Edit History

4 minutes ago, weinoo said:

I have no problem with the preheat, and so far no problem with baking directly on it.

If you're baking cookies on steel, with an oven set to, say, 300, then the bottom browning you see with a 10 minute preheat will be drastically different to a 20 minute one.  Now, if you time your preheat exactly every time, then that will give you consistency, but, baking on steel, with varying preheat times, is a complete crap shoot.

If you bake without contacting the steel, then the temperature evens out a bit, and things that don't require much precision, like chicken thighs, tend to be okay, but for things that need to be precise, like custards, pie crusts or cookies, you're going to have to end up checking them much more frequently, since the timing will be altered based on how much heat the core of the steel is soaking up.

As far as aluminum goes, you've complained about the back breaking aspects of steel a few times. Right now, you've had two successes leaving the steel in the oven, but, I promise you, depending on how often you bake and what you bake, you'll be cursing the steel in this configuration within weeks.  There's nothing stopping you from using steel for steak and aluminum for pizza.  $60 saves your back.  This is the last time I'll mention it.