I have been making pizza on steel for fourteen years. I thought I had a good feel for what the steel was doing in the oven. A few thousand pizzas will teach you a lot, but there are still things worth measuring. This week, during a live class, I put a thermocouple on the steel. One number caught my attention.
The oven was set to 550. The steel was at 600.
For years, I said the steel couldn't get hotter than the air around it. I had that wrong, and I said it in public more than once. The steel stores a lot of energy. It can climb past the air temperature and hold there.
The short answer
A 1/4 inch Baking Steel in an oven set to 550 settles around 600 degrees after an hour of preheating. When a pizza lands on it, the steel drops about 40 degrees. Thirty seconds after the door closes, it is climbing again. Opening the door for roughly fifteen seconds to rotate costs another 27 degrees, and the steel is back near 540 two minutes later.
Here's the full run, including the pizza.
The setup
I used a Monogram electric oven, set to 550 on straight bake. No convection. No broiler. I wanted simple conditions, so the readings would be easier to understand.
The Original Baking Steel, 1/4 inch, was on the second rack from the bottom. An MC Edition sat on the rack above it, but I didn't bake on that one today. I used an Omega HH12C with a magnetic Type K tip, attached to the center of the steel's top surface. That's a contact reading from the steel itself, and the oven door stays closed the whole time. I also check the steel with an IR gun when I open the door. That's a sanity check for me, not the reading I publish.
I preheated for a full hour. For the Original, 45 minutes gets you there. I still say an hour in everything I write, and after all these tests, I'm sticking with it. Thicker steels need more time. With two Pros in an oven, give them an hour fifteen to an hour thirty. If you want the whole preheat curve, minute by minute, I wrote that one up separately.
The dough was our 72 Hour Pizza Dough Mix. I made it on a Friday and baked it the following Wednesday, so four and a half days. I balled it at 8 in the morning and launched at noon, giving it four hours at room temperature. The surface read 74 when I started stretching. It was about a 12 inch pie, with sauce and low moisture mozzarella, nothing else.
The numbers
| Moment | Steel temperature |
|---|---|
| Pre-launch | 593.9 |
| Right after the pizza went in | 554.6 |
| 30 seconds later | 560.4 |
| About 3 minutes in | 537 |
| 4 minutes in | 536 |
| Right after opening to rotate | 509.4 |
| Two minutes after closing | 540 |
The pizza came out at about five minutes.
What I take from it
The launch costs about 40 degrees. The reading went from 593.9 to 554.6. The door is open, and a cold piece of dough lands on hot metal at the same time. Both affect the temperature.
The steel comes back quickly. Thirty seconds after I closed the door, the temperature was climbing again. It wasn't all the way back, but it was moving. The steel holds its heat and feeds it back into the bake.
Opening the door to rotate has a cost, too. I had the door open for maybe fifteen seconds at the four minute mark, and the reading dropped 27 degrees. Most of the air in the oven leaves when you open the door. The steel holds onto a lot of its heat, which is the whole point, but the oven still loses heat.
So have your pizza ready before you open the door. Open, launch, close. Work quick. I've been saying that for years because it felt true. Now I have a number for it.
Between pizzas, give the steel two or three minutes. It was back to 540 two minutes after I shut the door. If you launch the next one right away, you're baking on a colder surface, and the bottom will tell you. Stretch your next pie, let the steel come back, then go.
600 is where I like to launch. My working number right now is 600 at launch, and 700 and up is the danger zone. More to come as I run more tests.
Where this is honest about itself
A few things to flag, so the readings are clear.
I accidentally knocked the oven off partway through the four minute mark. The readings right after the rotate, 509.4 climbing to 511.8 and then 515.4, happened while the oven was off for part of that stretch. Treat that little window as rough. The 540 two minutes later is after I caught it and the oven was back on.
I only launched onto the Original. The MC Edition was in the oven, but I didn't bake on it. So I can't tell you yet how a 3/8 inch steel handles the same pizza landing on it. That test is coming.
I didn't run a stone with dough on it. I have tested a stone during preheat and with the door open. From many years of experience, I find that a stone gives up more heat and takes longer to come back. But I don't have a stone reading with a pizza on it, so I'm not going to put one in a table and act like I do.
What's next
I'll run the same test with convection on. I'll run it on gas, too, where the broiler behaves completely differently and stays on instead of cycling. Then I'll test the MC Edition with dough and the stone with dough, so the comparison is a real comparison and not a feeling.
Most of what the thermocouple is telling me, I already knew from practice. Preheat an hour. Work fast at the door. Give it a minute between pies. The numbers didn't change how I make pizza. They put a figure on things I had only ever felt.
Except the 600 in a 550 oven. I had that one wrong.
All of this happened live, on a Wednesday at noon, with people asking questions the whole time. The classes are free and I run them most weeks. Come to the next one and bring your questions.
Last updated: October 18, 2026
FAQ
Can a pizza steel get hotter than the oven temperature?
Yes. In my test the oven was set to 550 and the steel read close to 600 after an hour. I used to say that couldn't happen. The steel stores a lot of energy, and it can climb past the air temperature and hold there.
How much heat does a pizza steel lose when you launch a pizza?
About 40 degrees. In my test the Original read 593.9 before launch and 554.6 right after the pizza went in. That drop is the open door and the cold dough hitting the hot surface at the same time.
How fast does a pizza steel recover after you launch a pizza?
It starts climbing within 30 seconds. My steel was at 554.6 right after launch and 560.4 thirty seconds after the door closed. Two minutes after a later door opening it was back to 540.
How long should you wait between pizzas on a baking steel?
Two or three minutes. That is about how long my steel took to climb back toward launch temperature. Stretching your next pie takes roughly that long, so the timing works out on its own.
How much heat do you lose opening the oven to rotate a pizza?
In my test, a door opening of about fifteen seconds at the four minute mark dropped the steel 27 degrees, from 536 to 509.4. Most of that is the oven air leaving.
What temperature should a pizza steel be when you launch?
My working number is 600. Above 700 is the danger zone for burning the bottom. That is from my own testing so far, and I am still running tests.
How long does it take to bake a pizza on a steel?
About five minutes on straight bake at 550 with no broiler and no convection. That was the bake time in this class.
About the author
Andris Lagsdin invented the Baking Steel in 2012, after reading in the Wall Street Journal that steel conducts heat better than stone and grabbing a plate off the floor of his family's steel shop. He launched it on Kickstarter that August, Kenji Lopez-Alt tested it for Serious Eats saying it beat his favorite pizza stone, and over 200,000 home cooks have one today.
Every Baking Steel is still made at Stoughton Steel Company in Hanover, Massachusetts, the shop his father started in the 1970s. Before Baking Steel, Andris cooked under Todd English and spent fifteen years in the family steel business. He is the co-author of Baking with Steel with Jessie Oleson Moore.
He teaches free online pizza classes every month and makes pizza almost every day.
In 2026 he launched the 72-Hour Pizza Dough Mix, the same recipe he has been teaching for over a decade, now in a bag. Just add water.