Stone vs Baking Steel vs Cast Iron

[Garvinque]

I have a 14 inch Pizza stone, 14 inch baking steel round, and a Lodge 14 inch pizza pan but haven't used all three together to see which is better. Most of you probably don't have all three but if you have at least two of the three which do you prefer? P.S. the baking steel is 1/4 inch thick

Garvin

 

Edited January 22, 2017 by Garvinque

[Pequod]

Prefer for what?

[Garvinque]

which one would prefer to use stone or steel? Pizza, baking bread etc.

[Pequod]

I don't have a baking steel yet. Plan to buy one, but am waiting to see if Dennis produces one. If it doesn't happen soon, I'll pull the trigger on one from bakingsteel.com.

On my KK:

Grill shaped baking stone for bread and other baked items, even in pans. Currently for thin crust pizza too. 

Steel (If I had one) for thin crust pizza

For deep dish pizza I have several pans, the best one of which is a decades old very well seasoned steel pan. I'm from Chicago and this pan is the real deal. I don't use cast iron for pizza, but do for desserts. Haven't done a deep dish pizza in the KK yet, but when I do it will be in a steel pan on the baking stone. 

Edited January 22, 2017 by HalfSmoke

[MacKenzie]

I have a 3/8 inch baking steel and love it for use in the kitchen, bought that before I bought the KK. On the KK I love the KK baking stone, no more burned bottoms and under-cooked tops. I've only done 1 deep dish pizza on the KK and I'm pretty sure I used cast iron.

[dstr8]

I have the 3/8" thick Baking Steel and shaped KK baking stone and like them both equally but for different reasons.   I'm all about Neapolitan dough; pretty much all I make/have made for years.   To get the real deal cornicione, not a reasonable facsimile, using the stone at 750-800F dome produces the best results on a KK.   I've done a ton of experiments using the same dough but 50ºF dome temp differences with the shaped stone on the KK from 550 to 900 and it is what it is.

OTOH I can get, using the same dough, very very good results at 550-600ºF using the 3/8" Baking Steel.   Not quite the same as the stone at 750-800F but close enough to justify the much lower energy requirements, lower heat soak temp and reduced time along with not having the hassle of maintaining 750-800 for more than a couple pies.  

 

 

Edited January 22, 2017 by dstr8

[Pequod]

9 hours ago, dstr8 said:

I have the 3/8" thick Baking Steel and shaped KK baking stone and like them both equally but for different reasons.   I'm all about Neapolitan dough; pretty much all I make/have made for years.   To get the real deal cornicione, not a reasonable facsimile, using the stone at 750-800F dome produces the best results on a KK.   I've done a ton of experiments using the same dough but 50ºF dome temp differences with the shaped stone on the KK from 550 to 900 and it is what it is.

OTOH I can get, using the same dough, very very good results at 550-600ºF using the 3/8" Baking Steel.   Not quite the same as the stone at 750-800F but close enough to justify the much lower energy requirements, lower heat soak temp and reduced time along with not having the hassle of maintaining 750-800 for more than a couple pies.  

 

 

Where do you place the steel? Upper grate? What size do you have?

[Garvinque]

Ok so what I'm getting is stone for bread and higher temp pizza and the steel for pizza cooked in the 450 to 550 range?

Garvin

[Garvinque]

11 hours ago, HalfSmoke said:

I don't have a baking steel yet. Plan to buy one, but am waiting to see if Dennis produces one. If it doesn't happen soon, I'll pull the trigger on one from bakingsteel.com.

On my KK:

Grill shaped baking stone for bread and other baked items, even in pans. Currently for thin crust pizza too. 

Steel (If I had one) for thin crust pizza

For deep dish pizza I have several pans, the best one of which is a decades old very well seasoned steel pan. I'm from Chicago and this pan is the real deal. I don't use cast iron for pizza, but do for desserts. Haven't done a deep dish pizza in the KK yet, but when I do it will be in a steel pan on the baking stone. 

I was thinking about getting on of these for deep dish pizza: Pizza-Craft-10-Inch-Hard-Anodized-Aluminum-Deep-Dish-Pan-

Good buy or get a darker colored pan?

