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Comment by r3trohack3r | Hacker News Reader

This has been my go to pizza recipe for years. Super stoked to see it on the front page of HN.

My favorite step is “jailbreaking” your home oven with a pair of bolt cutters to use the cleaning cycle to get pizza oven temps.

> I've cook good pizzas at temps under 725F, but never a great one. The cabinet of most ovens is obviously designed for serious heat because the cleaning cycle will top out at over 975 which is the max reading on my Raytec digital infrared thermometer. The outside of the cabinet doesn't even get up to 85F when the oven is at 800 inside. So I clipped off the lock using garden shears so I could run it on the cleaning cycle. I pushed a piece of aluminum foil into the door latch (the door light switch) so that electronics don't think I've broken some rule by opening the door when it thinks it's locked.

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Lots of US ovens will hit 550°F without modification, and with a stone your pizza's cooked in ~7 minutes at that temp. It'll still be damn good. Fancy and gourmet and authentic-anything? No, but damn good. It'll even come out looking nice.

I just don't want people reading this thread to think you can't make really good pizza at home without buying a bunch of stuff or resorting to modding your stove. You can even make pan pizzas, so you don't have to buy a stone or any of that. More steps[0] but it works, and makes a better pizza than any major chain, with no special equipment whatsoever and very little mess.

[0] Pre-heat oven, lightly oil pan, build pizza in cold pan, heat pan on stove top until oil's been sizzling for a minute or so, cook in oven for ~5-10 minutes, turn on the broiler to finish the top when it's almost done—or hit the top with an electric heat gun or butane torch from your garage while it's heating on the stove top at the beginning, for finer control and to save time by skipping the broiler.

I can make excellent NY style pizza at 550F with a Baking Steel in 4 1/2 minutes.

I have a 3/8" dough joe baking steel slab and even preheating it to 550 for an hour in a "regular" oven never turns out as good as my Roccbox was capable of. I can never get my crust and cheese to match in baking times at 550 degrees. Either the crust isn't cooked enough for my liking or I end up cooking the cheese more than I'd prefer. The only times I've been able to make perfect pizza with my baking steel is when I used it in a friend's professional kitchen with an industrial convection oven that could go up to I think 700 degrees.

I use a piece of flag stone out of my back yard.

Agreed. Another option is to use a stone or steel on the grill (or put the dough straight on the grate, which I’ve heard works well but have never personally tried). The setup I’ve ended up with through lots of experimentation is to put a stone on a steel on a full blast gas grill and then set a sheet pan on the top rack to reflect some of the hear back down. This gets me really good pizza in a about 6 minutes on a shitty home depot grill.

For anyone thinking to try this on induction: don't. A pizza steel will work on an induction stove, but it'll also bend. Stick to the oven, and leave it an hour to heat up.

I had no idea, fascinating! Is this because of uneven magnetic “hot spots” or something?

It also won't heat evenly, leaving you with spots that are much hotter than others.

Another common trick is to use two stones, spaced apart with (1 inch) steel nuts. Stone at the bottom acts as a heat deflector and nuts prevent the top one from overheating.

I regularly throw the dough directly onto the grill.

It works well!

I've done it on the grate, just don't use oil, it's not necessary and will make your often smoke+smell and will blacken the grate

Well, I don’t think most people who read that page are the sort willing to go to that effort. But it’s a good read for people who have cooking experience. You see the temps required and quickly realise, you can’t duplicate that style at home without a lot of effort and some risk.

This really changed my approach to making home pizza.

I have baking stone and think it’s a waste of money.

My recommendations are:

Get a perforated pizza pan instead of a stone and bake on the lowest rung at the highest heat.

Use a basic bread recipe with and add yeast AND baking powder (or baking soda and cream of tartar in a 1:2 ratio). You can ensure the big bubbles and create texture differences.

Perforated cutter pans (e.g. Pizza Hut thin'n'crispy) pans or screens (like $3 at restaurant supply stores) on a well heated stone, combined with a low moisture dough will make a great cracker crust @ just 550F, too.

