Cooking pizzas using two stones/steel vs one stone/steel in consumer oven

Question

So I use a regular oven to cook my pizzas, and I use a steel platform.

It works great, and the pizza comes out amazing. The throughput is low, so I was wondering if it would be a good investment to get a second steel platform so I can cook two pizzas at a time.

Would there be a huge difference in cooking two pizzas at a time vs one? Would it take longer for the platforms to heat up than the hour I typically give it?

I use an electric oven, and it seems to work fine at 500 degrees (or whatever its true maximum is)

Answer 1

Having 2 stones/steels in the oven is totally workable, the top one would cook a bit faster than the bottom one but that's not a dealbreaker. 2 steels will take longer to get up to temperature than one, whether an hour is enough in your oven is not something I could say. I would suggest you get an infrared thermometer so you can take measurements and know for sure, they are cheap and take the guesswork out of it.

Answer 2

I'd just add to GdD's answer that you'll need to experiment a bit to get the hang of what happens in your particular oven with that sort of setup. Having two steels or stones tends to reduce airflow much more significantly in a small home oven, which can impact things like how the top of the pizza cooks vs. the crust, how long it takes for the steels/stones to recover some temperature between pizzas, etc.

Placement also tends to make a big difference in relation to the heating elements in your oven, but again putting two giant barriers into the oven at once can completely change the dynamics you're used to with only one. (Also, depending on how far apart they are, you may get radiant heat from the top stone/steel changing the bake on the bottom one.)

Bottom line is that I agree it's workable and the only reasonable thing to do if you're cooking more than 3 or 4 pizzas at a time. Just be prepared for a few "experiments" at first where you get a pizza unexpectedly over/underdone on either the cheese/top or the bottom of the crust. At times when I've done this in ovens I'm less familiar with, I end up starting to move pizzas up or down mid-bake sometimes to try to get the doneness right and maximize the effectiveness.