Baking Steel

[heavenlyink]

Has anyone heard of, seen or tried one of these? http://bakingsteel.com/shop/baking-steel/

I come across a video where this guy was using it.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=emny0AdHIw4

Would love hearing if any one has to me is would be like cooking on cast iron. That is what I cook my pizza in but not using it as a stone. You would never have to fear of it breaking thats for sure.

[Syzygies]

Re: Baking Steel

I have their thickest steel in an apartment oven in NYC. I didn't get much time to experiment with it before heading out to CA for the summer, where my KK resides. It does add lots of thermal mass, e.g. under a large cast iron pan the combination yields commercial-grade bread baking steam, as advocated e.g. by the Bouchon Bakery book. I wish that the walls of my oven were this solid and thick.

The steel is optimized for very fast pizzas, and will be inappropriate for other applications. Different stones vary in the rate at which they return stored heat; Dennis has thought carefully about this in designing his pizza stones. A baking steel returns heat way too fast for most purposes. There's a lunatic fringe that prefers aluminum to steel, even faster, but this is in the service of "blink of an eye" pizzas, nothing else.

One can google for ways to prepare one's own baking steel, far less expensively. There's a coating that needs to be removed (not easily), buying from a metal yard. I've considered getting a round disk for my KK, but to increase the radiant heat above bread or pizza (ceramic cookers all have a "from below" heat bias), not to directly bake on the steel.

Putting in a cast iron pan cold is an entirely different story, there's no stored heat. It's the difference between picking up a cast iron pan and having one fall on you from a second floor window. However, to continue that analogy, by weight steel retains far less heat than water. That's why steam burns, and why it takes so much steel to create small amounts of steam.

[Syzygies]

Well, Baking Steel now sells round baking steels, in 14", 15" and 16" diameters, perfect for the KK.

 

http://bakingsteel.com/shop/baking-steel-round-16/

 

I would revise my remarks; baking on steel is more flexible that one might think. One cannot indulge a mindless obsession with very hot fires with anything other than thin crust pizza. However, there's a way to do almost anything on steel successfully, if one adapts one's cooking, free from crippling preconceptions. Whatever it is, figure out a low enough temperature that the inside cooks before the outside burns, and don't worry that the temperature sounds wrong. There's a lot going on that temperature alone doesn't capture. One tastes the history of the fire in anything that comes out of a KK.

 

Of late we've become interested in the classic methods for frying burgers. For so many reasons this should be happening on the KK. This round baking steel would be perfect here.

 

My experience is with The Big! which is 1/2" thick:

 

http://bakingsteel.com/shop/the-big/

 

The rounds now on sale are clearly 1/4" thick, considering their stated weights. With a choice I'd buy 1/2" but I'm sure these rounds would be very interesting to have. The cost of 1/2" doesn't double because most of the expense is surface prep.

[Syzygies]

 
A pizza in mid-cook on a 15" round baking steel. I'm never going back. Custom order a thicker version if you're willing to lift and pay for one. In the KK, mine is on a stack with my old pizza stone and a heat deflector.

 

I can go hotter without burning, using a steel. Not sure why, purely an empirical observation.
 
Whole grain from freshly ground flour using a Wolfgang Mock grain mill; this won't look like a white flour pizza, no matter how we bake it. We roll to 1/8" thickness using a stepped J.K. Adams Lovely Maple Wood Rolling Pin. One can also buy bands or strips to get a uniform thickness. No crust, not needed with spare toppings.

 

[Syzygies]

 

Burgers, and socca.

 

[GoFrogs91]

Good looking cooks.

[tinyfish]

Way to work that steel.

[CeramicChef]

Syzygoes - now that's a couple of really nice cooks!

I absolutely love hamburgers and the best burgers are done on a griddle, just like you show. That setup maximizes the Maillard reaction and yields the best tasting burgers, at least in my opinion.

I'm going to look into this baking steel. Looks exactly what I have been looking for in terms,of my burger cooks. Thanks!

[Syzygies]

 
eBay: 1 Aluminum Disc, 1 1/4" thick x 14 3/4" dia., Mic-6 Cast Tooling Plate, Disk (21.6 lbs, $54 USD)

 

So I noticed while making English Muffins that my custom 1/2" x 15" Baking Steel round was having trouble heating evenly. Copper has a great thermal conductivity but it's very expensive. By cost, aluminum is the most efficient conductor. Some people will make pizza directly on an aluminum plate like this; others have noticed that a blackened, seasoned steel plate radiates better. Think of my stack as component stereo.

 

These disks are actually scraps from cutting holes in aluminum plates, sold for less than one would pay to cut the hole. They need some cleanup, easily accomplished with a power sander and very fine tooth, premium sandpaper. Then rubbing alcohol.

 

It takes lots of thermal mass to turn 400ml of water or ice into steam, for simulating a commercial bread oven in a KK or indoor oven. I use steel chain in a cast iron skillet, loosely following Thomas Keller's advice from The Bouchon Bakery. One of these disks in an appropriate vessel would make an interesting alternative.