Pizza Baking Steel

[palo]

I guess I was thinking of the type of stainless stee that pots and pans are made of, that steel that btbyrd was referencing doesn't look like my idea of stainless and I could find no mention of stainless at PizzaCraft.

Not trying to be a pain, just curious.

 

p

[pastryani]

On 6/7/2016 at 8:13 PM, anneforums said:

I saw there is a guy in Melbourne selling pizza baking steel for Pizza etc. He has different sizes of baking steel. 10mm thickness and 6mm. The reviews from people who have bought them have all been 5 stars. I'm thinking of getting one. Does anyone know if 10mm is better than the 6mm? 

 

Here's a review by Kenji Lopez-Alt:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/09/the-pizza-lab-the-baking-steel-delivers.html

 

He brings up a good point (as others have here) that the weight of the 1/2" is 30 lbs, so it's not very portable and you'd have to make sure your oven could support that.  I have the 1/4" and it does a great job.  I think the 1/2" would retain more heat but that alone would not motivate me to get it.  I do back-to-back pizzas with the 1/4" without issue (without having to wait for the steel to heat back up) and the portability of the 1/4" 15-pounder is important to me.

 

I know I've read another article that does a direct comparison between the two but I can't find it right now.  The gist of it was that if you have an oven that can support the 30 lbs AND can be solely dedicated to pizza making (so that you could leave the steel in the oven at all times and not have to move it) AND you don't mind paying more for it, then the 1/2" will yield slightly better results.  Otherwise, the 1/4" does a darn good job with nominal differences.

Edited September 20, 2017 by pastryani (log)

[scott123]

On 9/20/2017 at 7:31 AM, pastryani said:

 

Here's a review by Kenji Lopez-Alt:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/09/the-pizza-lab-the-baking-steel-delivers.html

 

He brings up a good point (as others have here) that the weight of the 1/2" is 30 lbs, so it's not very portable and you'd have to make sure your oven could support that.  I have the 1/4" and it does a great job.  I think the 1/2" would retain more heat but that alone would not motivate me to get it.  I do back-to-back pizzas with the 1/4" without issue (without having to wait for the steel to heat back up) and the portability of the 1/4" 15-pounder is important to me.

 

I know I've read another article that does a direct comparison between the two but I can't find it right now.  The gist of it was that if you have an oven that can support the 30 lbs AND can be solely dedicated to pizza making (so that you could leave the steel in the oven at all times and not have to move it) AND you don't mind paying more for it, then the 1/2" will yield slightly better results.  Otherwise, the 1/4" does a darn good job with nominal differences.

 

 

 

A few things.

 

1. Kenji targets a very non obsessive audience.  For the obsessive, everything comes down to bake time with pizza.  As you slow down the bake, the dough doesn't puff up as much and it dries out and takes on a stale quality.  8 minutes is better than a 10 minute bake, 6 is better than 8, 4 is better than 6- for most obsessives. The thickness of the steel relates directly to thermal mass, and thermal mass impacts bake time.  A 1/4" steel won't bake as fast of a pizza as 1/2" will.  For a non obsessive, this may not be the end of the world.  At the same time, though, it's pretty much impossible to know whether or not one is ever going get the pizza bug, and should that occur, if they're stuck with a 1/4" product, it's not going to cut it.

 

Steel, by it's nature, is an advanced pizza baking tool.  It's almost always the device that people reach for after they've worked with stone a bit and want to take it to the next level.  The worst thing someone in those shoes could do, though, is rather than strive for the ultimate, would be to settle for a slight improvement (if any) with 1/4."

 

2. Another obsessive aspect of steel is length and width.   The beginner may be perfectly fine with 13" pizzas, but, as you up your game, you absolutely want to share your works of art with the rest of the world, and, when you do, in order to serve a larger number of people, you need as much real estate as you can get.    I've done parties that required six 17" pies in about an hour.  That kind of output only happens with a 17 x 17 x .5 steel.

