A regular home oven tops out around 500°F, which is a big part of why homemade pizza so often comes out with a soft, pale bottom no matter how good the dough is. Wood-fired ovens run hotter than any home oven ever will, but the bigger issue is usually what the pizza is actually cooking on.
Steel conducts heat dramatically better than the ceramic stones most people already own, which is the whole idea behind the ThermiChef 16 x 16 inch Pizza Steel. Worth knowing before buying one of these: it’s heavy to lift in and out of the oven, it needs a genuine 45 to 60 minute preheat before it’s actually stored enough heat to matter, and because it’s bare steel it needs a light wipe of oil after cleaning to keep rust off. None of that is a dealbreaker, but it’s not a five-minute gadget either.
What you get for that effort: it’s CNC laser-cut from a single piece of low-carbon steel in Minnesota, a quarter inch thick, and weighs 17.6 lbs, so once it’s hot it holds that heat and transfers it straight into the base of the dough instead of losing it the moment the oven door opens. It ships shot-blasted rather than pre-seasoned, so it needs one seasoning round before first use: wash it, coat it thinly with oil, and bake at 375°F for an hour. After that it builds up a natural, cast-iron-style patina the more it’s used.
The same surface earns its keep well beyond pizza: sourdough, smash burgers, and roasted vegetables all work on it, and it goes on a grill as easily as in an oven. The full listing, including sizing options, is on Amazon.
