say so myself.  this one, for sure, was just as good if not better than just about every place out there.

thanks again for the tips!

[Steve Klc]

Tommy--you report, we decide.  When are you making it for us?

[Jinmyo]

tommy, have you made any pizzas lately?

You know, Japanese pizzas often have corn as a topping.