Homemade Pizza: The Temperature Problem

Cooking Discussions
21

Interesting discussion, thanks. I like the notion of getting two identical plates in half the depth or width that you need (e.g., two 8x24 plates instead of one 16x24) for easier handling if you had a pretty thick plate.

Edit - LoL on this portion of the discussion:

  • the lips on the back of shelves can protrude considerably and rob you of precious plate depth. If that happens, raise the plate above the lip with square steel tubing… Square steel tubing will fit the bill, as will aluminum square tubing. Just make sure the tubing is just large enough to get the plate above the lip, as too thick tubing will rob precious heat and add even more weight to the equation.

OR, just pull out the shelf, rotate 180° and stick it back in upside down, with that protruding lip now pointed down, and in the front of the oven.

22

the question is, why worry about it?

there’s not many “germs” that can survive on/in a 450-500-550’F preheated stone.
so the only remaining reason is “appearance”

I kept a rack from an old oven - it fits in the new oven. I used the old ‘don’t care what happens to it’ rack to hold a ceramic stone for the self clean cycle.
looks like:
stone_combo

23

I get it. But every time you adjust to compromise, it changes things. Move the steel lower and you get less heat on the top.

I’ve seen people say to elevate the stone on a kamado so you get more up-top radiant convective heat. This is the opposite of lowering your stone.

Only you can decide if the very short bakes are worth it. They may be one of those things that home pizza geeks chase after because they’re so hard to do in a normal oven.

24


I do agree that I am not worried about germs or appearance, but there’re another couple of reasons.

We all wear contact lenses. An oily stone starts putting off vaporized oils somewhere around 350-400°F, depending on the oil type. Contact lenses plate out vaporized oils pretty readily and get gummy. My MIL used to leave her stone in the oven all the time for heat stability no matter what was being baked (I do this too) but didn’t want to get rid of the grease on the stone. Maybe it was her way of keeping all of us out of the kitchen. (Plus she barely had any sense of smell, so we’d complain and she’d be like, “I don’t smell anything”.)

So if our stones were pretty oily, we’d have to run the exhaust fan for each bake. I recognize there are arguments that one should always run an exhaust, if available, anytime the stove is in use, but I don’t normally do so.

A more minor issue for me with an oily stone and vaporized fats is that they generally don’t smell very good.


With this part, do you mean that the self-clean cycle can mess up the good (new) racks? I never thought about taking the racks out for the cleaning cycle. But there’s no reason not to (I mean, they’re not usually what is in need of cleaning). And I do have an old rack around here somewhere that I could use for the stones.

25

Sure, that’s a valid reason. The very first stone I bough in college… I oiled with olive oil. That sucker took FOREVER to rid itself of the smell. And until it did, it fumed terribly. But steels rust, so you end up wiping them with oil anyway.

This! IMO, anyone into baking on a stone or steel should have a rectangular surface, and it should be as large as your oven will take–1-2" gap all around the periphery is enough. Putting a 14" pie on a 16" round stone isn’t a gimmee, and Luke Skywalker probably couldn’t put a 16" pie on a 16" round.

I got my steel from a scrapyard, and had it cut as suggested above. If you get one that is split in two, make sure the pieces are put on your rack perpendicular to the bars. And if the steel is thick (or the rack flimsy), have the steel cut to the max reasonable width so they don’t flex your oven rack too much.

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26

Not every oven allows one to put the racks in backward or upside down, hence the steel tubing

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27

I moved down because it was so close to the broiler. The radiant heat doesn’t matter much when the broiler is on. Especially if I’m using cold fermented dough, the top would cook before the dough would be ready. So i moved it down. For a NY style bake, I’ll move all the way up and use the radiant heat. (Unless it’s just sauce and cheese, i won’t bother.)

28


I guess I could season it like my CS and CI pans.



I certainly have screwed up the 14-on-16 before, when trying to just shake it off a peel, and wouldn’t even attempt a 16-on-16 that way.

I have done some close to 16 on the 16 inch round by building them on parchment paper atop one of my larger cutting boards, then slide the parchment-pie combo onto the stone. Wastes heat because we’re pulling the rack and stone out nearly all the way, and takes two people - me holding the board level to the stone and a daughter to slide it into place.

