So, I’m one of the lucky, somewhat industrious, DIY-inclined, people with a 64 square foot smaller backyard that now hosts a wood-fired pizza oven. I’m still getting the hang of it and thus far, it’s pretty much a warm weather pursuit. Anyway, for the 20 years or so before I had a pizza oven, and to this day during the long, wet Portland winter, I still use our 1950’s Wedgewood gas oven for pizza-making. Yes, you can use an oven to make decent pizza — it’s not as hot or as uniform as a restaurant or wood burning oven, but it’s perfectly fine. Fine that is if you have a pizza stone. A pizza stone is actually a big, flat piece of ceramic that can both withstand prolonged oven temperature and retain that heat really well so that as the oven cycles on and off according to your oven’s thermostat, the stone retains a fairly even heat. It also absorbs excess moisture from the crust as the pizza cooks making a lighter crust. (I go as high as the oven can go – that’s around 575 – 600 F.
For the past 16 years or so, I have had this one:
It’s made by Best Manufacturers (they’re right). I’ve had other stones and they have broken due to their thinness and the fact that they often have ridges on the bottom in some misguided attempt to make them lighter even though overall, they remain too thin. Here you might say, “hey, your stone is broken!” True, but this was after about 12 years of use and on the corner it never affects the baking given the roundness of most pies.
You can purchase this stone here (and support this site at the same time):
