This is true - take two pizzas with equivalent area as an example. An 8" square (64 square inches in area) is (almost) equivalent to a 9" round (63.6 square inches in area). The 8" square will have 32 linear inches of edge while the 9" round will have 28.3 linear inches of edge.
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I make and ferment my own dough. Come time to make the thing, I fire up my upscale Hamilton Beach toaster oven, with convection (so it’s testically an air fryer.) Found the perfect sized baking pan at the Dollar Tree for it. I line that pan with cornmeal after preheating (450) the pan in the oven, plop on the pizza and it gets crisp and bubbly in 10-12, like you said.
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It’s gotten to the point that I’m afraid to make pizza … all these requirements.
Yes it makes obvious sense that a circle has the least circumference per given area than any other shape or any regular polygon with the same area.
Since we moved to nyc, mostly make pan pizza these days, 80 per cent of the taste for 20 per cent of the work!
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I insist on the HBTO and $1.25 pan. Last week, I found pizza dough at Aldi’s for like $1.20, so I grabbed it. I was pretty pleased at how it turned out. Didn’t know they had dough.
I know it’s a pretty detailed process, but I’ll walk ya through it , if need be.
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Kaleo, I got the 3/8 inch thick, 22 by 18.5 inch pizza steel. I know you’ve said you had trouble with your 1/2 inch steel getting the bottom done too early, and I’m seeing the same thing with my 3/8.
But I’ve only tried it twice so far. The first time was in the oven, during which I did not use the broiler, which could have helped even out the cooking (top v bottom). So I’ll try that next time. My gas oven is fairly slow to heat to 550°F in normal circumstance and took almost 90 minutes to get to temp with the steel in there (it masses 43 pounds) and I also had left two of the pizza stones in there (about 20 pounds mass total, on the lower racks, so I probably should have taken them out).
Last night I tried it on the grill elevated from the cook surface with some bricks. I’m not sure how hot it got because it was dark out there and the Thermoworks IR gun doesn’t have backlight (or I don’t know how to make it backlit) but before the sun dropped I think it was reading about 700°F.
Those pizzas definitely got too cooked on the bottom before the top was done, although it only took about 2.5 minutes total per pizza. So I’m still going to fiddle with it and try to optimize. My grill does have an IR rotisserie burner and if I can get it working (I unfortunately kinked the propane feed tube while refurbing other parts of the grill), that might be of some help in getting the tops done at the same time as the bottoms.
But overall, I’m thinking maybe a 1/4 inch thickness might be better for higher heat applications. But I’m going to doink around and exhaust the possibilities with this 3/8 for a while, first.
the quest to cook a pizza in two minutes flat . . . generates issues.
as you have discovered.
in my electric oven - per-heated to 550’F - with a ceramic “stone” . .
it takes 12-14 minutes to ‘cook a pizza’ -given that I dial back the oven heat temp to 450’F as the pizza goes in the oven.
a steel plate will hold more heat, and transfer that heat, faster than a ceramic stone.
past that, ignore all the internet advice - go with what actually works for you.
You want the good news or the bad news?
The bad news is that a home oven is probably never going to be perfect, even with a steel.
The good news is… you might benefit from… another steel! If you already have stones, you can set those up top or bottom about 3-4 inches from the steel to see if it helps. Preheat the crap out of everything and then slide the pie in between. If that helps, maybe a second steel?
Dark colored pans absorb heat more readily and lead to darker crusts than lighter pans (assuming equality in other areas (size, temp, etc).
Cake pans are often light, shinny aluminum so that the edges of cakes don’t brown excessively (usually you want a lighter “less crusty” bake for cakes).
You can look up America’s Test Kitchen or other shows that test various cake pans. They ALL mention that color affects browning.
Try roasting veggies on a dark, old ‘seasoned’ baking sheet, vs a new shiny aluminum one. There’s a distinct difference.
Deep dish dough is ideally biscuit-like (for Chicago style) or focaccia-like (Detroit, grandma, Sicilian) and you want the browning at the sides and bottom for a crispy, sturdy base and for the cheese frico edges.
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Yeah, I’m planning that stone-above approach next time I use the steel in the oven. I can’t remember but I discussed that with someone here or at the pizza making forum, which is probably where I got the idea in the first place.
I don’t have a good way to suspend an upper stone in the grill but could probably work something out. It’s 16 inch circular, so putting it on bricks would take away real estate I don’t want to give up.
Check out Ceramic Grill Store’s “PS Woo”.
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Mahalo. I hadn’t heard of them before. I didn’t spend a lot of time browsing, but it looks like they might have some of the wire rings that are sold separately, which is really all I need.
But looking at their stuff also gave me ideas for items I already have - I’ve got some old wire rectangular racks that are long enough that I could put a ~ 17-inch pizza underneath, still having an inch on each side for brick supports. These might be heavy enough to handle the stone without too much deflection. I’ll have to set it up and give it a dry run at heat, though. Might be fine at ambient temp, then sag so much at high heat that the ends of the rack slip off the bricks.
A’ole pilikia (no problem). This place has deeply thought out all this stuff,so deeply they can be confusing.
