What if I told you that you could turn your home oven into a wood-fired
Soggy pizza sucks! I’ve tried every way of baking pizza at home. I’ve seen everything from soggy pizza from a crappy pizza pan to pizza stones that cracks mid-baking. And the truth is making proper Neapolitan-style pizza in a home oven is nearly impossible. But only if you don’t have the right tools!
The best way to make Neapolitan-style pizza in a home oven is by using a thick, solid
And the thickness of the NerdChef Steel Stone Ultimate is what makes it stand out. It might just be a solid, thick slab of steel, but it makes amazing pizza. It bakes pizza faster and better, and the result is always a perfectly crispy, blistered crust.
I think a proper
Get the NerdChef Steel Stone here. (affiliate link).
A quick overview of the NerdChef Steel Stone
NerdChef Steel Stone is simply a large slab of steel with round edges and two holes for handles. It might not look like a design piece or an advanced baking tool. It’s simple, but it gets the job done and does exactly what it’s supposed to. And it does it well!
Size, weight, and materials
It’s heavy! At 32 lbs (14.5kg), so you better not drop it on your toes!
The two holes come in handy when you want to move the pizza, steel, as it can be a bit awkward to hold it.
I also read someone used the handleholes to hang the
The NerdChef Steel Stone Ultimate is also a fairly large
The surface is also smooth and makes it easy to slide the pizza on and off. The smoothness of the surface is however not something I’m too concerned about when it comes to pizza steels, as sticking shouldn’t really be a problem as long as the baking surface is hot enough during baking. But it’s worth mentioning that the non-stick surface doesn’t help too much when it comes to raw pizza dough. If you have a bad launch, it’s going to be really hard to adjust or move it until it’s baked because the raw dough sticks to the steel.
According to NerdChef, the NerdChef Steel Stone is 20x more conductive than a ceramic pizza stone. The reason is that steel is way more conductive than ceramic. And this is one of the big benefits of the Steel Stone.
Actually, wood-fired pizza ovens use less conductive materials on purpose, because you don’t want the pizza to burn too fast. However, baking pizza in a home oven is a totally different story. At lower temperatures, you want to bake pizza on a conductive surface to increase the baking speed. Therefore, steel is an amazing material for baking pizza in a 450-500F home oven!
Durability and quality
Nerdchef also claims it’s unbreakable, which I believe!
Unlike ceramic pizza stones, which are fragile to rapid change in temperature, the Nerdchef Steel Stone seems indestructible!
I think my wife said it well: “Be careful with that thing! If you drop it you’re probably going to ruing your foot and make a hole in the floor” (luckily that hasn’t happened… yet). It’s a solid slab of steel, and you probably can’t break it even if tried!
I would however avoid placing it in the dishwasher. It’s generally not recommended to clean pizza steels in the dishwasher, but I would honestly be more worried about the dishwasher than the Nerdchef Steel Stone.
Lifetime guarantee
Another thing worth mentioning is NerdChef’s lifetime guarantee. A proper
Summary of features
| Manufacturer | NerdChef |
| Size | 16″ x 14.25″ |
| Thickness | 0.5″ |
| Weight | 32 lbs |
| Guarantee | Lifetime guarantee |
| Country | Made in the USA |
| Material | Steel |
NerdChef Steel Stone in use
It’s really easy to use the NerdChef Steel Stone. Simply place it in the oven, let it heat up on the hottest setting, and bake your pizza directly on the steel surface.
Just like with a wood-fired oven, it takes time to pre-heat the steel. It’s recommended to heat pizza steels for around 1 hour, so you have to plan a little bit ahead of time. A thicker
Moving the pizza from the baking surface into the oven can be challenging. So in addition to the NerdChef Steel Stone, you also need a
A perforated
Baking the NerdChef Steel Stone
Another challenge that took me some time to figure out was the balance between baking the bottom and top of the pizza. With its high conduciveness, the NerdChef Steel Stone baked the bottom too fast. Even at 500°F (260°C), my oven couldn’t keep up with the temperature of the steel. The bottom of the pizza always finished before the cheese was properly melted, and certainly before any blistering appeared on the crust. But I found a solution!
For the fastest and best bake, I found placing the
Cooking time
When using the broiler method, it takes around 5 minutes to bake pizza. From all the baking tools and methods I’ve tried this is the fastest bake, you can get in a 500°F convection oven. So this is as close as you get to proper Neapolitan pizza baking in a home oven!
Perfectly crispy pizza in less than 5 minutes!
Like most pizza steels, one of the limitations is baking multiple pizzas right after each other. On the NerdChef Steel Stone, the first pizza always came out the best – looks like it’s right from a wood-fired
This is the biggest drawback of the NerdChef Steel Stone.
According to NerdChef, you should “Give the Steel a few minutes to warm back up in between pizzas“. But to fully come back to temperature, it seems to need 10-15 minutes. I rarely do more than 2 or 3 pizzas at once, so reheating isn’t really a concern for me, but if you’re throwing a big party it’s going to take a long time to bake enough pizza.
Cleaning and care
After you’re done baking, it takes even longer for the
Cleaning the NerdChef Steel Stone is also really simple. Due to the heat, most food soils turn more or less to ashes. The smooth, non-stick-coated surface also prevents things from sticking too much. So you can brush most of the residue off with a towel or cloth. Then, wash it with warm water and a nylon brush.
Every once in a while you’ll have some tougher spots, usually melted cheese or fat from the toppings. These can be removed using a metal spatula or steel wool. So cleaning is a lot easier than a ceramic stone, as these often have a rougher surface that food soils really stick to.
You also have to dry the Steel Stone properly before putting it away, or else you run the risk of rust. This is a drawback, in my opinion, but as long as you’re careful drying it properly you shouldn’t be too concerned with rust.
When it comes to maintenance, treat it like cast iron. NerdChef recommends seasoning the Steel Stone using flaxseed oil. But you can use any high smoke point oil that you use for your cast iron. This will help protect the steel from both erosion and rust, as well as help preserve the non-stick surface.
How good pizza can you make on the NerdChef Steel Stone?
But now, the most important thing: How is the pizza? The short answer is amazing!
I’ve been looking for a way to make a wood-fired pizza in the apartment, and this is the closest I’ve ever been.
The NerdChef Steel Stone can make a charred, crispy pizza crust in less than 5 minutes. And when you combine that with the broiler you’ll create the leopard-pattern pizza crust you only find on wood-fired pizza.
Conclusion
NerdChef raises the bar with their NerdChef Steel Stone Ultimate. Very few pizza accessory manufacturers make pizza stones or steels as thick as 1/2, and this is what makes the NerdChef Steel Stone stand out. The extra-thick steel gives you just that little extra that takes your pizza from good to great.
It’s also a really solid slab of steel, made in the US. It’s easy to use, even though it takes a few tries to really get to know how it works in your oven and tune your baking process to perfection, and with proper care, it can last you a lifetime.
The two main drawbacks in my opinion are that the steel can rust if not dried properly and that you can’t bake many pizzas back to back.
But the most important thing is that the NerdChef Steel Stone can make amazing pizza. I’m really impressed. So if you want to level up your pizza game, I highly recommend the NerdChef Steel Stone. And with the lifetime guarantee, it’s a no-brainer if you’re serious about pizza baking at home!
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