Quick Answer
A pizza steel is a thick, flat slab of carbon steel that sits on a rack in your home oven. You preheat it, then bake your pizza directly on it. Steel moves heat into dough much faster than a stone does, so a regular home oven can give you a crisp, blistered crust in 5 to 7 minutes.
I invented the first one in 2012. It's called the Baking Steel®, and it started the whole category. Here's what a pizza steel is, why it works, and how to use one.
Why steel works
A home oven tops out around 500 to 550°F. A pizzeria oven runs much hotter. You can't change your oven, but you can change what the pizza sits on.
Steel conducts heat roughly 18 to 20 times better than a ceramic pizza stone. The moment your dough hits the steel, heat rushes into the bottom of the crust. That's what gives you oven spring, char and a crust that's crisp instead of pale and soft.
It also holds a lot of heat and gives it back quickly. After one pizza comes off, the steel recovers fast, so the second pizza comes out like the first. That's where a stone falls behind.
Pizza steel vs. pizza stone
A stone does the same job, just slower, and stones crack. A steel won't crack, and it only gets better the more you cook on it. I wrote a full comparison here: Baking Steel vs. Pizza Stone.
How to use one
- Put the steel on the upper rack of your oven.
- Preheat for 60 minutes at your oven's highest setting.
- Launch your pizza and bake 5 to 7 minutes.
For the full method, including the broiler trick, read How to Use a Baking Steel in a Home Oven.
It's not just for pizza
Bread, focaccia, English muffins and bagels all bake better on steel. Flip it over and it works as a griddle on your stovetop or grill for smash burgers, pancakes and grilled cheese.
Where the first one came from
In 2012 I was sitting in my office at my family's steel shop, reading a Wall Street Journal article about Modernist Cuisine. One line said steel conducts heat better than stone. I grabbed a steel plate from the plant, took it home, and made pizza on it that Sunday. Every Baking Steel® is still made and shipped from that same shop in Massachusetts.
The whole story is here: Who Invented the Baking Steel.
Which one should you get?
Start with the Original. It's 1/4 inch thick, 15 pounds, and fits most home ovens. If you end up making a lot of pizza, a second Original on another rack will do more for you than one bigger steel.
You can see every size in our pizza steel collection.
Andris Lagsdin, inventor of the Baking Steel®