I guess pizza preferences are derived from where one grows up, but Neapolitan is way over-represented in the DIY pizza-making scene. "Less popular" thick crust styles like Detroit are super easy to make and you don't need an Ooni/Breville or anything special besides a cake pan.

The pan method works really well in a cast-iron pan. Start with the pan on the stove top, then put it in the oven. We're using a fajita pan and you get a really nice crust with it.

This. I don't even use my pizza stone anymore. Cast iron all the way. Preheat the pan, build the pizza in the pan on the stove top (about one minute), get it under the broiler 2-2.5 minutes) and enjoy a great pizza in about 3.5 minutes.

If you have two pans you can start making the second when the first has about a minute left - then the can finish a pie every 2.5 minutes!

I've not tried a straight broiler method—I do stovetop start, then a few minutes of straight bake, then just a little broiler—but when I do pan pizza I tend to make a thicker crust and pile things a bit higher. Bet if I made a pizza only on the flat, not running up the sides, that'd work just fine. Have to try that next time. I'd love to replace my pizza stone with more large cast iron pans, since they're more versatile.

If you like your pizza thick and high, you'll need to bake. The broiler only method works well for thinner, lighter pizzas.

stones need 10-15 minutes between bakes to regain their heat. steel is better but takes a different kind of bake to not burn the bottom. high temp ovens offer a good balance between them but need a lot of care to not burn and be cooked through

i use all 3 and it’s nice to have options. my most common is a basic stone in the oven

I've not noticed trouble with stones and a fast turnaround—bigger problem's the loss of heat in the air, in the time it takes to remove one and put another in—but may be that I'm just not watching close enough. I'll keep an eye on that, thanks for the pointer.

With this weird form of temp surfing I have been able to make good pizza:

.25” steel at second from top position, 550 warmup, turn off oven and open oven for a second, switch on to hi broil, pop in pizza after a few minutes. Steel gets to 650 but I think it’s thin enough to exhaust some of it’s heat.

> My favorite step is “jailbreaking” your home oven with a pair of bolt cutters to use the cleaning cycle to get pizza oven temps.

If you have a baking steel, you can trick your oven into heating it well above the temperatures it normally allows. Place the steel very close to the broiler (leaving as little space as you can squeeze your pizza in) and leave the door slightly ajar. That little space will heat up high enough to make a "Neapolitan style" pizza in a home oven a possibility.

P.S. I've successfully done this; use this advice at your own risk :)

watch your knobs if you do this

1. Like he said, put tin foil over the glass. At those temps a wet piece of dough, or ingredients, will shatter the glass. In the article he said to cut the lever on the oven with pruning sheers. Use a file, or hacksaw. (I'm thinking about using hvac foil tape to tape the foil over the glass. Not using foil tape directly on the glass, but on the sides holding the loose foil in place. I'm assuming that tape will take high temps? If I gave the nerve to do this?

2. If I owned a cooking school, this guy would get an honorary degree. It's more enlightening than most PhD theses. Just kidding professional students. Kinda? I had an ex whom killed hundreds of lab rats validating an experiment that has been validated 40 times. She killed the rats by banging their heads onto a granite stone. She got mad when I didn't want to know more. She is now a vegetarian, but eats Salmon because it's good for her hair. I made the mistake of telling her she easen't technically a vegetarian over a "romantic" dinner. She didn't want to be just friends? She was out of my league thankfully. Meaning I wasen't worthy, and I agreed. (Sorry--reminiscing.)

3. If I read everything correctly, keeping the dough similar to stiff cake batter is what most of us have been doing wrong, along with the long wet mix in the mixer? This makes sence. I've heard a lot of bakers say to keep all dough wet, or as wet as possible.

I don't think I actually trust most lowest bidder ranges you find in your average modern apartment to successfully self-clean without damaging either itself or it's surroundings. The top of mine gets hot enough to be uncomfortable just from normal 400 temperatures, and that's after passing through a hollow cavity where my eternally soiled and flammable grease traps sit.

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