29

Thanks. All of my ovens over the years have permitted them to go in 3 of 4 ways, with the only way that won’t get past that safety catch notch being upside-down with lip to the back.

I’m trying to visualize a configuration for a raised lip-style oven rack that would not let it go in with the lip toward the front (either lip up or down), but I’m failing. Bad day to have sworn off the caffeine…

Google as caffeine replacement - I see some replacement racks online that have both the raised lip for the back, and along the sides a caret- or V-shaped bend on the frames, closer to the front. Maybe that’s the type that won’t work except as designed.

30

I know this to be the case because we had a Samsung electric oven where the racks could only be inserted one way. the tubing worked perfectly.

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31

This kinda works. But the seasoning burns and abrades off. IME, you’re better off just sweeping off the crumbs and char and wiping with a little oil when you’re done. I.e., forget about soap and water.

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32

Fogot to add . I would pre cook the shaped dough then add the sauce, and cheese . And back into the oven.

33

most oven maker recommend not leaving the racks in for the self-clean cycle.
two experiences:
#1 - steel + chrome plated racks. the chrome plating goes into mega-flaking mode.
#2 - stainless steel racks - they discolor from the heat. not a me problem, but a DW problem.

regards ‘stains’ to ‘ash’ . . . the high heat of self-cleaning will turn stuff like “cast iron seasoning’” into a gray ash. the stains on ceramic stone are pretty much “oil free” - they’ve carbonized. a self-clean cycle/temp will turn the dark carbon into ash.

oils ‘burning off’ a ceramic stone and ‘plating’ onto contact lens is like severely outside my experience - I see / understand your point - but not able to offer any suggestions or ideas (other than the venting you mentioned)

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34

Many thanks. Based on our discussion, I think I’ll start taking them out for the self-clean cycle. As I said, I had no reason for leaving them in there, anyway. Duh!

As it is (or has been), I have to oil the sides of both the racks and the slot/slide inserts afterwards to get them to go in without screeching. Taking them out for the next self-clean should help with that, too.

35

Dammit. I keep reading this as vaporizing farts. Yes, I’m a 65yo woman giggling like an 11yo boy. :dash::woman_shrugging:

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36

I just saw someone’s photo of a dish with lavash on the bottom; I thought it was a doily. Yes, the delayed cataract surgery is scheduled for 2 weeks from now. I’m tired of misreading things. And mis-seeing them. lol.

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37

I think in general they are vaporized.

Any that aren’t…

… are more correctly categorized as sharts.

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38

I’m a sucker for kitchen gadgets and enjoy the concept of getting the ideal tool for a cooking job. However, I’m puzzled that the color of the pan makes a difference. I defer to your experience and will use a dark pan and not my baking rounds which are silver colored. But can you point me to a discussion in this issue? I poked around and didn’t find anything specifically about the color of t he pans for deep dish.

I did find people with preferences for types of metal; aluminum fans state it allows for better browning of the crust which matches the timing of the toppings doneness. Others favor carbon steel pans or even cast iron skillets. Some did suggest using a round cake pan (presumably aluminum). But I didn’t run into much about the color as much as I did about the material.

I like the shape of Detroit pizza, I think because I perceive there to be more crust per slice than slices from a round pizza. I could be wrong about this presumption about geometry though.

39

Dark pans absorb radiant heat better than light pans (light pans tend to reflect radiant heat). This is a well-known phenomenon in baking, where you typically see instructions calling for reducing baking temps by 25 degrees if using a dark pan: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2017/03/10/baking-cake-in-a-dark-pan

Since Detroit style is a thick, high hydration dough, the extra-concentrated heat from a dark pan is needed to achieve the right crust texture and hallmark crispy edge. Chicago style deep dish is a thinner and lower-hydration dough, but it has so much moisture from the quantity of cheese/sausage/etc (it’s effectively a casserole), you need the extra heat on the crust to get it fully cooked and keep it from sogging out.

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40

Are you the Bill Marsano whose parents were Addie and Bill, brother Jesse?