Baking Steel stomps all over pizza/baking stones

Lerxst

Lerxst

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

"On paper, the idea makes sense. Metal conducts heat better than stone and it stores more heat per unit volume than stone—both key characteristics to creating a pizza that cooks up both light and crisp with the characteristic hole structure and char that you look for in a good Neapolitan or New York-style pie."

I borked another pizza stone a few weeks ago & started looking for an alternative. On the recommendation of a friend, and after reading the serious eats piece linked above, I decided to get a steel.

1/4" sheet steel that's seasoned like a cast iron skillet. Heavy as a MFer.

Used it the first time last night and the results were spot on for NY style crust & superior to the heat transfer from the pizza stones I've used in the past at the same temps. Hours later I wanted to take it out of the oven to scrape off a little burned on cheese and the thing was still plenty warm (so multiple bakes w/ more consistent results over a stone too).

Highly recommended
 
Detroit-style pizza uses steel pans to bake the pizza in. You probably get a similar result with that baking steel.
 
Interesting. But what I really want to know is how to use real mozzarella slices without the water from the cheese getting all over the pizza.
 
The Food Lab and Modernist Cuisine (all three editions) are fucking awesome cookbooks. Use them all the time. The Food Lab website (quoted in the OP) is terrific as well.
 
jp_nyc said:
Interesting. But what I really want to know is how to use real mozzarella slices without the water from the cheese getting all over the pizza.
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Haw, that was my downfall the last time I did pizza. (We ate it all anyway though).
 
you can just slice and and lay the slices out on paper towels (cover them with same) also. but really, if you can get your oven hot enough and/or use something like the steel to decrease your cooking time, the water is less of an issue
 
tiger roach said:
Will try. When cheese gets burned on the stone it's really hard to clean off.
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This steel isn't non-stick but it is easier to clean burnt on schmutz off than the stones I've had in the past. A stout plastic spatula or credit card seem to do the trick.


jp_nyc said:
Interesting. But what I really want to know is how to use real mozzarella slices without the water from the cheese getting all over the pizza.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, I like fresh mozz on a pizza and I use it ever so often but it's not really the corner pizza -shop style pizza that i usually emulate. There's some good tips already in the thread but I usually like use fresh mozz sparingly, neopolitan style, so the water usually evaporates in the hot as heck oven. Any water you remove before it goes in the oven is water you don't have to deal with later.
 
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