Pizza Stone vs. Pizza Steel: One is Better for Baking Multiple Pizzas

Much as the Stone Age eventually gave way to the Iron Age, pizza stones, once considered the best way to make quality pizzas in your home oven, have been pushed aside by the advent of pizza steels. Putting a piece of heavy steel in your oven may seem a bit overboard, and hey, aren’t Neapolitan pizzas and New York pizzas baked on stone? Why do you need steel?

Well, Neapolitan pizzas are baked in wood fired ovens upwards of 900F and NY pizzerias use deck ovens that are able to heat the stone and the air above them at a much greater temperature than a traditional home oven. These hotter temperatures actually make a stone a better material for these type of ovens.

You aren’t working with wood fired or deck ovens, you’re playing around with a 30” box that somehow burns your cookies while leaving them raw in the middle. A stone is no match for your oven.

Enter the steel.

When we’re talking about the heat and material needed to properly bake a pizza in a home oven, conduction is king.Conduction refers to the ability to store more energy (heat) and transfer that energy into a product (the pizza in this case) quickly and efficiently.

Steel is much more conductive than stone. Where a stone absorbs heat and slowly radiates it, a steel holds its energy in until it comes into contact with the pizza where it quickly moves its energy into the bottom of the pizza.

Said another way, a 550F steel behaves much hotter than a 550F stone due to the speed at which the steel transfers its heat into the pizza, resulting in quicker bakes, and a crispier and lighter pizza with beautiful leoparding on its bottom (see Pizza Trial below).

Steels also need less preheat time compared to stones and they recover their temperature between bakes quicker than stones.

This means less waiting and more pizza eating - a very good thing.

There are some practical matters to keep in mind when comparing stones and steels. Stones are easier to move due to their lighter weight while not lightening your wallet with their affordable price. It is also true it is possible to bake a pizza on a stone in your oven.

Steels, on the other hand, can be heavy, expensive, and absolutely incredible for making pizzas at home.

So, is the burden of a steel’s weight and its cost something to negate its performance? Absolutely not.

For one, stones are not indestructible. Accidents happen, things drop, slip out your hand, and in a stone’s case, shatter all over the floor. That $50 stone now becomes a $100 stone with the purchase of your next one.

Ever see a piece of steel shatter when it falls on the floor? Maybe you’ve seen a floor shatter when a steel drops on it, but the steel is fine. For all intents and purposes, a steel is indestructible and will last you forever. That slightly higher cost of a steel makes a little more sense once this is considered.

What about the weight? Steels are heavy - 13 pounds or more! A stone doesn’t come close to that.

Now, if only there was a steel that had built in handles that allowed you to easily pick up, place in your oven, remove from your oven, and carry wherever you needed to take it, all without fear of dropping it and damaging your floor. Where could a pizza steel like that be found?

So, what is the benefit of stone over steel?

The fact is, steel’s conductivity takes advantage of a home oven’s heat in a way that a stone just can’t, and the weight and cost is more than justified by the results.

Same Day Dough 65% Hydration, Baked at 550F on Stone, 6 minute bake.

Same Day Dough 65% Hydration, Baked at 550F on Stone, 6 minute bake.