Steel for cooking

[rons]

Use this perforated SS. Add a band to the outside so the thing doesn't look like a ninja throwing blade.

MetalsDepot® - Perforated Stainless Sheet

Buy Perforated Stainless Sheet Online at Metals Depot - America's Metal Superstore! Huge selection of perforated steel, perforated stainless, and perforated aluminum.

www.metalsdepot.com

 

[newtonsapple]

Use this perforated SS. Add a band to the outside so the thing doesn't look like a ninja throwing blade.

MetalsDepot® - Perforated Stainless Sheet

Buy Perforated Stainless Sheet Online at Metals Depot - America's Metal Superstore! Huge selection of perforated steel, perforated stainless, and perforated aluminum.

www.metalsdepot.com

The goal is to use a preheated thick metal plate to reduce the total cooking time. The plate increases the rate of heat input into the pizza due to the high thermal conductivity and acts a thermal energy reservoir.

A perforated plate does have some advantage over a standard non preheated sheet pan. It won’t accomplish what these thick preheated plates do though.

Perforated screens or pans are used in conveyor type ovens that throw a lot of IR heat from the bottom. They are also useful in moderating the amount of conduction into a pizza bottom when you are burning bottoms in a particular setup.

 

[rons]

The goal is to use a preheated thick metal plate to reduce the total cooking time. The plate increases the rate of heat input into the pizza due to the high thermal conductivity and acts a thermal energy reservoir.

A perforated plate does have some advantage over a standard non preheated sheet pan. It won’t accomplish what these thick preheated plates do though.

Perforated screens or pans are used in conveyor type ovens that throw a lot of IR heat from the bottom. They are also useful in moderating the amount of conduction into a pizza bottom when you are burning bottoms in a particular setup.

The goal depends on the buyer. Perforated disks are used to brown the under side of pizza and such.
The advantage is that it is light, unlike a 1/2 inch steel plate.

But any pizza place would have a oven with a steel plate.

 

[PackardV8]

Here's a pizza steel for you - 17" diameter, 1.5" thick, 107#.

jack vines

 

[newtonsapple]

Here's a pizza steel for you - 17" diameter, 1.5" thick, 107#.

jack vines

I’ll let you know when I am done reinforcing the oven rack system.

Pre heating is gonna take awhile…

 

[Joe Gwinn]

Hi

I want to get a pizza/baking steel and want it to fit my smaller oven too, can't find anything ready made here. I'm thinking of getting a plate cut to size, but question is what material to use and whether some materials are not good for food. Some places describe baking steels made of "food grade steel" which I think is a random made up term...?

I know most of the baking steels are made of carbon steel but there are many types, and better to not use anything with lead in it... but how do you even know if it has lead in it...?
Stainless might be ok too, but supposedly not as good for cooking, both because of heat conductivity (compared with steel) and possibly the nickel or chrome releasing at a certain temp... which might or might be relevant.

I made such a mild steel pizza stone some years ago, to fit an old Crown stove. What I used was 5/16" thick A36 plate, water-jet cut by the metal vendor. I then sanded all edges and corners smooth. This was my ~clone of a commercial (= overpriced) product - it's just a hunk of steel.

The 5/16" was a compromise between the commercial offering, which came in 1/4" and 3/6" thicknesses. In retrospect, the 1/4" would be just fine, and easier to handle.

I don't think that a leaded steel will be at all toxic at 500 F, far below the boiling point of lead. Nor is stainless-steel necessary. But both will work the same as A36.

 

[WizardOfBoz]

Considering most people cook in Teflon and happily ingest ptfe's I wouldn't worry one bit about any grade of steel.

Probably not ingesting too many polytetrafluoroethylene molecules. They have about the highest molecular weights around (e.g. they are long and don't dissolve). The stuff that people are concerned with are perfluoro compounds, used as soap to distribute the little micelles of tetrafluroethylene and polymer. Stuff like perflourooctanoic acid. Abbreviated "PFOA".

 

[WizardOfBoz]

My Cuisinart grill came with a big old cast iron grill that covers about half the grill space. Works well.

 

[BoxcarPete]

Probably not ingesting too many polytetrafluoroethylene molecules. They have about the highest molecular weights around (e.g. they are long and don't dissolve). The stuff that people are concerned with are perfluoro compounds, used as soap to distribute the little micelles of tetrafluroethylene and polymer. Stuff like perflourooctanoic acid. Abbreviated "PFOA".

