Technique
30 guides tagged Technique
Explainer
How to Cut a Pizza Evenly (2026): 6, 8, 10, 12 Slices, Square Cut, and the Right Tool
Even slices come from three habits: resting the pizza two minutes, cutting all the way across the pie in full passes instead of sawing from the center, and using a blade long enough to do it. Here is the geometry for every slice count, the tavern square cut, and which cutter actually makes the job easy.
Read the guide →~6 min read
Explainer
How to Reheat Deep Dish Pizza (2026): Oven, Skillet, and Air Fryer Methods
A slice of deep dish is two inches of cold cheese, sauce, and sausage over a buttery crust, and the thin-crust reheat rules do not apply. The method that works is lower heat for longer, with the center checked by temperature, not by the clock. Here is every method, ranked, with the numbers.
Read the guide →~7 min read
Explainer
How to Keep Pizza Warm (2026): Oven Hold, Box Tricks, and Pizza-Night Timing
Pizza goes from perfect to limp in about ten minutes, and every method for holding it longer trades a little crispness for time. Here is the one that loses the least (a low oven, slices on a rack), the answer to whether the box can go in the oven, and how to run a pizza night where nobody eats cold.
Read the guide →~7 min read
Explainer
How to Make Pizza in a Regular Oven (2026): The 500°F Method That Works
A kitchen oven tops out around 500°F, half what a pizza oven reaches, and it can still turn out a pizza with a crisp, spotted base and a blistered rim. The method is a preheated stone or steel, a hot rack position, a lightly topped pie, and the broiler at the finish. Here is every step and every number.
Read the guide →~9 min read
Explainer
How to Use a Pizza Steel (2026): Preheat, Rack, Broiler, and Care
A baking steel makes the crispest home-oven pizza there is, and it is harder to ruin than a stone, but it asks for a different routine: a shorter preheat, a higher rack, the broiler at the end, and a wipe of oil after cleaning so it never rusts. Here is the whole method.
Read the guide →~8 min read
Explainer
How to Clean a Pizza Stone (2026): Scrape, Wipe, Never Soap
A pizza stone is cleaned with a scraper and a dry cloth, not with soap or a sink. This is the whole routine, what to do about burnt cheese, black stains, and a stone that smells, and the two habits that crack stones for good.
Read the guide →~7 min read
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Pizza Stone Temperature (2026): How Hot It Should Be, How Long to Preheat, and How to Check
A pizza stone should be as hot as your oven can make it, 475 to 550°F for most home ovens, and it takes 45 to 60 minutes to get there even though the oven beeps at 15. Here is the temperature each pizza style wants, the preheat time by stone thickness, how to check the surface with an infrared thermometer, and why a stone that feels hot is not the same as a stone that is ready.
Read the guide →~7 min read
Explainer
How to Use a Pizza Stone (2026): Preheat, Launch, Bake, and Clean It Right
A pizza stone turns a home oven into something close to a pizzeria, but only if you use it the way owners have learned to: cold oven in, an hour of preheat, a floured peel, a confident launch, and never, ever soap. Here is the whole method, the mistakes that crack stones, and how to care for one so it lasts a decade.
Read the guide →~9 min read
Explainer
How Long to Cook Pizza at 450°F (2026): Times for Every Crust, Plus 425, 475 and 500
A homemade pizza at 450°F takes 12 to 15 minutes on a tray, 8 to 10 on a preheated stone, and 6 to 8 on a baking steel. Frozen pizza runs 12 to 18 depending on the box. Here are the consensus times for every crust style and surface, what changes at 425, 475, and 500, and the three doneness cues that matter more than the clock.
Read the guide →~8 min read
Explainer
How to Reheat Pizza on the Stove (2026): The Skillet Method That Beats the Oven
For one or two slices, a covered skillet is the best reheat in any kitchen: crisp base from the pan, melted cheese from the trapped steam, five minutes, no preheat. Here is the method as the home-cooking community has refined it, the pan that works best, the water-drop trick, and the timing by crust style.
Read the guide →~7 min read
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How to Reheat Pizza in the Microwave Without It Going Soggy (2026)
The microwave is the worst way to reheat pizza and sometimes the only one you have. This is the damage-control guide: the cup-of-water trick and why it works, the power level and time that keep the cheese from turning to rubber, and the 90-second microwave-then-skillet finish that gets a microwaved slice most of the way back to good.
Read the guide →~7 min read
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How to Reheat Pizza in an Air Fryer (2026): Exact Temp, Time, and the Crust Trick
The air fryer is the fastest good way to reheat a slice, and the easiest to overshoot. Here is the setting the home-cooking community has converged on, how long each crust style really needs, the foil-versus-bare-basket question settled, and the one habit that stops a slice from turning into a cracker.
