May 22, 2019 - 12:21am
How to turn a regular home oven to stone oven
Hi all,
I have been baking pizza at home for over 2 years and developed a nice method that suits my needs.
I use cast iron plate - I place it in a regular home oven and heat it to 250 C.
As the bottom of the pizza baked nicely each time I still have problems with the upper pizza part. Since I have a small over the crust of the pizza sometimes can dry out.
I''m trying to accomplish the perfect method to achieving a like-stone-oven but without any luck.
Any ideas?
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A small home oven (I guess you mean smaller than the average home oven) will never be stone-like. You have probably done close to the best possible already.
If you really need a better oven, your next step will be to actually buy a new oven. Or if not that, get used to what you have, and make the best use of it that you can.
I use a 3/8 thick 16" Round pizza steel. What some people do to replicate a stone oven is to use the steel to cook the pie directly on, then place a pizza stone on the rack above the pizza. this would radiate heat down onto the pie. You want to bake your pizza at the highest temp your home oven can reach for the shortest amount of time.
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When we cook a pizza in our kitchen oven, I change to the dough recipe to include some oil so I will get some browning at the lower temperatures. Still very good though.
Cheers,
Gavin
Gavin's last statement is the real key here. I don't mean to say everyone must add oil - maybe some people prefer not to - but everyone who has some kind of oven can cook good food, by working with what they have, and finding out how to get the best possible results from it. Trying to make it be what it's not, is pointless. (But adding something useful isn't pointless. Do what works, without imagining that you're making a different kind of oven.)
This method is worth trying, have used it before with very good results! Pizza steel combined with broiler. Also, a variety of other pizza approaches.
https://slice.seriouseats.com/2012/09/the-pizza-lab-the-baking-steel-delivers.html
I always thought this setup looked pretty cool. But the diameter looks like it would handle only smaller pizzas.
https://www.fourneauoven.com/collections/fourneau-bread-oven/products/fourneau-bread-oven-2-0
Are you baking your pizza at a high rack setting in the oven? Heat rises, so if you have the cast iron plate on a low or even middle rack, the bottom is going to brown before the top is done. When I have to do pizza in a home oven I bake on as high a rack as I can. It works!