Pizza stone woes – why does my pizza stick

We got a pizza stone for Christmas, great. The instructions said not to use oil or flour on the stone, as they would burn on. So we haven’t, and both times we have tried pizza in the oven on the stone, the pizza base has completely welded to the stone. What am I doing wrong?

My dough has been tacky but not too wet.

TBH we don’t eat pizza often, so hoped the stone might be useful for flat bread and soda bread. Both have stuck in the same way.

Is a pizza stone actually rubbish?

Sorry, nothing helpful to add!

My one works fine but I try and get a pretty dry dough on before I get it on there. Try and flour the doh a bit more when you kneed it, might work.

Quite possibly. Everyone I know who has one seems to have received it as a present. Try polenta.

I always use ground semolina below the pizza. I make them on the wee cheap ikea plastic boards, the semolina makes it easy to slide from the board onto the stone, even fully loaded. Get your oven and the stone as hot as you can.

I can honestly say that I’ve never had a pizza stick to the stone. My mate uses his pizza stone in his weber BBQ, with the lid on, I’ve yet to give it a bash.

Edit – ground semolina is polenta, just couldn’t remember it’s other name!.

we found with ours that once it had been used a few times it improved quite a bit. looks pretty ming but its all burnt off as you heat it up and the coating of old food really stops it sticking 🙂

I like ours a lot, homemeade pizza FTW 🙂

+1 for slightly dryer dough and getting it really hot first

Are you getting the stone hot enough? The dough will stick if it’s underheated. If it’s a big stone then you’ll need to wait a good half hour after the oven light goes off.

Personally I seasoned my pizza stone and don’t regret it however pizza geeks would probably cast me out.

are you getting the stone hot before you put the pizza on or are you putting the pizza on to a cold stone?

It needs to be hot before you put it on…

Never had a problem with mine. Never wash it between uses – just scrape off remnants and back into the cupboard.

Turn oven up full whack and heat stone for a while so that its hotter than a very hot thing, before turning oven down (if needed) to cook the pizza. Check base is cooked by lifting edges of pizza and use metal pallet knife or fish slice to free the middle of the pizza if its stuck slightly. Only ever had an occasional problem with very thin bases where the topping has seeped through.

If it’s a big stone then you’ll need to wait a good half hour after the oven light goes off.

😯

So I’d have to ‘bake’ a stone in the oven for half an hour before I can put something in there that’s going to take about 10 minutes to cook.

Not exactly energy efficient is it?

ps…. mmmm, thanks for this thread, homemade pizza = dinner sorted.

Polenta/corn meal +1.

Roll/stretch your dough out on a surface with a bit of corn meal on it, and let it stand for a bit before you load it up.

Cheese or tomato sauce leaking over the sides might make it stick too.

I just leave mine in the oven whilst its warming up, give it a couple of mins after the light has gone out and go for it.

Get that bugger fully pre-heated. Then use semolina (or summink like that) to ease the passage. Don’t load the topping until the last minute.

I use a peel, but then I’m a pretentious ****

And don’t stick a cold stone into a hot oven, it should be heated to temp gradually.

We normally flour ours tbh. Domestic ovens not as intense as a pizza oven. But my first thought was semolina as I had heard this was common.

Go to Pizzamaking.com for the full-on geek help – best pizza resource on t’web.

So I’d have to ‘bake’ a stone in the oven for half an hour before I can put something in there that’s going to take about 10 minutes to cook.

Not exactly energy efficient is it?

Yep. Makes for a lovely crisp base though.

If you don’t “bake” your stone it won’t be as hot as the rest of the oven and will actually hinder the cooking.

Not exactly energy efficient is it?

No not really. That’s not normally my primary concern when cooking though.

If you don’t have a peel, you could make your pizza up on a bit of baking paper, then transfer it paper and all onto your stone, from a chopping board or similar.

It’ll still cook alright.

I’d still use the polenta if doing it that way.