Although teflon is about impervious to most anything in the kitchen thermally and chemically, I have it on good authority that you can still scrape bits of it free with your cooking utensils. Can't imagine that goes anywhere but into the food.

The concern for me about lead in a cooking surface would be the opposite. Acidic saucy foods like to leach stuff out of pans and into solution. Happens to softer metals like aluminum and copper especially, so you have to figure it'll pull a bit of lead out as well. Tomato sauces are particularly aggressive and they go on pizza, so I wouldn't do it (even though the sauce isn't supposed to be on the cooking surface directly, you know it will be at some point).

 

[1 Jaw Chuck (Chuck Evans)]

Interesting video on how Fujita Kinzoku makes their carbon steel frying pans. Good metalworking content.

Chuck

 

[Cole2534]

Here's a pizza steel for you - 17" diameter, 1.5" thick, 107#.

jack vines

I have some 304 burnouts of similar size. Now ya got me thinkin.

 

[WizardOfBoz]

Although teflon is about impervious to most anything in the kitchen thermally and chemically, I have it on good authority that you can still scrape bits of it free with your cooking utensils. Can't imagine that goes anywhere but into the food.

The concern for me about lead in a cooking surface would be the opposite. Acidic saucy foods like to leach stuff out of pans and into solution. Happens to softer metals like aluminum and copper especially, so you have to figure it'll pull a bit of lead out as well. Tomato sauces are particularly aggressive and they go on pizza, so I wouldn't do it (even though the sauce isn't supposed to be on the cooking surface directly, you know it will be at some point).

Agree with you on avoiding lead-containing alloys.
BTW, PTFE (of which Teflon® is Dupont's proprietary brand name) does not have good high-temperature properties. This is why PTFE coated baking sheets are a bad idea - especially under a broiler. The PTFE breaks down into toxic components at high temperatures. If you recall the "parakeet in the coal mine" test for toxic gases, you know that birds are really sensitive to these toxins. If you broil tater tots on a non-stick sheet, or leave your PTFE coated fry-pan on the stove, there's a pretty good chance you'll kill your budgies. At least that's the account I read when I worked for DuPont, making Teflon® brand PTFE.
Interestingly, PTFE is also pretty sensitive to radiation-induced breakdown. You can't use PTFE gaskets for uranium hexaflouride service...

 

[BoxcarPete]

Agree with you on avoiding lead-containing alloys.
BTW, PTFE (of which Teflon® is Dupont's proprietary brand name) does not have good high-temperature properties. This is why PTFE coated baking sheets are a bad idea - especially under a broiler. The PTFE breaks down into toxic components at high temperatures. If you recall the "parakeet in the coal mine" test for toxic gases, you know that birds are really sensitive to these toxins. If you broil tater tots on a non-stick sheet, or leave your PTFE coated fry-pan on the stove, there's a pretty good chance you'll kill your budgies. At least that's the account I read when I worked for DuPont, making Teflon® brand PTFE.
Interestingly, PTFE is also pretty sensitive to radiation-induced breakdown. You can't use PTFE gaskets for uranium hexaflouride service...

Service temperature is up to around 500°F, which is typically A-OK for cooking applications, but toxic gasses are released somewhere around 700°F so you can definitely get into trouble if you overheat a pan. Maybe broiling too, but I'm not certain that's quite as much a concern.

 

[Kingbob]

I had a conversation a while back with a customer from a local valve repair shop. He told me the guys from the, also local, sugar refineries sometimes go by their shop to pick through their valve bone yard for valve bodies for use in the refinery. These valves come from services unknown and get used in the production of the sugar made down the street from my house. I wouldn't worry about your pie plate too much as long as it's not a leaded steel. None of us make it out alive and very few of us leave by means agreeable to us.

 

[WizardOfBoz]

Service temperature is up to around 500°F, which is typically A-OK for cooking applications, but toxic gasses are released somewhere around 700°F so you can definitely get into trouble if you overheat a pan. Maybe broiling too, but I'm not certain that's quite as much a concern.

When I worked at DuPont, I heard a story (apochryphal?) that some guy broiled some tater-tots and the offgas killed his parakeet. He sued. or so it was said...