Garvin

 

[Pequod]

31 minutes ago, Garvinque said:

I was thinking about getting on of these for deep dish pizza: Pizza-Craft-10-Inch-Hard-Anodized-Aluminum-Deep-Dish-Pan-

Good buy or get a darker colored pan?

Garvin

 

I'm sure it would work fine. I have several pans kinda like that. I'll see if I can dig them up. If you can find it, I highly recommend a steel deep dish pizza pan like you'll find in Chicago Deep Dish Restaurants. They aren't easy to find. I think my sister found this one for me in a store in Chicago about 30 years ago. Here's mine:

 

Heres a link to a good discussion on pans: http://www.realdeepdish.com/2012/10-15-deep-dish-101-lesson-4-nuts-and-bolts/

Incidentally, realdeepdish.com is the real deal if you want authentic Chicago dish dish. Most of what I see people posting as "Chicago style" is far from reality. I tried wading into those waters once and got my hands slapped, so I no longer comment other than to suggest you look there. 

EDIT: Oh, and I can't tell about the pan you posted, but you want 2" sides. For some odd reason, there are a lot of pans out there with only 1" sides. Probably sold by the same folks who believe there should be cornmeal in deep dish pizza dough. Heretics one and all.

Edited January 22, 2017 by HalfSmoke

[Pequod]

25 minutes ago, Garvinque said:

Ok so what I'm getting is stone for bread and higher temp pizza and the steel for pizza cooked in the 450 to 550 range?

Garvin

You can cook pizza at 550 (and I do all the time) with the baking stone. Neapolitan style has particular requirements, starting with use of 100% 00 flour. To get a char on the crust requires higher temps or baking steel. I think that's all Dan was saying. That said, I'm definitely interested in a steel for pizza. 

[dstr8]

2 hours ago, HalfSmoke said:

Where do you place the steel? Upper grate? What size do you have?

Both stone and baking steel, for Neapolitan dough anyway, get placed on the 'high hat' to get the most from radiant dome heat.  Otherwise the crust bakes too fast relative to the top.   

This is the Baking Steel I am using:  https://shop.bakingsteel.com/collections/griddles/products/15-round-griddle

Its what they coin as a "Griddle" ... I use the side with the routed moat for smash burgers ... 

Edited January 22, 2017 by dstr8

[Pequod]

Both stone and baking steel, for Neapolitan dough anyway, get placed on the 'high hat' to get the most from radiant dome heat.  Otherwise the crust bakes too fast relative to the top.   
This is the Baking Steel I am using:  https://shop.bakingsteel.com/collections/griddles/products/15-round-griddle
Its what they coin as a "Griddle" ... I use the side the routed moat for smash burgers ... 

Awesome, thanks! That's EXACTLY the one I was looking at and for the same reason. Smashburgers on the griddle side.

[dstr8]

27 minutes ago, HalfSmoke said:

You can cook pizza at 550 (and I do all the time) with the baking stone. Neapolitan style has particular requirements, starting with use of 100% 00 flour. To get a char on the crust requires higher temps or baking steel. I think that's all Dan was saying. That said, I'm definitely interested in a steel for pizza. 

Yes, all of my comments regarding baking pizzas are in reference to all things Neapolitan dough.   When oil and/or sugar as well as additional amounts of yeast are added to the dough the baking temp has to come down otherwise you end up with too much carbon

[dstr8]

58 minutes ago, Garvinque said:

Ok so what I'm getting is stone for bread and higher temp pizza and the steel for pizza cooked in the 450 to 550 range?

Garvin

For New York, American or Sicilian style dough you can get great results with the stone at 450-550 temps.   My comments are/were strictly relative to Neapolitan style dough where higher temps/conductivity are critical for the real deal outcome.

[Garvinque]

Thank you all for the info, I'm starting to get into baking both indoors and out! Baking indoors I can get a wealth of knowledge from my mom but she is old school baker and has pans and techniques that are still great but doesn't translate to outdoor baking and she was never a pizza person likes it doesn't love it and she's from Brooklyn go figure. Dan so you can really cook pizza on the steel at all temps depending on the dough used?

