re: Anyone Have Baking Steel for Pizza?

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I wonder if Ancora would sell their dough

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You can always ask. Jeff's dough is wild-yeast (aka sourdough).

Or you can make super easy no knead dough using the Jim Lahey crust recipe. It requires a bowl, flour, yeast, water salt, a spoon, and time. Make it one evening and use it the next.

Flour is cheap as hell, and yeast isn't much more expensive.

I have just been buying Dough from whole foods, they will sell it frozen or ready to use in a ball. Close to the house and infinitely better than any of the stuff in the freezer aisle.

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I realize it's not a big cost. I think if someone is making good dough, and then not using all of it, why not buy theirs? It saves me work, may save them potential loss(huge $$) of wasted dough. Everyone wins.

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if they sell it, lemme know


I've used the stuff from whole foods before. It was pretty good.

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I realize it's not a big cost. I think if someone is making good dough, and then not using all of it, why not buy theirs? It saves me work, may save them potential loss(huge $$) of wasted dough. Everyone wins.

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I thought we just established that flour is cheap. No huge loss in tossing dough. Besides, I'd think that most places would bake it plain to use later as bread crumbs rather than toss it out.

A properly run/managed restaurant doesn't have "extra" dough. Why would you continually make more perishable product than you can sell? I can think of several pizzerias in the NE that require you to call in advance to "reserve" a crust; they make X pies per day, and when they're out, they're out.

Have been making a wild-yeast crust lately. Just as easy as Lahey's no-knead crust, but a bit more supple and flavorful, with less time on the countertop and more time in the fridge.
Pic here:
Crust is 145 g sourdough starter, 300 g water, 500 g all purpose flour, and 12 g yeast. I do an autolyse w/ 25% of the flour and the starter & water, then add the rest of the flour, stir, and ferment at room temp for 1 hour (do a couple of stretch and folds if it looks rough). Divide into 3, put into oiled containers, and refrigerated for 1-3 days.

It was by far the most supple dough I've made yet.

Here's one of the pizzas I made over the weekend on the baking steel.



It was very good. My crust wasn't quite as bubbly as I think it should be been, but very good. I used some fresh hot and spicy oregano from the yard in the sauce I made with fresh tomatoes. That oregano is delicious.

I have a few questions.

My pizza was a little floppy in the center after it sat a bit while eating it. How do you avoid that?

I read the instructions on the baking steel for cleaning and reseasoning. Mine is pretty roughed up from 5 or so pizzas. How do y'all clean yours? Do you use Barclean's to season it and how often do you season it? Do you use both sides or only the side with the logo on it?

I put one round of dough in the oven as is and it was a great little loaf of rustic bread much like what's served at Domenica. I read that Lehay has a similar no knead bread recipe cooked in a covered cast iron pot. Anyone tried that?

Mine was crispy all the way through when I took it out. Got soggy while it sat like a lot of pizzas do. I thought maybe the bottom steamed on the plate, perhaps.

I just reheated some for lunch on the steel with the oven door open after the steel had heated properly. I didn't turn on the broiler. It was floppy when I put it in from the fridge, but it's crispy all the way through.

I partially baked a few crusts I had left over to see how that works. Figured I'd experiment.

Do you keep yours in the oven?

Well, I'd say it was "the will of the dough". I'm far from getting a round shaped pizza. As long as it tastes good, I'm pretty happy, though one more appealing would be nice. Hope to get there one day. Since I'm not a baker at all and, generally, don't enjoy baking or fooling with dough, I gave myself a big pat on the back for this!

What oil did you use to reseason?

I dont think it would. For a few reasons

1) Its shape. It is square and wouldn't fit on my BGE or a Weber or most charcoal grills which are rectangular.

2) It would require a lot of fuel to get the pit up to 550 degrees and leave it there for thirty minutes to heat steel.

3) There is no broiler in your charcoal grill.

The reason the steel works is because you heat it up, then use the broiler to heat the steel further and to cook the pizza. Skipping one of those steps would render the tool useless.