You have to have the stone super hot, the idea is to dump a lot of heat quickly into the base. I just use a big floor tile I got from a tile shop ( for free when I told them what it ws for). Never sticks. If it still sticks even if super hot then I would put a bit of flour on

Liking the idea of using it in the BBQ, top tip

This works better than a stone for pizza at home IMHO.

http://www.jamieathome.com/shop/products/Essentials-Pizza-Tray-100745BLK.html

pizza sticking = stone not hot enough or pizza not cooked IME

Throw it in the bin. They’re crap.

My missus bought one (and an ‘onion chopper’ FFS (a whole separate rant is required for this subject)) at some ‘party’. Complete waste of money – it doesn’t work if you follow the instructions. To get it to work, you have to spend a fortune on electricity to heat the f’ing thing until it’s almost molten. Grrrr 👿

One like the link in Joolsburgers post is what you need in a conventional oven. If you want authenticity, build a wood-fired pizza oven in the garden.

joolsburger, you are welcome to your opinion… you are wrong though 😉

Oddly, the pizza stone I have has instructions to say NOT to pre-heat it.

To get it to work, you have to spend a fortune on electricity to heat the f’ing thing until it’s almost molten.

Running an oven for an hour costs what, about 30p?

Doh. I thought pre-heating the stone might be the answer! Easy fix, maybe pizza tonight to see how it goes 🙂

I think I might have been thrown off by the instructions too.

Meh – surely you are all not making the bases thin enough if you can easily move the pizza onto a hot stone?

Meh – surely you are all not making the bases thin enough if you can easily move the pizza onto a hot stone?

Or you’re not very good at moving pizzas.

We have a metal tray too, but never really got on with it. The lip around the edge doesn’t help. It is used for warming parties through (yum).

As above, get the stone so hot it’s making the sun look like a place to go skiing, then my next trick, put pizza on a well floured piece of baking paper. Put the whole thing, paper and all onto the red hot stone. When cooked, remove from the oven and the paper should come easily off the back, slice using park tools pizza wheel, and put pizza back directly on the stone to eat from. Lovely crispy, hot tasty (not full of shite) pizza.
Not energy efficient? Do people actually think like this when cooking? However it’s a lot cheaper overall than spending £25 from pizza hut…
Also, try caramelised pear and Stilton on a nice garlic tomato and basil sauce. You’d be amazed how nice it is!

polenta ‘bearings’ sounds like a plan for easy sliding onto a hot stone.

Jesus. This is a pretentious discussion! Must say I agree with the “putting the stone in the oven for 3 days to preheat is way too much faff” thing.

Used to have one of those round trays with the holes in, worked just fine!

Jesus. This is a pretentious discussion! Must say I agree with the “putting the stone in the oven for 3 days to preheat is way too much faff” thing.

It’s exactly the same amount of “faff”, it’s just a half hour longer wait for your pizza. This isn’t exactly **** rocket science.

This isn’t exactly **** rocket science.

No pizza stones in the ISS then?

Not sure, I’ve not had a chance to watch that video. The potential for zero gravity pizza mouth seems pretty serious though.

OK so cooking a pizza properly requires about twice the heat a domestic oven can actually put out. Which is why a wood fired oven or pizza oven is better. That jamie thing lets you put the dough onto the tray cold, add your toppings and then cook for about 8 minutes at 240 deg makes for a lovely crispy base etc. Not as “authentic” as a stone but does make cracking pizza without fuss.

Wouldn’t be without our pizza stone, or the traditional Friday pizza we make on it most weeks!

As others have said, once the stone absorbs a bit of oil from previous uses and has a bit of ‘patina’, sticking tends to be a thing of the past. I wash ours after each use, but only with a scourer and plain water. Don’t ever use detergent as the stone can absorb it and taint anything cooked on it in future.

I also find a light dusting of flour on the stone helps, never had it burn on yet.

Also put the stone in the oven as you turn it on.

When the dough base is ready, quickly take the stone out of the oven and lay the base on top and then leave it for a few minutes to rise a bit before putting on the toppings.

Oddly, the pizza stone I have has instructions to say NOT to pre-heat it.

More than odd, it’s just plain wrong.

The whole point of a stone is to cook directly from the bottom and more importantly to maintain an even oven temp.

It can’t do either of these if it’s cold.