Read the guide →~7 min read
Explainer
How to Manage a Wood Fire in a Pizza Oven (2026): Fuel, Airflow, and the Live Flame
A wood fire is not a setting, it is a heat source you have to keep feeding, and the single biggest determinant of whether it works is the moisture in the wood. The US EPA's Burn Wise programme states it directly: "Wood burns best at a moisture content of less than 20 percent," and it tells you to "season wood for at least six months." Everything else, building the fire, pushing it to the side, feeding small and often, managing the ash bed, is downstream of starting with dry fuel. Here is the whole skill, plus an honest comparison with a gas burner.
Read the guide →~12 min read
Explainer
Cooking Multiple Pizzas Back to Back (2026): Why Pizza Four Is Always the Worst
Every pizza you launch strips heat out of the stone, and the fix is to wait for the deck to come back rather than to launch on schedule. Ooni publishes the rule in its own Koda 16 guide: preheat the stone to 715 to 850°F (380 to 450°C), and between pizzas "make sure the stone gets back up to 715°F-850°F (380°C-450°C) before launching". That one instruction is the entire skill of cooking for a group, and almost nobody follows it. Here is the mechanism, the fuel by fuel differences, and a service rhythm that keeps pizza six as good as pizza one.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
How to Turn a Pizza (2026): How Often, With What, and Why
Ooni's own Koda 16 guide gives you the number: "use your peel to take the pizza out and turn it every 20-30 seconds." The reason is that a high heat pizza oven is deliberately asymmetric, with one burner or one fire on one side, so the edge nearest the flame chars while the edge nearest the mouth stays pale. Turning is not a flourish, it is how you make an uneven oven cook evenly. Here is how often to turn, which tool to use, and the two motions that do it without dragging the toppings off.
Read the guide →~10 min read
Explainer
Cold Ferment vs Same Day Pizza Dough (2026): What the Rules Actually Say
Neither governing authority for Neapolitan pizza endorses the long cold ferment the internet treats as gospel. Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies a two hour first rise plus a four to six hour second rise, six to eight hours in total at a specified 25°C, which is a same day dough. AVPN's own published recipe says minimum 8 and maximum 24 hours. Neither document describes 48 or 72 hours in a refrigerator. That does not make cold fermentation wrong, but it does mean it is practitioner consensus rather than specification, and this page is honest about which is which.
Read the guide →~12 min read
Explainer
Pizza Flour Protein Content: The Published Numbers, and the Two We Could Not Get
King Arthur publishes a protein ladder running from 8 percent for pastry flour to 14.2 percent for high-gluten, and Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies Pizza Napoletana flour at 11 to 12.5 g percent protein. But the Italian system specifies strength, not just protein, which is why an American protein number alone cannot tell you what a flour will do. Below: both specifications in full, Caputo's own figures, and two numbers we went looking for and could not find.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Pizza Dough Salt and Yeast Ratios: Both Published Figures, and the Thirtyfold Gap
Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies 50 to 55 g of sea salt and a flat 3 g of brewer's yeast per litre of water. The AVPN's own website recipe specifies 40 to 60 g of salt and 0.1 to 3 g of fresh yeast, which is a thirtyfold range for the yeast inside one document family. Below: both figures converted to baker's percentages with the division shown, what salt is actually doing, and why the yeast range is that wide.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
How Much Dough Per Pizza: The Weight Table, With the Arithmetic Shown
Roughly 1.2 to 1.7 g of dough per square inch of finished pizza, which puts a 12 inch pizza at about 137 to 190 g. That band is our own arithmetic, derived from Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010, which specifies dough balls of 180 to 250 g for a pizza of no more than 35 cm. Below: the full table by size with the area column visible so you can check the working, plus the disagreement between the EU regulation and the AVPN's own recipe.