 

3. A single 30 lb. steel (or, preferably, a 40 lb steel) is very far from portable, but if you get it cut in half, the resulting pieces are a heck of a lot more manageable. In theory, if someone had a health issue and had trouble lifting a 20 lb. steel into place, they could cut the initial steel into thirds. One important aspect is that oven shelves have a tendency to bow a bit in the middle, so you want the seam(s) to run against the bow, not with it.

 

4. Domestic oven shelves, by their nature, are built to support 25+ lb.  Thanksgiving turkeys, inside heavy baking pans, with vegetables and stuffing.  40 lb. is no problem whatsoever for your average oven shelf. During the last decade, I know at least 200 people who've purchased 40 lb+ steels and no one has ever complained about an oven shelf breaking.  Believe me, if this were a potential issue, some one would have experienced it, and they would have scream bloody murder. They haven't.  The shelf, as I said, will bend a bit, some a bit more than others, but it will not break, and, when you remove the steel, the shelf will bounce back to it's original shape.

Edited September 29, 2017 by scott123 (log)

[boilsover]

On 9/22/2017 at 5:32 PM, scott123 said:

 

 

A few things.

 

1. Kenji targets a very non obsessive audience.  For the obsessive, everything comes down to bake time with pizza.  As you slow down the bake, the dough doesn't puff up as much and it dries out and takes on a stale quality.  8 minutes is better than a 10 minute bake, 6 is better than 8, 4 is better than 6- for most obsessives. The thickness of the steel relates directly to thermal mass, and thermal mass impacts bake time.  A 1/4" steel won't bake as fast of a pizza as 1/2" will.  For a non obsessive, this may not be the end of the world.  At the same time, though, it's pretty much impossible to know whether or not one is ever going get the pizza bug, and should that occur, if they're stuck with a 1/4" product, it's not going to cut it.

 

Steel, by it's nature, is an advanced pizza baking tool.  It almost always the device that people reach for after they've worked with stone a bit and want to take it to the next level.  The worst thing someone in those shoes could do, though, is rather than strive for the ultimate, would be to settle for a slight improvement (if any) with 1/4."

 

2. Another obsessive aspect of steel is length and width.   The beginner may be perfectly fine with 13" pizzas, but, as you up your game, you absolutely want to share your works of art with the rest of the world, and, when you do, in order to serve a larger number of people, you need as much real estate as you can get.    I've done parties that required six 17" pies in about an hour.  That kind of output only happens with a 17 x 17 x .5 steel.

 

3. A single 30 lb. steel (or, preferably, a 40 lb steel) is very far from portable, but if you get it cut in half, the resulting pieces are a heck of a lot more manageable. In theory, if someone had a health issue and had trouble lifting a 20 lb. steel into place, they could cut the initial steel into thirds. One important aspect is that oven shelves have a tendency to bow a bit in the middle, so you want the seam(s) to run against the bow, not with it.

 

4. Domestic oven shelves, by their nature, are built to support 25+ lb.  Thanksgiving turkeys, inside heavy baking pans, with vegetables and stuffing.  40 lb. is no problem whatsoever for your average oven shelf. During the last decade, I know at least 200 people who've purchased 40 lb+ steels and no one has ever complained about an oven shelf breaking.  Believe me, if this were a potential issue, some one would have experienced it, and they would have scream bloody murder. They haven't.  The shelf, as I said, will bend a bit, some a bit more than others, but it will not break, and, when you remove the steel, the shelf will bounce back to it's original shape.

 

Hi, Scott:

 

  I have a 1/2" steel cut to the size of my oven (minus 1" all the way around).  I like it a lot, and it's not all that hard to move around.  I generally agree with your enumerated points.

 

  However...  my only issue with the 1/2" and the bake speed it allows is that the topping finish lags behind the crust bottom.  Raising the rack to its highest possible position and switching to High Broil helps, but it's still always a tossup whether my 3 minute pie will be a black panther underneath before the toppings finish.

 

  This may be a weak broiler element, but even so, I can't be the only cook out here with that limitation.

 

  If I had it to do over again, I would split the difference and have a 3/8" sheet cut.  For my oven, I think that would be striking a non-obsessive's balance.  It might even afford a little extra room to load/unload.

