Pizza stone? Why do mine shatter?

[crumpton]

Many folks will tell you to use wood for loading, because the dough doesn't stick as much as it does to aluminum. And an aluminum for unloading, 'cause the wooden ones are too thick to slip under the dough.

Me, I use one made out of skate park ramp material. I don't have room to keep two peels stored away somewhere.

I gave up my nice wood peel when we downsized into our BIG tiny house and have been using a small 3 side sheet pan(serves multiple function) and have noticed it requires considerable more dusting but I've somewhat gotten use to it and just try and move mush faster. But there has been in increase in pizza making now that Michelle has found vegan cheeses that don't taste like ass or are made form soy.

FWIW I never had issues pulling with a wood peel. Good spring in the dough tends to have a nice radii as the edge meeting the stone.

Not a fan of cornmeal under my pizzas. I like my grits in a bowl/on a plate with butter, salt and pepper. But that's another thread.

[twowheels]

I've been using stainless steel and like it better than a stone. I load with a wood peel and semolina, which I find superior to corn meal, which is too crunchy when you bite into some that sticks to the underside of the pizza. I sometimes unload with a steel peel, e specially if I'm making multiple pies.


I bought a food grade stainless steel "stone" out of concern with impurities in non food grade steels, but I do wonder if this concern has validity.

[crumpton]

Well after reading this thread having never before considered steel(I missed that revolution), did some reading and then searching for a 1/4"-3/8" baking steel(hassle free) that would fit my rather small oven. Found nothing so I sent a DXF of what I wanted to my waterjet guy down the road. For $50 I got a beautiful 3/8" A36 plate with 1/2" radii corners and a nice 3/4" hole in one corner. Super clean edges. Removed mill scale in 10min with a 4" 36grit flap wheel followed by an 80grit it is currently in the oven at 425f for its 3rd seasoning cycle. It is already very slick and looking good. I'll probably leave at at 3 cycles.

No knead ferment started last night. I'll report back over the weekend perhaps if I don't experience a 'death by pizza' before then.

[Cookietruck]

I danced around the idea of getting a steel, i have a cheapie (like $8 at HEB) stone that i keep in the oven all the time. It's still going fine so...
I can get a pretty legit pizza on the stone and all that...i also really like to do deep dish with lots of olive oil in the pan similar to this (we call it faux via313)
Sicilian Pizza With Pepperoni and Spicy Tomato Sauce Recipe | Serious Eats

i just make a full batch of dough and do both pies!!
even did some focaccia bread this last time.
basically a great week, ate pizza/focaccia for 3 or 4 days, bike commuted 4 days, got an older bike out to get re-aquainted with and my metabolism is feeling pretty fast too...

[crumpton]

Sorry I never came back with an update. The steel was 'ok' mostly for finishing under the broiler after cooking on the stone at the floor. Even that in my opinion just took to much moisture from the pie and as beautiful as they appeared, they just were not right. The one time I tried cooking with the steel on the floor, we though after only 45-60sec, "something must have fallen off and is burning on the stone" after a 90sec we thought sumptin aint right. I opened the door, slid a metal spatula under the pie which needed to be peeled away from the steel. It was burnt beyond edible with a totally raw pizza above the black skin.

The point is moot as while we were away in SAC saying hello to friends but otherwise wasting our time and money, my buddy who was looking after our place stashed a Roccbox in the paint booth as an anniversary present to Michelle and I.

1st pie pretty damn on. I'm going to have fun with this thing. Since we just found this thing Wed evening, I quickly started a 24hr dough and we went with what we had on hand for toppings.

This pie was cooked in 60 seconds.

Might should start a new thread on pizzas and other goodies made in millennial pizza appliances?

[dgaddis]

^^That looks awesome!!

Data point - using my steel in the oven, I put it as high in the oven as I can, hoping to get some radiant heat off the 'roof' of the oven to cook the toppings. I cook mine probably 8mins or so.

[crumpton]

^^That looks awesome!!

Data point - using my steel in the oven, I put it as high in the oven as I can, hoping to get some radiant heat off the 'roof' of the oven to cook the toppings. I cook mine probably 8mins or so.

