turn your home stove into an awesome pizza oven

If you’re looking to purchase a specialized home pizza oven there are many choices, but do you really want to go that way when the best choice is already in your kitchen. With a few modifications your standard home oven makes an awesome pizza oven.

Would you like to bake a pizza at 600° in 4 1/2 minutes with a beautifully charred top and bottom? Of course you would and I am going to show you how. My confidence comes from hundreds of pies made in my everyday electric stove.

There are quite a few brands of home pizza ovens, some good and some not so good. However, even the good ones are not at a level where I would rank them to be better overall than my home electric oven. They cost a lot and for the most part you will have to go outside to use them. Maybe someday the cost, value, quality and performance of these ovens will become attractive, but with what your electric range is capable of, I don’t think it matters.

Initially it helps to have a kitchen stove with a convection bake setting and a max oven temperature of 550°. However, the game changer that I feel has revolutionized making great pizza at home is a baking steel. (more on baking steels later). Additionally an oven door with a window is great for peeking at the pies without having to lose heat opening the door. All the current quality commercial electric pizza ovens have windows and many pizzerias are going with the current trend to efficient electric ovens. My current stove is an everyday electric Frigidaire Galley. It holds heat well and has a much used big window in the oven door.

Start with your stove’s owners manual and find where to re-calibrate the oven’s temperature. Most ovens will have a calibration correction of (+) or (–) 35°. Essentially even though your oven is correct you are telling it that it is 35° less than 550°. Add the 35° and your max temperature now is approximately 585°. But we are not done yet.

Secondly, when baking pizza use your convection setting(my oven’s convection setting is labeled quick bake). In general convection has the effect of making your oven 25° hotter because of the efficient airflow created by the convection fan. Convection bakes hotter and faster, which is perfect for baking pizza. Normally I do not want the convection fan running when I preheat the oven. So I will preheat the oven on standard bake(takes 21 to 22 minutes to reach 550°) then switch to convection bake before I put in the first pie. Then leave the convection bake setting on until you’re done baking. Convection also improves the oven’s recovery time in returning to max temperature after opening and closing the door.

Those are the broad strokes for using your oven to make a well done perfectly charred pizza at home. With some practice you will quickly realize that your pie’s are much better than many pizzerias out there.

We have covered the basic electric oven, the calibration setting and convection bake. Let’s talk about using the game changing baking steel.

For years I used a baking stone and made good pizza but that nice charred well done pie was elusive. The steel has the ability to put a beautiful char on the bottom of your pizza, much better than the stone. Also, in my case, it knocked off 1 minute of baking time. Hot and fast. With proper placement of the steel in the oven coupled with the convection bake, the top of your pie will look fantastic with a pleasing char. There is no need to use the broiler to achieve the proper bake for the top of the pie. Actually using the broiler seems counter productive. Pizza is not made to be broiled. Between the steel and the convection bake I was able to take 2 minutes off the total bake time.

The stone needed 2 hours of preheat, was cumbersome to move about and seemed to upset the mechanical workings of the oven. The steel is ready in 1 hour and honestly I think an hour might be overkill. However, an hour makes me feel good and that is what I stick with.

Some experimentation is required when using the steel to bake pizza. A poorly placed steel (usually placed too close to the bottom element) can burn the bottom of your pizza given the high temperatures in use. In my oven I have 6 rack placement slots and the sweet spot is the 3rd slot from the top. Maybe it is a coincidence but the distance from the top of the steel to the top of the oven is approximately the same as in a conventional pizza deck oven. The 3rd slot from the top,for my steel, is the perfect balance for the crust, top and bottom, that I am looking for.

I do not open the oven and rotate the pie. The convention bake helps in getting an even bake and I do not like to lose heat opening the door. I look through the oven window. If the top crust is slightly uneven so be it. That’s the character and the beauty of real traditional pizza.

My steel is 1/4 inch thick and measures 14 inches deep by 16 inches wide. It is indestructible and will last forever. Nowadays you will find baking steels available in many thicknesses(1/4, 3/8,1/2) inches) and dimensions, as well as custom cut steels. However, I really found no advantage to upgrading my steel. The thick steels can be much heavier and unwieldy, and seem to me to provide little improvement if any. Manufacturers have no choice but to entice you to upgrade because your present steel does not break or wear out. Steels work best when you leave at least a minimum of 1 to 2 inches of space between the steel and the sides of the oven for air flow. Home kitchen stoves usually are much wider than they are deep. If you are making a 13 inch pie do you need a steel that is 20 inches wide? Choose a size that you feel comfortable sliding a pie onto.

I purchased my steel from bakingsteel.com when they were first getting started in business. Do your homework. Beware, there are a lot of poorly made baking steels that utilize low quality steel. Compare steels from different vendors and try to determine the finish and quality of the steel, as well as the smoothness and accuracy of the cut. I do not like glossy black colored steels nor a steel with a hanging hole drilled into it. I do not want my pizza deck to have a hole in it.

In the future I will do a post on baking steels exclusively. Like I said before, they were a game changer for me and they could be for you too.

A year ago I obtained a silicone mat for use over my glass stove top. I never used one before and had no problems with the glass top. However, the mat acts to insulate the oven from heat loss as well as protection from aggressive pizza slicing and the rough handling of pans and trays. Piece of mind.? I like a mat that has deep line ridges to improve air circulation. Essentially the stove top becomes your slicing station and a perfect place for keeping pies warm. No need to turn around, everything you need is front and center. Amazon has many to choose from.

I receive no compensation from the companies mentioned in this post. They are mentioned because these products are what I really use and maybe they can help to serve as a starting point for you.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post
better pizzamaking
Jimmy

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