[neltnerb]

I'm super excited to see papers talking about these topics in detail, food journals are amazing.

It was a bit dense for me in parts, but isn't it a very standard bread cooking trick to stick a cast iron pan in the oven to give it more thermal mass?

I'm also quite curious about these cooking temperatures, I know I'm never going to hit those in my electric stove, and I do cook deep dish pizzas longer at a lower temperature so they aren't goopy dough on the bottom. I wish I could try cooking them hotter, they still come out like crackers at 475F sometimes.

I'm curious, regarding your note about pizza stone temperature, do you make the pizza dough stretched and topped and then... put it on the already hot stone? How do you get the dough from the place you topped it to the stone without it falling to pieces?

What kind of stone could it be that a cast iron pan wouldn't be both higher thermal conductivity and also higher heat capacity? Are you using temperatures too high for cast iron?

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> put it on the already hot stone? How do you get the dough from the place you topped it to the stone without it falling to pieces?

There are plenty of demos and tips on "how to launch a pizza"

e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=153&v=_3jAnfvriCE&feature=yo...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkD-IrTNpTk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=153&v=n8F8YdxA5jA&feature=yo...

> Are you using temperatures too high for cast iron?

No, not at all. So why not use cast iron?

IDK, when cooking pizza inside a kitchen oven some people do use cast iron plates. They're a fair amount more expensive than the ceramic "pizza stone", and heavier, apparently they work very well. google "pizza steel".

In a custom-made pizza oven, ceramic floors are the only type I've seen. I guess iron just isn't necessary in this case? The whole interior gets heated up to 450-500C. If you're building a dome outdoors out of concrete and brick, then thermal mass is there because of regular mass?

[CrazyStat]

Oven bricks actually have higher thermal capacity than steel/iron, but much lower conductivity.

Steel or iron in a 450C oven would burn the bottom of the pizza before the top was anywhere close to done. It works well in home ovens at much lower temperatures (say 250C).

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Yes that makes sense, thanks.

[neltnerb]

Awesome, thank you. I just got a steel stone because I am pretty sure it makes more sense given how many pizzas I make at a time and one of those wooden paddles (I expect I can make do with a cookie sheet for removing the pizza at the end and the "stone" is already expensive).

I've been making pizza often since I was five, for many years weekly for dozens of people, and the center of the bottom is always the hardest to get cooked nicely without burning the top.

If this fixes that I can maybe avoid prebaking the crusts, that was my workaround previously. This sounds way better!

[SideburnsOfDoom]

If you are working in a pizzeria, have a backyard brick oven, or have a hobbyist oven such as a Roccbox or Ooni (I have an Ooni) they you should master the art of launching a pizza off a peel. So watch some how-to videos, get some Semolina flour and resign yourself to the fact that you aren't going to have a 100% success rate at first. You will lose some pies as you practice.

If you are cooking in your kitchen oven, you also have a second option: a sheet of baking parchment.

[neltnerb]

I have only done it in a home oven or a regular commercial kitchen without a fancy super hot oven.

I like the idea of learning to launch it though, I'm already sad that I can't toss the dough without dropping it so that seems like a just slightly easier skill that depends more on getting the dough to the right consistency. Seems like it will be fun to do anyway.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Throwing pizza dough up in the air is very much optional, and IMHO mostly done for show.

If you are making pizza "weekly for dozens of people" then equipment such as pizza peels and/or a pizza oven might be ideal for you?

[neltnerb]

Oven is overkill for my level of skill, a peel seems about the right next step. It's just a favorite when we can't eat out and is nice and easy.

[CrazyStat]

> I'm curious, regarding your note about pizza stone temperature, do you make the pizza dough stretched and topped and then... put it on the already hot stone? How do you get the dough from the place you topped it to the stone without it falling to pieces?

You use a pizza peel [1]. Put the pizza on the peel (some people put the stretched dough on and top it while it's on the peel, some people top it first and then transfer it to the peel), put it in the oven, and then slide the peel out from underneath.

Flour/semolina or corn meal helps keep the pizza dough from sticking to the peel.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peel_(tool)

[gnicholas]

I looked at getting a pizza peel and decided that there wasn’t a single best style. I recently discovered that I can easily transfer a pizza to the hot stone in the oven by building it on a piece of parchment paper (trimmed to the size of the pizza after adding the toppings) and sliding it from a tilted cookie sheet with the help of a large spatula.

It’s much cleaner than the way I used to do it, which required cornmeal and often resulted in crooked transfers, misshapen dough, and lopsided toppings.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> I looked at getting a pizza peel and decided that there wasn’t a single best style.

There isn't. There are 3 operations: launch, turning and extracting, and different styles of peel are "best" for each.

A smooth wooden peel (or perforated metal) is good for launch.

A "turning peel" is a thing, smaller and rounder.

A metal peel is best for extracting - don't use your launch peel, you don't want it to get hot, or the next pizza will stick.

This guy covers some of it: https://youtu.be/n8F8YdxA5jA

[madhadron]

I just switched the parchment paper approach myself. Unexpected bonus: I can wrap up the leftover pizza in the parchment.

[SethMurphy]

A small wooden pizza paddle is a great tool to build the pizza on and transfer to a hot surface. I use semolina underneath the dough so it can slide off more easily. Lifting a little to get some air underneath helps if it doesn't slide off at first. I haven't invested in a pizza stone, I just make them personal size on an inverted cast iron pan.

Edit: As other similar response mentioned peel seems to be the more specific word for paddle.

[leetcrew]

> What kind of stone could it be that a cast iron pan wouldn't be both higher thermal conductivity and also higher heat capacity?

cast iron pans are great, but a pizza stone can be much thicker than a skillet, so you can get a lot more heat capacity. not sure about the conductivity, but some "stones" are made of steel anyway.