Agreed on that, best results were high in the oven but... I'm never going back...

[davids]

My favorite framebuilder recommended that we move from a stone to a steel (Zank & I talk about bikes. Zank and my wife talk about kitchen tools.) and we're pretty damn happy with it. It does a better job retaining heat and transferring it to the dough than a stone.

My question: I used to just pull the stone out of the oven and slice the pie on it. Now the steel remains in the oven. Where are you guys putting the pie when it comes out of the oven, for slicing and serving?

[dgaddis]

My favorite framebuilder recommended that we move from a stone to a steel (Zank & I talk about bikes. Zank and my wife talk about kitchen tools.) and we're pretty damn happy with it. It does a better job retaining heat and transferring it to the dough than a stone.

My question: I used to just pull the stone out of the oven and slice the pie on it. Now the steel remains in the oven. Where are you guys putting the pie when it comes out of the oven, for slicing and serving?

I slice mine on a cutting board or on the peel. This is the peel we use, it's a composite material, same stuff used to make skatepark ramps. It's reasonably thin while still being stiff. They also make cutting boards, but I'm not sure how knife friendly they are. Not really worried about that with a pizza cutter tho.

And @crumpton - agree 100%, a pizza oven > home oven no matter how well you can make the home oven work. I want a pizza oven......

The skatepark peel isn't big, if you're making big pies.

[rwsaunders]

Where are you guys putting the pie when it comes out of the oven, for slicing and serving?

I like these units for home and I bought 3-4 so when folks are over I can do a batch.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Meta...gateway&sr=8-3

[crumpton]

<snip> Where are you guys putting the pie when it comes out of the oven, for slicing and serving?

Our pies are ~11" in diameter. We don't slice, just pop in on the plate and eat it eurotrash style. A little knife and fork, a little hand.

[rwsaunders]

Nick...care to share that dough recipe?

[crumpton]

Nick...care to share that dough recipe?

The last 20-30 pies Ive made are verbatim Jim Lahey's no knead pizza dough. I've used both King Arthur bread flour and Anna Tipo 00 and the usual dry active yeast. My water is heavily filtered or I'd use bottled. To get 2 beautiful balls(all Michelle and I need) I use a scale.

250g flour
1tsp fine sea salt
1/8 tsp dry active yeast well within its use by date
175g water

Go here. Its a wet dough and takes some getting use to. I've got some tricks I can share later, headed out the door soon. Though with the new oven I'll be headed down some more traditional paths to compare and contrast. But this dough is really nice once you get the hang of it. And fun to work with.

Jim Lahey's No Knead Pizza Dough Recipe | Serious Eats

[lacy465]

Most baking stones are just too thin. Many have a high temp warning around 500 degrees, and they almost all advise against giving it any sort of thermal shock - aka getting the stone good and hot, and then putting something cold on it, like bread dough, or a pizza.

For pizza, a steel works WAY better. For bread, I don't like it, by the time the bread is done the bottom is burnt AF as the kids say.

The Big Green Egg stone has a great reputation - it's twice as thick as most stones, and is made for going in blasting hot grills - those grills can hit temps over 900*F easily. They're available in several sizes. I've got one, used it a lot, zero complaints other than it was pricey, I want to say I paid about $50 for it. Also, being so thick, it's heavy.

I bet that Kiln shelf Nick posted works great too, at a fraction the cost of the Big Green Egg pieces.

Agreed with you at some point.

[rwsaunders]

The last 20-30 pies Ive made are verbatim Jim Lahey's no knead pizza dough. I've used both King Arthur bread flour and Anna Tipo 00 and the usual dry active yeast. My water is heavily filtered or I'd use bottled. To get 2 beautiful balls(all Michelle and I need) I use a scale.

250g flour
1tsp fine sea salt
1/8 tsp dry active yeast well within its use by date
175g water

Go here. Its a wet dough and takes some getting use to. I've got some tricks I can share later, headed out the door soon. Though with the new oven I'll be headed down some more traditional paths to compare and contrast. But this dough is really nice once you get the hang of it. And fun to work with.

