June 23, 2020 - 10:33pm
I bought a 1/2" baking steel. What are some dos and don'ts when using steel?
For example, with my stone I can preheat the oven to 550F and then turn it down to 450F when I put my breads (baguettes, batards, etc...stuff that doesnt fit in the dutch oven) on it. The bottoms always look sort of underdone but taste fine and sort of harden.
Today when I preheated the baking steel at 500F, then turned it down to 450F when I put my baguettes on, the bottoms actually charred a bit through the cookie sheet. I couldnt believe it. The steel gets so much hotter and stays so much hotter.
Should I not go so high anymore or is there anything I should be aware of when using steel vs stone? Thanks!
Share
Yes, you will either want to turn down the temp, or shorten the preheat time when using steel.
While either a stone or steel will get just as hot in an oven at a particular temperature, each material transfers heat at a different rate. Steel conducts heat much more quickly than most stones, though a cordierite stone will conduct heat more quickly than a fibrament stone, and of course there are other stones that transfer heat at different rates. Steel is very popular for pizza, since pizza really benefits from high heat transfer. Some people like steel for baking bread because it is extremely hard to break steel, but drop a stone, or subject it to thermal shock, and some of them will break pretty easily.
So either reduce the temp, or try adding something in between, like a parchment paper, to slow the heat transfer.
A quarter of an inch is plenty.