Thanks' again

Garvin

[dstr8]

8 minutes ago, Garvinque said:

Thank you all for the info, I'm starting to get into baking both indoors and out! Baking indoors I can get a wealth of knowledge from my mom but she is old school baker and has pans and techniques that are still great but doesn't translate to outdoor baking and she was never a pizza person likes it doesn't love it and she's from Brooklyn go figure. Dan so you can really cook pizza on the steel at all temps depending on the dough used?

Thanks' again

Garvin

Yes.  But,  Dennis' shaped stone is more versatile overall.   The stone is superior for baking bread, desserts, soufflés, etc.   Whereas IMHO the baking steel is best when you want a very quick transfer of heat to whatever you are cooking (i.e. smash burgers, Neapolitan dough pies, etc.).  

[Garvinque]

1 hour ago, HalfSmoke said:

I can't tell about the pan you posted, but you want 2" sides

I checked the description and it's says 2" deep, but I'm looking at the site for an steel pan instead!

Thanks' Again

Garvin

[Syzygies]

I have multiple Baking Steels, and multiple Fibrament-D baking stones. I take at face value any claims that a given solution works, but one can only make comparisons by trying both.

People who make baking stones understand all sorts of heat transfer coefficients not generally revealed to the public. Dennis in particular understands this for his stones, which I have no doubt are as good as Fibrament-D.

The rough idea is how quickly the stone returns heat energy to the baked good. One has seen something similar with bouncing rubber balls of different materials. Some balls bounce high, some are nearly dead, on purpose. To hit a given target, one compensates with different balls by how hard you bounce them. Here, good cooks can adapt and get great results from either Baking Steels or stones. Yet we're fighting a strong current here; to adapt, it helps to know which way it is flowing.

A Baking Steel is optimized for returning a lot of heat in a hurry. A stone is tuned to return heat at a measured pace.

Thus, I prefer a Baking Steel for thin crust pizzas, e.g Neapolitan style cooked very quickly. It also makes a great burger griddle, working on the KK. I prefer stones for baking bread; I don't like my bread to burn.

A special problem, baking in the KK, is that heat comes from below. An unprotected steel or stone, left too long, gets too hot. One ends up cooking entirely from below, when ideal (think how a classic wood-fired pizza oven works) is mostly radiant heat from above.

I work around this by stacking everything I've got, as a heat shield. For example, I had bought a thick rectangular kiln stone for baking bread. It didn't quite work, again the wrong thermal characteristics. (I'm of a certain age, and hippies loved appropriating objects that "the man" intended for other purposes, even if the redirection doesn't quite work. The old literature is filled with references to lining one's oven with kiln stones.) So I ordered a matching, also thick, Fibrament-D stone to set on top. It nicely fits two loaves of bread side-by-side, and the stack is thick enough to not overheat in my time frame. My giant cast iron skillet, filled with chain (meant for producing steam) also helps to turn the KK into an indirect oven.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Syzygies

[DennisLinkletter]

On 1/22/2017 at 10:09 AM, Garvinque said:

I have a 14 inch Pizza stone, 14 inch baking steel round, and a Lodge 14 inch pizza pan but haven't used all three together to see which is better.

Garvin

 

 

There is no better, only different with each having their merits.   My analogy is that the more dense a material is, the more readily it transfers heat to what you are baking/cooking.  The baking steels are of course very dense and rapidly transfer lots of heat to your food. This is great with the thin cracker crust pizzas.   But at the same temps a traditional pie will have the bottom burned before the top is cooked. The heat transfer formula for my baking stones is for medium to thick crust pizza or bread.  
Any material can  in theory, be used you will just need to balance the crust cooking with the rest of the pie.  I always think of the first pie as my guinea pig..  I throw a pie on it and see how it goes at whatever temp the grill is at.. If the crust is finished before the pizzas' toppings are cooked I raise the grill's temp. If the topping and top crust is burning before the crust is ready you need to reduce the grill's temp.. The heat transferred by the stone will stay relatively stable/consistent.  Just with the damper top high temps can be adjusted in seconds once you have the grill heat soaked and a basket with only medium and larger pieces of charcoal that do not restrict the grill's airflow.