Jim Lahey's No Knead Pizza Dough Recipe | Serious Eats

Nick...Thanks, as I finally used this recipe and it’s the best dough that I’ve ever made. Great rise, good flavor and the family all gave it a thumbs up. Another batch is proofing overnight and I can’t wait to use it when I can bake outside again, with higher temps. For now. I’m limited to my oven at 500F with a stone.

[crumpton]

Nick...Thanks, as I finally used this recipe and it’s the best dough that I’ve ever made. Great rise, good flavor and the family all gave it a thumbs up. Another batch is proofing overnight and I can’t wait to use it when I can bake outside again, with higher temps. For now. I’m limited to my oven at 500F with a stone.

Man how things have changed here. I haven't used the rocbox all winter. I'm full on 3/8" steel on the middle rack of the oven has hot as I can get it. I've been hand kneading more perfected weights of ingredients based on bulk ferment time and temp.

Usually starting with a sponge with 1/3 the flour allowing to bloom for ~1hr. Then introducing the remaining flour with salt to form a shag that rests for ~15min. Then a ~7ish min hand knead, it tells me when to rest, 10 min rest then one final 7ish min knead. Bulk ferment in glass with plastic wrap tight over the top of the bowl, not touching the dough. Ball up after the predetermined ferment. Proof for 2-3 hours give or take.

The pizzas coming out of our oven now totally blow away everything I'd done prior. I highly recommend the PizzApp Toots turned me onto. I am using KA bread flour and when I can get it, flour from the Austin bread shop "Easy Tiger". Because fresh is better than prominence(old imported shit). I have also been using their(easy tiger) ADY. I'm amazed how how much more pleasant the crust aroma and taste is when yeast content is dialed. Amazing how little it actually takes.

The other thing that I've gotten over is how long it takes to make a pie. It's done when its done. I believe some time ago I fell victim to this notion that a pizza had to be cooked quickly. Yeah, if your oven is 900f, its gonna cook quickly. I've been doing 80% hydration dough on the steel at 500-550f, stretched quite thin but leaving nice bones and I'm averaging about 9-9.5 min. I was clearly under cooking my pies in the kitchen oven all these years.

Pics later as I am not near my phone at the moment.

Agreed on that, best results were high in the oven but... I'm never going back...

never say never

[JoB]

I have a 15" lodge pan upside down in the oven as high as it gets. nuke it at 550 for 45 min. I turn the broiler on high shortly before I slide the pizza in and that finishes a pie in about 3-4 minutes. works like a champ.

From there I slide the pizza on a plastic cutting board, let it settle for a few minutes, and cut & serve. Initially I thought this would make the crust soggy but that's not been the case.

My favorite framebuilder recommended that we move from a stone to a steel (Zank & I talk about bikes. Zank and my wife talk about kitchen tools.) and we're pretty damn happy with it. It does a better job retaining heat and transferring it to the dough than a stone.

My question: I used to just pull the stone out of the oven and slice the pie on it. Now the steel remains in the oven. Where are you guys putting the pie when it comes out of the oven, for slicing and serving?

[gt6267a]

The other thing that I've gotten over is how long it takes to make a pie. It's done when its done. I believe some time ago I fell victim to this notion that a pizza had to be cooked quickly. Yeah, if your oven is 900f, its gonna cook quickly. I've been doing 80% hydration dough on the steel at 500-550f, stretched quite thin but leaving nice bones and I'm averaging about 9-9.5 min. I was clearly under cooking my pies in the kitchen oven all these years.

when cooking for that long, do you parbake w / sauce? when we make pizza at 500, the cheese is completely done @ 6 mins. to get to 9-10 mins, we would need to double the cheese.

[crumpton]

when cooking for that long, do you parbake w / sauce? when we make pizza at 500, the cheese is completely done @ 6 mins. to get to 9-10 mins, we would need to double the cheese.

No par baking, no double cheese. I just build the pie as usual. I've had no issues. Though if you are using that part skim mozz, that could be a problem.

[9tubes]

Damn. The pizzas in this thread make me long for summer with pizza and beer on an outdoor table.

I can picture the Nick Crumpton Bikes, Pizza and Espresso Cafe. "Come for the pizza, leave with a bicycle. The pizza supreme is $10,000."