[scott123]

17 hours ago, boilsover said:

Hi, Scott:

 

  I have a 1/2" steel cut to the size of my oven (minus 1" all the way around).  I like it a lot, and it's not all that hard to move around.  I generally agree with your enumerated points.

 

  However...  my only issue with the 1/2" and the bake speed it allows is that the topping finish lags behind the crust bottom.  Raising the rack to its highest possible position and switching to High Broil helps, but it's still always a tossup whether my 3 minute pie will be a black panther underneath before the toppings finish.

 

  This may be a weak broiler element, but even so, I can't be the only cook out here with that limitation.

 

  If I had it to do over again, I would split the difference and have a 3/8" sheet cut.  For my oven, I think that would be striking a non-obsessive's balance.  It might even afford a little extra room to load/unload.

 

Steel, as I'm sure you're aware, is a bottom heat accelerator.  If you speed up the rate that the bottom bakes, you have to give the top of the pizza more heat as well- in the form of broiling.  In the decade or so that steel plate has been used for pizza, very little has been mentioned regarding broiling.  Nathan Myhrvold/Chris Young (Modernist Cuisine) bring it up very briefly, But Andris Lagsdin (the owner of Baking Steel) and Kenji have steered clear of the topic entirely.  This omission has been unbelievably damaging to the home pizza making community because of the number of broilerless oven owners who have purchased steel and been left with a door stop.  I've done my best to educate people, but my voice only carries so far.  Beyond the damage to broilerless oven owners, this broiler agnostic approach has done a terrible disservice to weak broiler owners like yourself.  The misinformation being parroted time and time again is "purchase steel and make Neapolitan pizza at home."

 

Tangential soap box aside, you can't squeeze blood from a stone. Just because you can use steel to bake the bottom of your pizza in, say, as little as 2.5 minutes, it doesn't mean that your oven is capable of a balanced 2.5 minute bake.  Your broiler is obviously the weakest link in the equation.  If it's only capable of getting good top color in, say, 4 minutes, then you have to dial back the bottom heat- and I'm not sure handicapping the steel by going thinner is the answer.  Based upon the black you're seeing in 3 minutes, it sounds a lot like you're pre-heating the steel as high as your oven will go. Again, this is another area where the 'experts' get it wrong.  If you heat your oven as hot as it will get, when you go and try to turn on the broiler, the thermostat will prevent the broiler from going on. Eventually the oven might cool enough for the broiler to kick in, but how long this will take will be a crap shoot, which, in turn, will produce the erratic results that you're seeing.

 

In order to effectively use a broiler during the bake, you need to pre-heat the oven to a low enough temperature that the broiler will both kick in when you turn it on- and stay on for as long as you need it. For some ovens, this may be a drop in 25 degrees, but there's a chance you may need more.  You can try cracking the door during the bake to help the broiler stay on, but I've found that cracking the door compounds the issue with the back of the pizza taking on a lot more color- which is obviously mitigated with turns, but if the back/front heat balance is too far out of wack, it can take a lot of turns to get even color.

 

In other words, if your broiler is kicking in erratically like it sounds like it's doing, then it will be just as erratic with 3/8" steel preheated to the max as it is with 1/2" and your results will continue to be inconsistent. The answer isn't a thinner plate, but a lower pre-heat temp.

 

As you dial down the heat, this will extend your bake time a bit, and you're going to move out of the 2.5 minute territory.  That may not be a horrible thing.  If you read my post above, I said that 4 minutes is better than 6, but I didn't say that 2 minutes is better than 4   Sub 90 second Neapolitan pizza is phenomenal, but if you can't hit a 90 second balanced bake, which I guarantee you that you can't,   4+ minute NY style is generally thought to be far superior to the no man's land between 2 and 4 minutes. Now, you can get a bit more Neapolitan-ish char on the undercrust in 3 - 3.5 minutes, and a handful of people enjoy that, but, you'll only know if you can achieve something like that after you've dialed the pre-heat temp down until the broiler starts cooperating.  With your broiler, a non blackened but properly charred 3 minute undercrust with good top color may not be possible.

