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Comment by Tomte | Hacker News Reader

I relented and bought a pizza steel. Best thing ever.

And not as over the top as a dedicated wood-fired oven (single use: pizza) for garden or balcony.

It's my 80% solution.

My plan is to get a pizza steel and do the cooking in my Big Green Egg. I can get the egg up to at least 700 F and I should be able to cook the pizza in a few minutes at that temp. The kamado ceramic body of the BGE will retain heat well and cook from both top and bottom. The oak wood should add nice flavor, too.

I baked three pies in my BGE last night. Delicious. Pizza stone on grate on plate setter and bake 2.5 minutes at 650-700, rotate 180 degrees, and another 2-3 minutes. Delicious. Easy shortcut is to use Trader Joe's crust.

Never heard about a "Big Green Egg". Thanks for mentioning it.

Are there versions that don't cost the equivalent of a small car?

Check out pizzamaking.com. It's probably the central place to chat about all things making pizza. While a home oven will get you decent pizza with a good stone, there are outdoor solutions that aren't too expensive. I got the blackstone oven, and it makes Neapolitan-style pizza in about 90 seconds, just like a large wood oven does. The difference is it uses propane with a giant flame arching over the pizza, and it has a motor to spin the pizza/stone inside. It was about $400, and well worth it if you want that style pizza.

$400 oven is pretty expensive compared to a steel made from scrap. And steel is way easier to use.

It's an oven that can get to 1000F, which a home oven won't get close to. You need that for Neapolitan pizza, and it cannot be emulated with a steel stone. Those are great for NY-style in the home oven though.

Yep, I bought a slab of steel from an auto parts fabrication shop at nearly market rate so I could afford to buy a thicker piece, and it made a huge difference compared to a stone or baking sheet. It did need some heavy cleaning and seasoning, however, so keep that in mind if you go the semi-DIY route like I did.

How did you go about seasoning it? I would assume that you just do it like cast iron (strip to bare metal, coat with avocado or flaxseed oil, fire to 500F for an hour) but I'm not sure. Are there types of steel that are more conducive to pizza-making?

How does a pizza steel compare to a pizza stone?

Higher heat capacity, higher heat transmission.

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