Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Becca,

Did you ever use your baking steel? How did it turn out?

I love it! I wish I had a better broiler so that I could preheat the steel and then crank up the broiler, but it cooks wonderfully as is. I love that I will never have to replace it. It's super heavy, I don't think the 1/2 inch would work for me.

Becca,

Yeah, I'm tempted. Especially since I could make one (I have lots of scrap steel) and save myself the $70. However, there's the problem that it would collapse my oven rack. So I'd need to make a stronger oven rack, too ...

Becca, how does it compare to other more typical options? I've got both a stone and a Lodge cast iron pizza pan, but I've been tempted to get a steel ever since I saw the original post, if it really does yield a different/superior result.

Thanks!

Emilie

I'm not Becca, but I'll answer based on my experience with my piece of dressed aluminum. It produces a much crisper crust, but I believe part of that is the baking method. See this thread about the MC technique, which I've adopted (and seemingly Becca does as well to the extent her broiler allows) as my "go to" method for making pizza.

Amy

HI,

Slightly off-topic but, a few years ago there was a pizza obsessed guy in Atlanta who had a website on duplicating a 900 degree oven in your home kitchen. He used a hacksaw to remove the self-cleaning oven lock. He set the oven to self cleaning and wait for oven to get really hot. The pizza can be cooked in two minutes.

Really smart!

cc

Thanks Amy. I've yet to figure out the multiple broiler settings for my ovens (one more thing about my Bosch wall ovens that isn't intuitive) but this might be what makes me finally do that. I love making homemade pizza and have tried lots of crust recipes (and of course have the "necessary" gadgets/equipment ) but am definitely not an aficionado as far as technique -- so details from those of you who have already figured this stuff out is very helpful!

Emilie

Tim,

What could possibly go wrong? ;-b

I love this idea! One issue I have with using a pizza stone is the amount of time it needs to be preheated. How long does it take to preheat the metal?

Lu

Cook's Illustrated May\June 2013 Issue reports on a comparison test between The Baking Steel by Stoughton Steel Company and their favorite Old Stone Oven Pizza Baking Stone.

The Baking Stone was highly recommended and still their favorite. The steel pushes so many BTU's into the bottom of the pizza that the only way to provide balanced heat for top is run the broiler. If a broiler gets nervous and turns itself off because of an upper limit thermostat [like mine] the steel has a tendency to cook the bottom much faster than the top.

I guess no matter what gadget or cooking appliance one used in search of a perfect pizza, there is always going to be the problem of providing balanced heat and learning the ropes. I am most interested in testing my gas grill with a steel. I'm not sure whether I will use it below or above the pizza, but I do think my grilled pizzas would improve if I had one.