 

On another note, the 1" gap on all sides to allow for air flow... If anyone is considering cutting their steel like this, please don't.  You need a gap for air flow, but you don't need it on all sides. You only need a gap on two sides, which allows you to go all the way from the back wall to almost touching the door, which, in turn, buys you incredibly precious circular real estate. My Steel Plate Buying Guide provides all the details for ideal sizing (for the obsessive, of course )

Edited September 25, 2017 by scott123 (log)

[boilsover]

1 hour ago, scott123 said:

Based upon the black you're seeing in 3 minutes, it sounds a lot like you're pre-heating the steel as high as your oven will go.

 

Yes, of course.  Don't you subscribe to the theory that the shortest bake is best?  I can ratchet the steel temp up to 700F by alternating the oven and broiler.

 

1 hour ago, scott123 said:

In other words, if your broiler is kicking in erratically like it sounds like it's doing...

 

No.  It's on >98% of the time.  When it cuts out, I crack the door and it comes right back on.  The IR gun says this has a negligible effect on the steel temp.

 

1 hour ago, scott123 said:

The answer isn't a thinner plate, but a lower pre-heat temp.

 

 

What do you suggest that temperature be for a 4-minute pie on a 1/2" steel?

 

Thanks.

Edited September 25, 2017 by boilsover (log)

[scott123]

3 hours ago, boilsover said:

Don't you subscribe to the theory that the shortest bake is best?

 

Oh, boy, that's a loaded question.  I'm a huge believer in tradition (Cue song from Fiddler on the Roof )  The prevalent styles didn't instantly erupt from a vacuum.  They were honed over the course of decades/centuries by incredibly talented artisans. There's a reason why Neapolitan style pizza is so renowned and also a reason why NY style is so ubiquitous.  These two styles have been able to take over the world because experienced tradespeople fine tuned them to magnificence.  I'm not knocking innovation, we know considerably more about the science of pizza now than we did 25 years ago, and where the science has been thoroughly proven (such as the benefits of long cold fermentation), it should be incorporated, but, for the most part, re-inventing the wheel is unnecessary.  Traditional Neapolitan pizza, as I said, is phenomenal.  Every component of Neapolitan pizza, though, is critical.  Deviate from the proven formula, fail. Change up the flour, fail.  Bake it longer, fail (big time).  If you have a Neapolitan capable oven, then absolutely, get your hands on the right flour, use the proven formula, bake it up in less than 90 seconds and experience bliss through that avenue.  But with a home oven with your broiler (with pretty much all broilers), you're limited to NY style, and NY style truly excels within a handful of parameters.  

 

If you take Neapolitan dough and bake it for 4 minutes, the resulting pizza will be drastically inferior to a 90 second bake.  It'll have a dense, pale, hard, crunchy, stale quality that no one prefers.  When you start getting into 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 minute NY style bakes, though, the differences are not quite so dramatic, and it gets far more subjective.  I have a working theory, that, as conscientious pizzerias of the 1960s through the 1980s became more popular, as demand increased, they had to run their ovens hotter to meet that demand, and as as they shortened the bake time, the pizza improved, which drove their popularity even further.  That's been my experience with some of the famous places that I've frequently over the years, such as Joe's in the Village and Pizzatown in NJ.  It's my very strong contention that these 4-5 minute pizza producing juggernauts were what put NY style pizza on the map. My zealotry over the innate superiority of this 4-5 minute bake and what I believe is overwhelming evidence supporting it's historical significance is what got me ostracized from my community, and, to an extent, jeopardized my pizzeria consulting business.  So, when I tell you that 4-5 minute NY is better, it's not a casual preference I've put my livelihood on the line defending this sub-style.

