How to Make Pizza for a Crowd: Two Steels, One Pizza Every Two Minutes

Feeding a room full of people is where most home pizza nights fall apart. You make a great first pizza. The fourth one is worse, because your steel never got back up to temperature. Everyone eats at different times and you never sit down.

Two steels fix that. This is the setup I use for every party and every class.

Why one steel slows you down

A Baking Steel holds a huge amount of heat, which is the whole point. But every pizza you launch pulls temperature out of the surface. With one steel, you launch, you bake, you pull, and then you wait for the steel to recover before the next one is any good.

That recovery time is the bottleneck. It is not the oven and it is not your dough. It is one hot surface doing two jobs.

The two steel setup

Put one Baking Steel on the top rack, about 7 inches below the broiler. Put the second on a middle or lower rack, with enough room between them to get a peel in and out.

You have just built two shelves. The top one is your launch station. The bottom one is your finishing station.

Preheat both steels together at 500°F for a full hour. Both steels need to be fully saturated with heat before you start, and that takes longer than the oven takes to reach temperature.

If you are running an electric oven, read the broiler method post first. Electric ovens will not fire the broiler if the cavity is already too hot, and there is a simple preheat trick that solves it.

Get your dough ready first

Before the oven goes on, your dough should already be out on the counter and resting. That final proof is critical. I like my dough to rest four to five hours after I ball it up.

If you are feeding a real crowd, mix it in bulk. I wrote up how to scale dough for any size group separately, because the math is the part people get wrong.

Mise en place, or you will lose

Once you start the cycle, you are not leaving the oven. Everything gets prepped before the first launch.

• Cheese grated and in a bowl
• Sauce made and within arm's reach
• Toppings sliced and laid out
• Peel floured and ready
• A timer you can see
• A landing spot for finished pizzas, cutter next to it

Two minutes goes fast. If you are hunting for the parmesan mid cycle, the pizza in the oven is already burning.

The cycle

Right before your first launch, switch the oven to broil and wait for it to actually kick in. You want it glowing.

1. Launch pizza one onto the top steel.
2. Cook two minutes under the broiler.
3. Slide pizza one down to the bottom steel to finish.
4. Immediately launch pizza two onto the top steel.
5. Two minutes later, pizza one comes out. Pizza two moves down. Pizza three goes up.
6. Keep going until you run out of dough.

Once you are in the groove you will pull a finished pizza roughly every two minutes.

Watch your broiler between launches. Ideally it is red hot every single time you send a pizza in. If it has cycled off, give it a beat to come back before you launch.

Watch it done

It reads more complicated than it is. Watch the cycle once and it clicks.

We also ran a full Zoom class on this. Two pizzas on two Baking Steel Originals, one every two minutes. It was a fun one and the technique held up live.

What usually goes wrong the first time

The steels were not preheated long enough. An hour, not twenty minutes. Both of them. This is the single most common mistake.

The steels are too close together. You need room to work a peel between them. If you are fighting the gap, you will drop a pizza.

You left it under the broiler too long. Two minutes is the number. Set a timer and trust it over your instinct the first few rounds.

You started before your prep was done. This is the one that ruins parties. Do not launch the first pizza until everything is laid out.

Do you need a second steel?

For a weeknight pizza, no. One steel and the broiler method will make you a better pizza than most restaurants near you.

For a party, a family, or anyone who has ever stood in their kitchen feeding people one pizza at a time while everyone else eats, the second steel is the difference between cooking for your friends and eating with them.

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About Andris

I'm Andris Lagsdin, and I invented the Baking Steel in 2012 after years of chasing the perfect homemade pizza. I'd worked in professional kitchens alongside chefs like Todd English, but couldn't recreate that pizzeria-quality crust at home, until I read one line in Modernist Cuisine: "Steel conducts heat better than stone." My family had run Stoughton Steel Company for over 50 years, so I grabbed a slab from my dad's shop and tested it. That first pizza told me everything. Read more about my story and the Baking Steel journey.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How many pizzas can I make with two Baking Steels?

As many as you have dough for. Once the cycle is running you will pull a finished pizza roughly every two minutes, and the steels hold their temperature because neither one is doing all the work.

Can I do this with one steel?

You can make excellent pizza with one steel using the broiler method. You just cannot run them back to back, because the steel needs time to recover between pizzas.

Do the two steels have to be the same size?

No. Any two Baking Steels work. The top one is doing the launch and the char, the bottom one is finishing, so they do not need to match.

What temperature do I preheat to?

500°F for a full hour, then switch to broil right before your first launch. If your oven is electric, check the broiler method post first, because electric ovens need a lower preheat for the broiler to fire.

How far apart should the steels be?

Top steel about 7 inches below the broiler, bottom steel low enough that you can comfortably get a peel between them. If you cannot work the gap, they are too close.

Can I use a pizza stone as the second surface?

You can, but it will be the weak link. Stone holds less heat and recovers slower, so the bottom position will fall behind as you cycle.