Quick Answer
The world's best pizzerias cook at 850 to 950°F on decks that hold enormous heat, and the people running them have made more pizza this month than you will make in your lifetime. You cannot reproduce that in a home oven. Two things do travel: long fermentation, which is free, and a cooking surface with real thermal mass that gives its heat back between pizzas. Ferment longer and put something under the pizza that recovers. Those two moves will do more for your pizza than anything else available to you.
The 50 Top Pizza World list came out this week and I read the whole thing twice. Tony Gemignani landed at number five. I've known Tony a long time, so that one made me happy.
But that's not really why I keep going back to the list.
What gets me is the level of obsession. These are people who have organized their lives around one dish. They argue about water. They know their flour by harvest. Somebody on that list is standing in front of a 900 degree oven tonight for the ten thousandth time, turning a pizza with a peel, and doing it with complete attention.
So the question I get, in one form or another, almost every week: how close can I get to that at home?
Closer than most people think. But not all the way, and I'd rather be straight with you about which is which.
What they have that you can't buy
A 900 degree floor. A Neapolitan deck oven runs between roughly 850 and 950°F. Your oven stops at 500 or 550. That isn't a budget problem, it's a residential kitchen problem, and nobody is selling you a workaround.
Six inches of stone under the pizza. Those decks hold an absurd amount of energy. Pizza number two hundred comes out like pizza number one.
Reps. This is the one nobody wants to hear. Tony has more than a dozen world championships and has been making pizza professionally since he was a teenager. A pizzeria on that list turns out 200 pies a night. That's 60,000 a year. You make eight on a Saturday. These people aren't better than you because of the oven. They're better because they've made more pizza this month than you'll make in your life.
A piece of steel doesn't close that gap. I'm not going to pretend it does.
Here's the part that surprises people though. The thing everybody assumes is the biggest gap, the dome heat, is the one you can actually get close to.
In a wood oven the ceiling radiates down with the same force the deck pushes up. That's what gives you leopard spotting and a puffy cornicione. You have a version of that ceiling already. It's your broiler. Run it until the coils are glowing, put a steel up close underneath it, and you get a 4 minute bake with real char in a regular electric oven. I wrote that one up with pictures.
What you can steal
Time
This is the big one and it costs nothing.
The people on that list are fermenting dough for 24, 48, 72 hours. Not because it's fancy. Because time is a flavor lever and the dough does the work while you sleep. A 72 hour dough and a two hour dough made from the same flour are not the same food.
Dan Richer at Razza is on that list, and he's not making strict Neapolitan pizza. He wrote a whole book, The Joy of Pizza, largely about dough. That's the tell. The thing he's obsessed with is the thing you have equal access to.
You have the same 72 hours he does. That's the great equalizer, and almost nobody at home uses it. Here is the 72-hour dough I make every week.
Heat that comes back
Here's what I'd tell you if we were standing in your kitchen. The number that matters isn't peak temperature. It's recovery.
A pizzeria deck barely flinches when a cold pie lands on it. Your oven rack doesn't work that way, and neither does a stone once you're two pizzas in. It gives up its heat and then it's just sitting there warm.
That's what a slab of steel does in a home oven. Not 900 degrees, nobody's claiming that. But it moves heat into the bottom of the dough fast and it comes back for the next one. Crust in 5 to 7 minutes instead of 15, and closer to 4 if you're running the broiler.
That's the one pizzeria property that actually travels into a residential kitchen. Here is how I use the broiler with it.
So what do you actually do
The gap between your kitchen and Caserta is real and I'd rather say so than sell you around it.
But most people trying to close it are chasing the part they can't have. Buying gadgets to simulate 900 degrees, then making two hour dough.
Flip it. Ferment longer. Put something under the pizza that holds heat and gives it back, and use the ceiling heat you already own. Those moves will do more for your pizza than anything else available to you, and one of them is free.
The rest is reps. Make more pizza.
About Andris
I'm Andris Lagsdin, and I invented the Baking Steel in 2012 after reading one line in Modernist Cuisine: "Steel conducts heat better than stone." My family had run Stoughton Steel for over 50 years, so I grabbed a slab from my dad's shop and tested it. That first pizza told me everything. Today, tens of thousands of home cooks use Baking Steel to make legendary pizza and bread from regular home ovens. Read more about my story.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I make Neapolitan-style pizza in a home oven?
Yes, and I do it regularly. A traditional Neapolitan oven runs at 900°F and yours will not, but temperature is not the whole story. What matters is how you deliver the heat. Two steels and a red hot broiler give you a 4 minute bake, leopard spotting, and a puffy cornicione out of a regular electric oven. Here is the full method, step by step.
How hot is a real pizza oven?
A Neapolitan wood-fired oven runs roughly 850 to 950°F on the deck, with the dome radiating down at a similar temperature. New York style shops run cooler, often 550 to 650°F, which is much closer to what you already have.
Does a Baking Steel get to 900 degrees?
No. Your steel gets as hot as your oven will make it, and a home oven stops around 500 to 550°F. Running the broiler before you launch pushes the steel's surface past the oven's set temperature, but nobody is hitting 900 in a residential kitchen. What the steel gives you is fast heat into the dough and quick recovery between pizzas.
Is long fermentation really that important?
It is the largest improvement available to a home cook for free. Time develops flavor and structure in the dough that you cannot get any other way. A 72 hour cold ferment and a two hour dough made from the same flour are different foods.
Why is my second pizza worse than my first?
Your cooking surface lost heat to the first pizza and has not recovered. This is what a pizzeria deck solves with sheer mass, and it is the main reason a thick slab of steel outperforms a thin pan or a stone once you are making more than one pie. Running two steels solves it completely.
Should I buy an outdoor pizza oven instead?
If you want a true 60 second Neapolitan bake and you have the outdoor space, an outdoor oven gets you to that specific style in a way no home oven can. If you want great pizza on a Tuesday in February without setting anything up outside, a steel in the oven you already own is the better tool. They solve different problems, and plenty of people end up with both.