Read the guide →~10 min read
Explainer
Pizza Dough Hydration Explained: The Sourced Numbers, and What Each Band Does
Neapolitan dough runs 55.6 to 62.5 percent hydration, a figure derived from the AVPN's specified ratio of 1 litre of water to 1,600 to 1,800 g of flour, while Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 fixes a single 55.6 percent by specifying 1 litre of water to 1.8 kg of flour. Hydration is nothing more mysterious than water weight divided by flour weight. Below: the division itself, a sourced hydration table by style, and the part that actually helps, which is what each band does to your bake.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Why Does My Pizza Dough Spring Back? (2026)
Dough that shrinks back is elastic because the gluten is still tight, and the cure is a rest, not more force. Gluten strands held under tension pull themselves back toward their relaxed length the moment you let go, and the only thing that lets them settle at the new length is time. That balance between stretchiness and snap is measurable, which is why Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies a P/L ratio of 0.50 to 0.70 for Pizza Napoletana flour and Mulino Caputo publishes P/L 0.50/0.60 for its Pizzeria flour. Springback is partly a flour property, not only a technique problem.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Why Does My Pizza Dough Tear When I Stretch It? (2026)
Dough that tears is almost always underdeveloped, underproofed or too cold, and the fix is time rather than force. A gluten net that has not been built, has not been allowed to relax, or is still chilled has nothing to give when you pull on it, so it splits instead of spreading. Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 is a useful anchor for how much time the dough actually wants: 20 minutes of kneading at low speed, a two hour first rise, then four to six hours of second rise at room temperature. This is the diagnostic walkthrough, in the order the causes actually occur.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Why Does My Pizza Taste Smoky? Soot, Acrid Smoke and the Wet Wood Problem
Acrid smoke and black soot on your pizza are the signature of incomplete combustion, and the number one cause is wet wood. The US EPA is unambiguous: wood burns best at a moisture content of less than 20 percent, and should be seasoned for at least six months. Fix the fuel first, then the airflow, then the cold start. And check whether the bitterness you are tasting is actually burnt semolina on the stone, which is a completely different problem people routinely blame on smoke.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Pizza Oven Hot Spots and Cold Spots: Why Your Oven Cooks Unevenly on Purpose
Your oven is not faulty. Almost every compact pizza oven has one burner or one fire on one side, which makes the chamber deliberately asymmetric, and the coldest place is the mouth, because the opening radiates heat straight out into the garden. That is why Ooni's own instruction is to turn the pizza every 20 to 30 seconds. Map your own deck once with an infrared thermometer, then turn on a schedule instead of on instinct.
Read the guide →~10 min read
Explainer
Why Is My Pizza Soggy in the Middle? (And Why the Crust Came Out Pale)
A soggy centre is one of two things: not enough energy going into the base fast enough, or too much water sitting on top of it. Measure the stone first, because a floor below the range your oven's maker publishes will produce a wet centre no matter how good your dough is. Then cut the sauce, drain the mozzarella, and stop letting a topped pizza sit on the peel. A pale crust is a separate signal, and it points at the dome, not the floor.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Why Is My Pizza Burnt on the Bottom? (And Why the Reverse Happens Too)
A pizza that comes out black underneath and raw on top is telling you one specific thing: your floor is running hot relative to your dome. Turn the flame down, let the dome catch up, and lift the pizza onto a turning peel for the last few seconds so the top can finish. The mirror image, a charred top over a pale doughy base, is the same imbalance running the other way, and it is fixed by preheating the stone longer rather than by touching the flame at all.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
How to Reheat Pizza in the Oven (2026): Every Method, Ranked
Leftover pizza deserves better than the microwave, and the fix costs nothing you do not already own. This is the definitive reheat guide: the skillet-then-broiler trick that wins for a slice or two, the 275°F low-and-slow oven method that revives a whole pie without drying it out, the 450°F stone-or-steel method that gets closest to fresh, and where the air fryer honestly fits. Exact temperatures and times for each, drawn from the broad consensus of home cooks who have argued this question to death, plus the two mistakes that ruin more leftover slices than anything else.
Read the guide →~10 min read
Explainer
How to Stretch Pizza Dough (2026): A Pizza-Oven Owner's Guide
Stretching dough is the one skill that decides whether your pizza oven earns its keep. A well-stretched base (thin, even, with a puffy rim) is exactly what a ~900°F floor is built to cook in 60 to 90 seconds. Too thick or uneven and the middle gums up while the edge chars. This is the honest, practical walkthrough: the dough to start with, how to press and stretch without a rolling pin, the mistakes that wreck a launch, and how to get a round, even disk onto the peel and into the fire.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
What Can You Cook in a Pizza Oven? (Besides Pizza)
A pizza oven is, underneath the name, a screaming-hot live-fire convection oven that hits a floor most kitchens can only dream about. That same heat that blisters a 60-second Neapolitan also sears steak, chars vegetables, roasts a chicken, bakes bread, and finishes a skillet cookie. The trick isn't more heat, it's learning to cook DOWN from the peak, using each cooling zone for the food it suits. Here's the honest, technique-first guide to everything else a pizza oven does, and how to manage the heat to do it well.
Read the guide →~12 min read
Explainer
How to Launch a Pizza (2026): The No-Stick Launch, Step by Step
The launch is the one skill that intimidates every beginner, sliding a raw, topped pizza off a peel into a 900°F oven without it folding into a calzone. The secret is that the launch is won at the bench, not at the oven mouth: the right peel, semolina under the dough, working fast, light toppings, and one shake test that catches every disaster before it happens. Master those, and the launch itself is a single confident motion.
Read the guide →~9 min read