A Baking Steel moves heat into dough faster than anything else in your kitchen. That is the whole idea, and it is why a regular home oven can turn out a crust that crunches.
I made the first one in 2012, from a plate at my family's steel plant in Hanover. Every one still ships from there, seasoned by hand.
Which one you want
The Original is 14" x 16" and a quarter inch thick. It's what most people should buy. It fits a standard home oven, it's the one that started this, and at 15 pounds it's the easiest of the family to live with.
The Kit is the whole first pizza night in one box. The Original, a 14 inch peel, a 72 Hour Dough Pack and cleaning bricks, for less than the four cost separately.
The Modernist Cuisine Special Edition is the Original's footprint at 3/8 inch instead of a quarter. Same 14" x 16", 22 pounds, co-developed with the Modernist Cuisine lab. More steel means more stored heat, which shows up when you're baking several pizzas back to back.
The Pro is the big one. 3/8 inch, 16" x 16" square, the only surface here that takes a full 16 inch New York pie. At 27 pounds it's the heaviest. Measure your rack front to back first: you need 16 inches of depth, and you'll want the 16 inch peel with it.
The Plus is 15" x 20", and it exists because bread bakers asked for it. They were baking one loaf at a time and wanted room for more, so I made the biggest steel that still fits most home ovens. Four loaves at once. If you bake more bread than pizza, this is your steel.
The Kamado is round, because kamado grills are round. 16 inches across, a quarter inch thick, and it drops into most 18 inch and larger kamados including the Big Green Egg and Kamado Joe.
The Baking Steel for Outdoor Ovens is sized for portable outdoor pizza ovens, and the Anova Precision Oven steel is cut to fit that oven exactly.
Looking for a griddle? All three are here →
Still not sure?
Buy the Original. It's the right answer for most kitchens and it's the one I use most.
If you're feeding a crowd, the move isn't a bigger steel. It's a second Original on a second rack. Launch on the top one, finish on the bottom one, and you get a pizza every two minutes. Two Originals also costs less than one Pro.
Before you buy
Will it fit my oven?
Measure your rack and leave about an inch of clearance around the perimeter for airflow. The Original needs 16 inches of width, the Pro needs 16 inches of depth, the Plus needs 20 inches of width. Pizza goes on the second rack from the top.
How long do I preheat it?
One hour, oven as hot as it goes. Forty five minutes works, it just doesn't work as well. The steel has to saturate all the way through, and that takes longer than the oven takes to reach temperature.
Is it heavy?
Yes. The Original is 15 pounds, the MC is 22, the Pro is 27. Two hands, every time, and never while it's hot. If lifting is a concern, the Original is the one to get.
Do I need to season it first?
No. Every one is shot blasted to bare metal and seasoned by hand with organic flax oil before it ships. Because that's done one at a time, no two look exactly alike. The brown and bronze patches are the seasoning, not the steel, and the surface evens out as you use it.
No coatings. Nothing to wear out. Cut, finished and seasoned in America, backed for life, free shipping in the US.
What a pizza steel is, and why it works →
Baking Steel vs. pizza stone →
Cleaning and re-seasoning →