A unique combination of interests and skills led to the birth of the Baking Steel.
And, in my humble opinion, pizza is the better for it.
In my day job, I work for a family-owned manufacturing company, Stoughton Steel. But outside the office, I’m pretty passionate about food — pizza in particular.
My thoughts are never far from creating the perfect crust. One day, I was browsing a volume from the book series Modernist Cuisine, by Nathan Myhrvold.
As fate would have it, Myhrvold stated that the best tool to use for making the perfect pizza crust would be a piece of steel.
And that, my friends, was my “AH-HA” moment! As soon as I could, I hustled out to our plant, found a piece of 1/4” high-quality steel, and brought it home for some testing.
According to Myhrvold, steel is better at conducting heat than a brick oven’s stone.
Because of that conductivity, pizza crust cooks faster and more evenly at a lower temperature, resulting in a beautiful, thin, crispy crust.
Real-life tests with steel confirmed that theory completely for me!
But why is steel a better conductor than stone?
Here’s the scoop. We know from seventh-grade science class that steel is a great conductor.
What I’ve since learned is that it stores more than 18 times the amount of energy — heat — than stone can store.
The steel then transfers that heat so quickly that pizza can be fully baked in a home oven in about 5 minutes — less than half the time of a traditional pizza stone.
I’d spent plenty of time over the years with countless pans, pizza stones, gadgets, and gear trying to perfect my pizzas in a home oven.
Who knew the solution had been waiting for me all along in a pile of steel over at the shop — and some insight from Modernist Cuisine?
Talk about serendipity!
I’m lucky to be living out my dream of combining two great interests — pizza and steel — into one amazing product, the Baking Steel.
Now, let’s get down to business and talk pizza dough.
Most artisan pizza dough rests 24 hours or less before you shape and bake it.
But we’re going to make a simple adjustment to the typical no-knead recipe that will change your home pizza game forever.
Source: Baking Steel pizza dough – Flourish – King Arthur Flour
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