A kitchen oven can’t copy a Naples oven, and it doesn’t need to. The EU specification for Pizza Napoletana bakes it at about 485°C (905°F) on the oven floor for 60 to 90 seconds. Most home ovens top out at 500 to 550°F, Modernist Pizza notes, so a pizza needs several minutes instead. The method below is built for that longer bake: a heavy steel or stone stores heat for the base, and the broiler adds the top heat that the oven’s walls can’t.
It’s adapted from Ken Forkish’s home method in The Elements of Pizza and King Arthur Baking’s home Neapolitan-style recipe, and its numbers match the site’s Pizza Planner.
The default method
- Read the oven manual first. Check which rack positions you may use, how the broiler may be used and any limits on bakeware near it. Put the steel or stone in while the oven is cold.
- Use an upper rack, about 8 inches below the broiler. Forkish tested all his recipes on a steel 8 inches below his broiler coil, and suggests trying the top rack position or the one below it until the base, toppings and rim finish together. King Arthur’s recipe uses the center rack and keeps at least 8 inches between the broiler and the pizza.
- Preheat at the hottest bake setting for 45 to 60 minutes. Turn off the convection fan if your oven has one; Modernist Pizza’s preheating method calls for static heat. The air reaches its setting long before the steel or stone does: in the book’s infrared photos, an oven that beeped “ready” after 22 minutes still had clear cold spots. Forkish preheats for 45 minutes and the Planner allows 45 to 60. If your steel or stone’s maker asks for longer, follow the maker.
- Recharge with the broiler, if your oven allows it. Forkish switches to broil for the last 10 minutes of the preheat, turns the oven off to load the pizza, and returns it to its hottest bake setting once the door is closed. He notes that some ovens trip a safety cut-off when switched straight from a long broil to bake, which is one more reason to check the manual first.
- Launch onto the middle of the surface. Stretch and top the pizza on a lightly floured wooden peel, shake the peel to check that it slides, and launch it. Launching and rotating pizza covers the technique.
- Bake, then finish under the broiler. Forkish bakes most of his pizzas for about 5 minutes at 550°F (290°C), then broils for about 2, checking after 1. King Arthur bakes about 6 minutes on a steel or 7 on a stone, then broils for 2 to 3. If one side is browning faster, turn the pizza front to back. If your only broiler is in a drawer below the oven, King Arthur says not to use it; bake a few minutes longer instead.
- Judge the pizza, not the timer. It’s done when the base is browned and cooked through and the toppings are ready, not just when the rim has color. Slide it onto a rack for a minute or two so steam doesn’t soften the base.
- Let the surface recover before the next pizza. Forkish pulls the rack out, carefully wipes the burnt flour off the steel with a thick, dry towel or oven mitt, then broils for a few minutes to reheat it. King Arthur switches back to bake while you shape the next pizza.
Bake times by style
| Style and size | Oven setting | Bake time | Preheat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neapolitan-style, 12 in, on a steel or stone | 500–550°F (260–288°C) | 6–10 min | 45–60 min |
| New York, 14 in, on a steel or stone | 500–550°F (260–288°C) | 8–12 min | 45–60 min |
| Roman tonda, 12 in, on a steel or stone | 500–550°F (260–288°C) | 5–8 min | 45–60 min |
| Detroit, 10 × 14 in pan | 500°F (260°C) | 22–26 min, in two stages | 25–35 min, or 45–60 with a steel or stone |
| Sicilian-style, 13 × 18 in pan | 450°F (232°C) | 25–32 min, in two stages | 25–35 min, or 45–60 with a steel or stone |
These are the Planner’s planning windows, adapted from Forkish, King Arthur Baking and other published recipes; they aren’t measurements of your oven. The temperatures are oven settings, not infrared readings of the steel. A thin, lightly topped pizza finishes at the short end, and a loaded one at the long end. The temperature guide explains the difference between the dial and the surface.
Why the steel or stone matters
Modernist Pizza recommends a baking steel or stone in a home oven for every style of pizza, because the oven’s hot air can’t deliver enough heat to the bottom of the crust. The authors prefer steel: its thermal conductivity is more than five times a stone’s, and it gives up its heat to the dough faster. They also found that cast-iron pans and planchas work just as well as a steel and cost less. A stone is lighter and won’t rust.
