Glossary
Pizza steel
A thick slab of steel placed in a home oven that conducts heat quickly, giving a base closer to a professional deck oven.
A pizza steel is a solid plate of steel, usually preheated on an oven rack or under the broiler, that pizza is baked directly on instead of a regular baking sheet. Steel conducts heat far faster than the air in a home oven or even a stone, which makes a real difference on equipment that cannot get anywhere near the temperature of a dedicated pizza oven.
That fast heat transfer pushes more energy into the bottom of the dough the moment it touches down, which helps the base brown and crisp quickly and gives the crust a stronger push of oven spring than it would get from the oven's ambient heat alone. This is part of why steel is popular for New York style pizza, which needs a firm, well browned base.
When choosing one, thicker steel holds more heat through several bakes in a row but takes longer to fully preheat, so match it to how often you plan to bake back to back. A common mistake is not preheating long enough, often 45 minutes or more, and handling a hot steel without real oven mitts, since it stays dangerously hot long after the oven is off.