 

As far as 3 for NY goes, nobody's really fighting for 3.  Pizzeria Bianco might be 3, but that's an entirely different universe, ingredient and oven wise, and, from the people I know who have tried, it seems to be extraordinarily difficult to reverse engineer. As I said before, if you're really hell bent on char, with a strong enough broiler, you can achieve a slightly Neapolitan-ish undercrust with a  NY top, but that's pretty niche, and pretty far from crowd pleasing. 3 has zero historical precedent in NY,  aged mozzarella can be problematic in that time frame, and, side by side, I would wager that easily 9 out 10 people will prefer 4 minute NY to 3. The real battle lines are drawn between 4 and 7.  For that it comes down to a preference between puff and golden brown crispiness.  If you want a crispier pie, you should definitely lower the steel temp and push the bake time.  Not that 4 can't be crispy (or that 7 can't be puffy), but 4 maximizes puff, while 7 maximizes crispiness.

 

3 hours ago, boilsover said:

No.  It's on >98% of the time.  When it cuts out, I crack the door and it comes right back on. 

 

I stand corrected.  If your pizza is within 6" of the broiler (generally top or 2nd shelf), and your broiler is on for the entire 3 minutes and you're not seeing an exceptionally dark top in that time, then it's definitely a weak broiler.  Let me guess, is this a gas oven?  Or might it be a newer, fancier oven with a special broiler technology?

 

There are other approaches to help maximize top browning, btw.  Room temp sauce helps.  Open your can of tomatoes, mix in the other ingredients, let it sit for at least an hour to let the flavors mingle, then use.  You can also look at your dough formula if the crust isn't browning.  A huge browning inhibitor is the excessive water quantities that some of these beginning recipes (such as Kenji's) gravitate towards.  Kenji's recipes draw from bread baker's recipes, which work perfectly fine for bread, but are not ideal for pizza. For pizza, you want to be at or near a flour's absorption value. For King Arthur bread flour, that's around 62% hydration. NY style dough should also contain at least some sugar and some oil. Lastly,  a big player in top browning is topping quantity.  A thicker crusted, heavily topped, chain inspired modern NY style pie is not where you want to be with fast bakes on steel.  It's not easy, but you want to stretch the dough pretty thin, and you want to keep the toppings nice and sparse- sparse, and, also, for wet toppings like mushrooms, pre-cooked.

 

3 hours ago, boilsover said:

What do you suggest that temperature be for a 4-minute pie on a 1/2" steel?  

 

I would see what 525 gives you on the undercrust in 4 minutes, and, if that's still too dark, dial it down to 500.  And that's a bake cycle only pre-heat, not a bake cycle followed by a broil cycle to drive it a bit higher.  Broil pre-heats can be a bit problematic. Pizza bakes from the heat stored in the entire steel, so you might drive up the surface temp a bit, but at the same time, the temp on the bottom of the steel drops.  Net, you might see a slight bump, but you also introduce a certain level of inconsistency as well, since an IR thermometer only tells you surface temp, not core. Once you'd done this a few times, you don't have to be quite so precise about it, but it really helps to pre-heat the oven for a set amount of time (say 1 hour) using the bake cycle only. That way, you have a very good idea what temperature the core of the steel is, and, be in a good position to make adjustments based on your target bake time.

 

For second and third pies, if you feel like the pie 1 undercrust was a bit light, and you need a quick burst of heat to help recover, there's nothing wrong with some broiler between bakes.

Edited September 26, 2017 by scott123 (log)

[boilsover]

18 hours ago, scott123 said:

Let me guess, is this a gas oven?  Or might it be a newer, fancier oven with a special broiler technology?

 

Nope, older electric oven, and the serpentine coil glows uniformly bright.  Yes, pies are <6" from coil.

 

18 hours ago, scott123 said:

It's not easy, but you want to stretch the dough pretty thin, and you want to keep the toppings nice and sparse

 

Check and check.

 

18 hours ago, scott123 said:

You can also look at your dough formula if the crust isn't browning. 

 

The exposed rim is browning fine.  It's the toppings that aren't finishing in time.  Most of the time I use Trader Joe's dough.  How would some other dough help with the toppings when the bottom's already 'way ahead?

 

18 hours ago, scott123 said:

Pizza bakes from the heat stored in the entire steel, so you might drive up the surface temp a bit, but at the same time, the temp on the bottom of the steel drops.

 

Um, I'm shooting the bottom of the steel along with the top.  After an hour, readings everywhere are quite even.

 

I'll try a bake-only at 525F.  Thanks.