How thick a steel to buy, and how long a thick one takes to heat, are in the baking steel thickness guide. The full comparison is in pizza stone vs. pizza steel.
Dough for a longer bake
Several minutes at 550°F dries a crust far more than 90 seconds in a wood-fired oven. Forkish wrote in 2016 that a dough made to the Neapolitan association’s hydration, which he gives as 55 to 59%, bakes up stiff and dry at home, so he raised his home-oven Neapolitan-style doughs to 70%. (The AVPN’s current public recipe, 1 liter of water to 1.6 to 1.8 kg of flour, works out to about 56 to 63%, calculated.) The Planner does the same: 70% for Neapolitan-style in a home oven and 60% in an outdoor pizza oven. Its New York dough is 64%, like Forkish’s, and its pan doughs are wetter still, at 75% for Detroit and 73.5% for Sicilian-style. The hydration guide explains why.
If your crust comes out cooked but pale, check the preheat and the broiler before changing the flour. Pale pizza crust goes through the fixes in order, and diastatic malt covers the ingredient side. The Planner records whether your flour is malted but never adds malt.
When to change the method
- Pan pizzas. Detroit and Sicilian-style pizzas bake in an oiled metal pan at a lower setting, in two stages: the dough goes in untopped for 10 to 12 minutes, then gets its cheese and sauce and goes back in. King Arthur’s Detroit recipe sets the pan on a steel or stone in the bottom third of the oven. See Detroit-style pizza at home and Sicilian vs. grandma pizza.
- Fresh mozzarella or wet toppings. In a bake of several minutes, brine-packed mozzarella melts into liquid. Forkish adds it about 4 minutes into the bake. The two-stage bake covers when and how to hold toppings back.
- Cheese burning before the base is done. That’s a heat-balance problem, usually a short preheat or too much broiler. Cheese burning before the crust cooks works through it.
- Several pizzas in a row. Each pizza draws heat out of the surface. Modernist Pizza suggests stacking two steels during the preheat so you can keep baking without the steel getting too cold. Tony Gemignani’s pear and prosciutto pizza recipe, on his website, uses two steels or stones instead: one on the lowest rack and one on the second rack position from the top, with each pizza starting on the upper surface and finishing on the lower one. Check what your racks can carry first.
- No steel or stone. A large cast-iron pan or griddle does the same job, according to Modernist Pizza.
When it goes wrong
The Pizza Doctor starts from what you see. For a home oven, the common symptoms are:
- Pale base, raw center: usually a surface that wasn’t fully heated, or one that hadn’t recovered from the last pizza.
- Burnt base, raw top: the surface is ahead of the top; the broiler or a higher rack can help, within the manual’s limits.
- Pale but cooked crust: check the heat first, then the flour.
Sources
- Ken Forkish, The Elements of Pizza (2016): chapter 2 (Neapolitan-style pizza in a home oven and hydration), chapter 4 (fresh mozzarella in a home oven), chapter 5 (step 9, “Bake the Pizza”, and “Getting to Know Your Oven”) and chapter 7 (bake steps in the pizza recipes).
- Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, Modernist Pizza (2021), volume 1, printed pages 389–393: home-oven settings, steel against stone, cast iron, two stacked steels, preheating and the infrared photos.
- King Arthur Baking: Neapolitan-Style Pizza Crust (rack position, preheat, bake and broiler times, bottom broilers), Weeknight Detroit Pizza and Sicilian-Style Pizza. Checked October 14, 2026.
- Tony Gemignani: “Pear & Prosciutto di Parma Pizza”, in “On the Sixth Day of Christmas, a Yuletide Recipe”, tonygemignani.com (undated post by Joe Bonadio): rack positions for two steels or stones and the upper-to-lower bake. Checked October 14, 2026.
- European Commission, Regulation (EU) No 97/2010, Annex II: the Pizza Napoletana specification (baking temperature and time).
- Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana: public Neapolitan pizza recipe (water and flour quantities). Checked October 14, 2026.