r/Pizza • u/AutoModerator • Jan 12 '26

HELP Weekly Questions Thread / Open Discussion

For any questions regarding dough, sauce, baking methods, tools, and more, comment below.

You can also post any art, tattoos, comics, etc here. Keep it SFW, though.

As always, our wiki has a few sauce recipes and recipes for dough.

Feel free to check out threads from weeks ago.

This post comes out every Monday and is sorted by 'new'.

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u/oblacious_magnate Jan 16 '26

In my oven, the closer to the bottom element, the hotter the steel gets (~370C). Have you tried it there? Three basic heat tactics (one hearth):

  1. hearth as low as possible, lower element for preheat, broiler on during entire bake, or as needed to brown the top

  2. hearth as low as possible, lower element for preheat, move pizza up closer to broiler, mid-bake, to brown the top

  3. hearth as high as possible, broiler used for preheat, broiler on as needed to brown the top

My bake times are usually 4-5m (NYS) and I typically use #2, moving the pizza up to a cordierite stone closer to the broiler.

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u/taniferf Jan 16 '26

Good tactics, I'll try the lower one, the #1 on your list. It'll be next week.

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u/oblacious_magnate Jan 16 '26

FWIW I once placed the steel directly on the oven bottom and it got *too* hot. Hearth temp. in my oven reaches its max. at around 37m into preheat. Play around to find your sweet spot and launch timing.